Prototyping is an essential part of the UX design process, since it allows you to create interactive visuals for user testing and stakeholder review. Fortunately, there are a variety of UX prototyping tools available, from simple and user-friendly options to more advanced features for complex interfaces.
If you’ve avoided prototyping in the past because you’re intimidated by the idea of coding or programming, don’t worry—most prototyping tools don’t require you to have any coding experience.
In this article, we’re taking a look at the essential aspects of prototyping, and how to choose the right tool to make your prototype succeed.
Then, we’ll share our list of the best prototyping tools for UX/UI designers, as well as some of the pros and cons that come with each.
- What is a Prototype?
- Why Are Prototypes Integral to the UX Design Process?
- 3 Main Types of Prototypes
- How To Choose the Right Prototyping Tool For Your Project
- 10 Best UX Prototyping Tools
- Can You Use AI to Create a Prototype?
- Key Takeaways
What Is a Prototype?
A prototype is an early model of a product design or system that helps UX/UI designers to evaluate, test, and revise their designs.
Although prototypes can range in complexity from simple paper sketches to full-sized working models with all features implemented, the term is most commonly used to refer to a clickable, interactive design that allows you to experience what the final product will actually look and feel like.
Why Are Prototypes Integral to the UX Design Process?
Prototypes are important during the design process as they give you the opportunity to test and revise a design before it becomes final. They help designers to understand how users interact with their products, so they can make educated decisions on which aspects work best and where changes need to be made.
Ultimately, prototypes offer invaluable insight into the practicality of product designs and ensure that the end result meets both user needs and expectations.
3 Main Types of Prototypes
When it comes to product design, prototypes provide not only tangible evidence of concept but can quickly help refine ideas and inform decisions.
Depending on where you’re at in the product design process, there are a few different types of prototypes that you might create:
- Low-fidelity or wireframe prototypes, which represent the structure and essential layout of a design. These deliver a sense of how each function works in its environment, and allow you to test the basic flow of a design before putting work into finessing the visual elements such as imagery, copy, etc.
- High-fidelity prototypes, which provide an initial demo that captures more details such as colors and textures.
- Live data prototypes, which demonstrate a comprehensive operation which could include interconnecting functions with other systems, which are coded by developers and tested with real users. These demonstrate a comprehensive operation which could include interconnecting functions with other systems. Prototypes lack final work such as SEO optimization and full incorporation into the product funnel.
In short, creating prototypes provides key insights into actual user needs and behavior during product development iterations.
How To Choose the Right Prototyping Tool For Your Project
When it comes to choosing the right prototyping tool for your project, there are a few things you should keep in mind.
- Assess your project's requirements and goals. Make sure the prototyping tool you choose can accommodate those needs.
- Consider your budget and time frame when evaluating different tools.
- Test and review multiple prototyping tools before deciding on one.
10 Best UX Prototyping Tools For Designers
With countless prototyping tools available on the market, it can be difficult to choose the best tool for your UX/UI design needs. With that in mind, we have broken down 11 of the top tools on the market for UX/UI designers—from wireframing software to interactive prototypes and everything in between. Whether you need an animation library or a solution for creating design systems, there is something here for every designer.
Each tool is unique and suited to meet a variety of needs; with such an extensive range of options you'll be sure to find the perfect fit for your next project.
1. Figma
- Platform: Web, MacOS, Windows
- Cost: Free for up to 3 Figma and 3 FigJam files. Paid plans start at $12/editor/month for unlimited Figma files and version history. Designlab students can get 1 free year of a professional Figma account via our Perks page.
- Best for: Easy, real-time collaboration and quick sharing/viewing access for all prototypes.
Figma is a leading prototyping tool for UX/UI designers, and for good reason: within the same (cloud-based) interface, you can create your wireframes and polished UIs … and simply click on the Prototype tab to set up interactions and clickable flows through your design.
Interested in learning more about designing with Figma? Sign up for our free Figma 101 course to learn both basic and advanced features to get the most out of one of the best prototyping tools on the market today. Or to dive specifically into advanced prototyping techniques check out our 4-week Prototyping in Figma course.
2. JustinMind
- Platform: MacOS, Windows
- Cost: Free for unlimited designs and features that include UI design and interactive input fields. Paid plans start at $9/user/month for unlimited cloud storage and additional features like advanced mobile gestures and rich web interactions
- Best for: More advanced prototypes with interactive form fields, conditional interactions, and more.
JustinMind is a desktop-based UX/UI design platform that allows you to create your wireframes, UI assets, and prototypes all in the same interface. It’s an incredible prototyping tool that addresses one of the most frustrating interactive elements of user testing: input fields.
With JustinMind, you can design, prototype and simulate fully-functional forms and data grids-lists, and test them instantly without writing a single line of code.
(This is important because most prototyping tools don’t actually allow users to input or manipulate any data on the screen. They simply change the visual appearance of the design based on predetermined hotspots where the user clicks.)
3. MockFlow
- Platform: Web, MacOS, Windows
- Cost: Free for 2 design spaces. Paid plans start at $14/user/month for additional features such as unlimited design specs and video meetings.
- Best for: Simple wireframe sketches and basic low-fidelity prototypes
MockFlow is an online tool that’s meant to help you streamline the research and ideation part of the design process. From an interface design perspective, its strength is in creating wireframe designs that come with templates to help speed up the creative process. You can then add internal and external links to these wireframes to create a very basic prototype to review the overall flow and movement within your low-fidelity interface design.
4. ProtoPie
- Platform: MacOS, Windows
- Cost: Free for 2 prototypes and 2 recorded interactions per prototype. Paid plans start at $69/user/month for unlimited prototypes and interaction recordings.
- Best for: High-fidelity prototypes that look and behave exactly like a fully coded product.
Although many of the UX prototyping tools on this list are meant to act as standalone solutions, ProtoPie is designed as the opposite: it’s meant to work in conjunction with other tools in your design and development tech stack.
To get started, you’ll want to download the desktop app ProtoPie Studio, and install the ProtoPie plugins for your interface design tools (Figma, Sketch, Photoshop, etc.). From here, you’ll use those plugins to import your designs. Then, it’s time to start setting up your interactions, which can include anything from voice commands to real keyboard interactions (like messaging). And, if you’re working on an interface design that responds to hardware like a steering wheel or pedal, you can extend the interaction capabilities with ProtoPie Connect.