The best UX design tools for creating and improving your websites

This means that you won’t have to rely on instinct to create a site that’s usable, useful and enjoyable. Not only does this give the site’s users a better experience, but it could end up saving you time and money in the long-term too.

There is currently an enormous range of UX software tools to pick and choose from. Some of these will focus on specific areas such as building prototypes, while others will walk you through the whole UX design process. As such, you’ll have plenty to consider when selecting UX design tools. So take a look below to see the key UX design software that can help you build a better website.

The best wireframing tools

Good UX design always starts by getting to know your customer. From here you will learn to understand their expectations and motives for visiting your site. The best way to try and meet these needs is to create a wireframe. This will produce a guide that details how the different pages of the site link together and how the content on each page is arranged. Sound simple? Wireframing can often get fairly complicated and it’s essential to get this part right before you work on other features like a site’s visuals. But these wireframing tools should help you get the bare bones of your site in place in a speedy and effective manner

Adobe XD - Flexible wireframing tool from industry leader

Adobe is well-known for producing industry-standard graphics software, and the Adobe XD tool gives you the chance to enjoy high grade wireframing. You can use Adobe XD as a fairly standard drawing tool, or you could add further visual elements to help you get an early indication of how the site could feel.

Adobe XD is packed with quality features that can save you time later on such as the preview option. It’s a good option if you’ve already got a solid working knowledge of the brand’s other graphic software such as InDesign or Photoshop as many of the key features are the same.

Balsamiq - Simple yet effective wireframing software

Looking for an easy introduction into wireframing? Then you’ll want to get the Balsamiq software that gives you a simple way to create basic wireframes. It works by allowing you to sketch simple wireframes, but you benefit from the computerised ways of being able to edit designs and copy and paste successful elements.

Above all, Balsamiq allows you to focus on getting the key ingredients of your site correct without getting distracted by things like visual elements. It might not be able to deal with some of the more complicated websites, but if you’re looking to prepare a standard site that benefits from good UX design, then Balsamiq is hard to beat.

Wireframe.cc - Minimal fuss, and faster wireframing tools

Like Balsamiq, Wireframe.cc may not be the most comprehensive wireframing tool, but it gets the job done with very little fuss. Above all, Wireframe.cc benefits from a sleek and refined interface that allows you to focus on the task in hand, rather than getting slowed down with unnecessary elements. You’ll find that Wireframe.cc gives you a speedy way to drop and drop elements into the various templates, and there are further cool options that allow you to view your wireframe on different sizes of screen.

Some people might be underwhelmed with the minimalist approach of Wireframe.cc. But remember that good wireframing is about getting the customer from point A to point B in the fewest steps, rather than complicating matters. As such, Wireframe.cc could be a great tool in building a UX-friendly site.

Top UX design tools

The visuals of your site are hugely important to creating a positive user experience. Not only will good graphical qualities make the site enjoyable to use, but they can be powerful agents for helping the user carry out their tasks in a swift and efficient manner. There are a wide range of UX design tools out there that give you many options for adding wild and wonderful graphics to your site. But these are the best UX design tools for giving you the visual features and effects that you’re most likely to need.

Sketch - Powerful yet user-friendly design software

This powerful design tool gives you an endlessly adaptable way to create and collaborate on your site. Sketch benefits from a user-friendly interface that allows you to find the tools you need to create a variety of effective visuals. Whether you’re creating scalable vector graphics or are going in deep to create the perfect icons, Sketch can handle all areas of site design.

What’s best is that Sketch is a truly collaborative tool. You can easily share your ideas with others and manage feedback effectively to keep the design process alive. Plus there’s a free 30-day trial that gives you an excellent way to see how Sketch can bring your barebones wireframe design to life.

InVision Studio - Impressive newcomer in UX design

This is a relatively new design tool that’s become well-known for giving its users an intuitive way to make their sites look and feel amazing. InVision Studio benefits from a clear and intuitive interface that’s perfect for those who aren’t necessarily spending all of their time designing websites.

Like all good UX design tools, it features powerful vector editing, handy layer styling effects and a wealth of layout tools. Plus InVision Studio has the full range of collaborative features so that you can enjoy global syncing with your colleagues.

UXPin - Advanced UX design software

UXPin is a great option if you are looking to create some innovative visual effects on your site. But UXPin will also aim to save you time in building a UX design-friendly site. This is because you can use the smart elements option to instantly update a similar feature across the whole of your website.

Above all, it’s the consistency of UXPin’s approach that makes it worthy of your consideration. It even features an impressive range of animation features that even allow you to construct a site prototype. The only drawback is that the user interface might be a little fiddly for those who are new to design.

Quality prototyping tools

Once you’ve got your design in place, it’s time to build a prototype of your site. This will give you the chance to see how the site works as a whole without committing yourself to the time-consuming coding process. A good prototype will let you quickly see which parts of your site work well, and which could be improved upon. Thankfully there are now a variety of UX prototyping tools to help you get the job done.

Marvel - Simple but powerful prototyping software

Looking for an easy way into prototyping? Then be sure to give Marvel a try. This offers an ultra-fast way to learn how your website will actually function. You’ll be able to simply click your way around the prototype of your site, and there are cool features like hotspots that help you identify the key features of each page.

The best part of Marvel is probably the galleries option that serves up a seriously fast way to build your prototype. Some more advanced designers may find that Marvel is a little basic. But for a quick and easy way to create a site prototype, Marvel is hard to beat.

InVision - Mobile-friendly prototyping tool

This is another intuitively designed prototyping tool. InVision allows you to simply upload images of your proposed web pages, and from here you can gradually get a feel of how the whole site will operate. This means that you can learn where the areas are that a user is most likely to click on, and InVision is also excellent at understanding the needs of mobile users.

It’s also a fully collaborative prototyping tool. This is because InVision gives you a simple way to leave comments at multiple points throughout the process. Plus you can even collaborate on the prototype in real time which makes InVision a must for those large-scale design projects.

Testing and evaluation software

So you’ve come to the end of your site building process and are now ready for the big launch. However, there’s still one very important stage to go through before your site goes public. This is the testing phase. Here you’ll be evaluating how effectively real users are able to use your site. This means learning from analytics about which parts of your site work well and which are a turn-off. Take a look below to see the best tools for helping you carry out this important task.

UserZoom - Learn what real users think of your site

Any good testing software will let you understand how real-life users actually use your site. The UserZoom UX testing tool does exactly this. This is because UserZoom features a state-of-the-art search engine that lets you accurately judge how effectively participants use your site.

This means that you can get a level of understanding of your site users that you simply wouldn’t be able to get doing it all yourself. It’s also a great option for small to medium sized businesses as you can simply select the features you need to get a good understanding of how well your site works in practice.

Hotjar - See which areas of your site work best

Hotjar has developed some excellent heatmap features in its testing software. These give you an instant idea of which parts of your site get the most interest among its users. It’s a colour-coded system that’s perfectly suited to anybody who doesn’t want to get bogged down in quantitative data just to know whether their site works well or not.

Other cool features of Hotjar include being able to create user surveys and polls that give you a wealth of information about how your site’s users feel. Plus you can even watch recordings of how users actually use your site. While there are a lot of features in the Hotjar testing software, the whole thing is kept clear and uncluttered thanks to the intuitive interface.

UsabilityHub - Understand your site’s users better

Testing your site’s usability is essential for ensuring that the website is UX-friendly. This is an area that the UsabilityHub software excels at. This is because it has plenty of innovative features that you may not find in other testing tools.

For example, UsabilityHub will record what participants feel about a webpage after just five seconds of use. This gives you an invaluable impression of how well your site fulfils its basic tasks. Plus there are a wealth of heatmaps that tells you more than just how often people click in certain areas, as you’ll also learn how long it took a user to click on a feature.

Picking your perfect UX design software

By now, you should know that there is a vast range of UX design tools out there. While many of these design tools carry out broadly similar tasks, each piece of software will offer something different. Many of these software packages offer you a free trial period that gives you an easy way to see whether it’s right for your needs.

It can be tempting to go for the software that offers you the greatest amount of tools and extra features. But the above shortlist shows that it is often those UX design tools that offer the simplest service that are the best. After all, good UX design should be all about the user, and the same is true for the software that you use for developing your sites