User Interface (UI) and User Experience (UX) are the two most crucial aspects of a website or application design. The former focuses on aesthetic elements like user interface while the latter optimizes the experience of person interacting with SaaS product or service.

To make sure the UI/UX meets your customers’ needs, choose the best visual development tools that can visualize and communicate your points. Plenty of UI/UX design tools are currently available that help designers create realistic and fully functional prototypes quickly. However, each UI/UX designer has his/her own preferences when it comes to choosing the right tools.

To help UI/UX designers make the best decision, we have shortlisted 4 best visual development tools based on their features, pros & cons, and functionality.

Let’s explore!

1. Figma

Figma is on top of our list of best visual development tools for many reasons. First, it has a drag-and-drop UI for user-friendliness and improved team collaboration. This all-inclusive UI/UX design platform connects project managers, designers, and developers and allows them to deliver products faster.

Secondly, Figma is the preferred choice of design teams today because it is designed with the web in mind. It offers a range of powerful UI/UX design features like 60fps interactive editing, Arc tool, and Boolean operations. Similarly, you can constrain all your graphical elements to an on-screen position with this amazing tool. Despite being more expensive, Figma is top choice for designing, prototyping, collaborating, and mapping out the design process.

Features

1. Advanced collaboration tools
2. Developer workflow and auto layout
3. SAML-based SSO integrations
4. Prefect for building prototypes and creating mood boards, wireframes, and mind maps
5. Supports a wide range of plugins

Pros

1. Full-featured
2. Improves collaboration through cloud-based design

Cons

1. Relatively more expensive
2. Lacks user testing or research features

Pricing

1. $12-45 per user per month

2. Sketch

If you are an experienced UI/UX designer, you must be familiar with Sketch, which is often considered an all-in-one designer’s toolkit. With more than 700 extensions and a range of intuitive vector editing tools, Sketch is still the preferred choice of designers to create hi/fi interfaces.

Moreover, Sketch offers flexible Artboards and presets, instant preview option, and a symbols feature to maintain consistency in the interface design. Similarly, resizing tools and customizable grids enable users to scale their designs to different screen sizes.

Features

1. Allows designers to create and share mockups or prototypes
2. Real-time team collaboration
3. Easy to set up with tons of integrations
4. Visual design for web-based products or services
5. Advanced customization options

Pros

1. User-friendly interface
2. A range of integrations

Cons

1. Available on macOS and web browsers only
2. No free trial available

Pricing

$9-20 per user per month

3. Adobe XD

Adobe is known for introducing premium-quality products for graphics designers like Photoshop and Illustrator. XD is a part of Create Cloud that allows UI/UX designers to create realistic designs for game prototypes, websites, brands, and apps. Instead of purchasing the entire Adobe Create Cloud, designers can specifically purchase to XD and access their desired features.

Being a leader in UI/UX tools, Adobe XD comes with innovative features like vector-based user interface tools and real-time collaboration. Similarly, the slick asset management library allows users to customized master elements. Moreover, you can enjoy exclusive benefits like seamless integration with other Adobe products, regular updates, and clean user experience.

Features

1. Customize and share master designs across different teams
2. Asset management library
3. Integrations with Adobe products
4. Perfect to create animated transitions, product prototypes
5. Advanced functionalities to develop dynamic elements

Pros

1. Cross-platform functionality
2. Clean and user-friendly interface

Cons

1. Lacks standout features
2. No video or animated gif support

Pricing

1. $9.99 per user per month

4. Framer

Framer is one of the most powerful and advanced visual development tools. It allows users to create interactive prototypes and elegant designs on the canvas. Besides, the clean user interface and fully-customizable react-based components make Framer the preferred choice of UI/UX designers working on user interfaces of websites, iPhones, MacOS, Android, etc.

Additionally, one unique feature that sets apart Framer from other UI/UX design tools is magic motion animation. This feature gives users complete control over their animation such as damping, bounce, and delay. Besides, designers can even preview their animation in real-time and make necessary changes accordingly.

Features

1. Best for creating wireframes and high-fidelity prototypes
2. Early-stage collaboration via JavaScript
3. Offers multiple UI design tools, plugins, and UI kits for smooth integration
4. React compatibility ensures new web design innovation
5. Supports creating complex and sophisticated prototypes

Pros

1. Granular interactivity
2. Exceptional interface

Cons

1. Limited collaboration due to a small community
2. Lacks support of standard UI kits

Pricing

1. $9 per user per month

Final Words

With ever-changing trends of web and app design, UI/UX designers need to make sure that their design tools are up-to-date and high performing. With access to high-tech visual development tools, you can create fully interactive and innovative interfaces that enhance user experience and deliver better results.

Figma is currently the most popular visual development tool with advanced features like co-editing, ease of use, and SAML-based SSO integrations. Similarly, Sketch, Adobe XD, and Framer are other UI/UX design tools that are currently popular among designers nowadays.

At Khired Networks, our UI/UX design experts use multiple visual development tools to access a range of features. Besides, we have proven expertise in creating interactive UI/UX designs for SaaS products with multi-dimensional functionality. Contact us today if you need any help regarding SaaS development, UI/UX design, or maintenance and support.