Best Wireframing, Mockup & UI Prototyping Tools For App Development

The increasing demand for mobile devices has boosted the growth of mobile applications. The swift development of the mobile market makes us realize that this is an era of pacing up the technology on mobile app design and development. During the development of a mobile app idea, one of the essential parts is the use of wireframing & UI prototyping tools that assists in organizing and easing the elements and contents.

The critical feature of wireframes is low fidelity. It exhibits the design idea and the app prototype of the product simply and more intuitively. Besides saving time, wireframes also offer unique benefits for designers targeting product user experience.

Today, in this post, we will discuss the wireframe tool, why we should use it, its features, benefits, and top tools available in the market.

Let’s first go deeper and know more about a wireframe tool.

What Is A Wireframe/UI  Prototyping Tool?

A wireframe tool chiefly assists web designers and web developers to a great extent by crafting an initial framework of the web page, with no use of UI elements, such as logos, fonts, and icons. Using a diagram, the navigable components in a site, with no graphics or style elements, present a complete structural and functional outline related to the design.

Similarly, User interface prototyping is a repetitive app development technique that allows the users to be actively involved in an app mock-up.

Generally, UX designers use wireframe tools to assess information flow and the website’s operation before reviewing the artistic look for the outlined site.

A wireframe tool permits a user to prioritize while placing the components on a webpage. One more target of a wireframe tool is to provide a complete and intuitive alternative to the site design. To learn more about app wireframing take a look at our post on how to create wireframes for a mobile app.

Why Should We Use Wireframing Tools?

Wireframing tools allow UX or web designers to visualize the site’s framework or a mobile app effortlessly even before its development starts. Moreover, it helps them demonstrate their ideas with their applicability, develop consensus, get approvals, and catch up with prototypes in an easier and faster way.

Developing a website using HTML and CSS asks for a lot of time and effort with various other challenges. Wireframe tools ease this process making it quicker and transparent.

Below are the top reasons that will let you know why you should use wireframe tools.

• Wireframing tools assist in making site design clearer, as they define the principal features of the proposed site that would hold the size of elements, the arrangement of the content, and their placement. Moreover, wireframe tools assist in avoiding confusion between a developer and the client while talking about website development.
• Wireframe tools help in developing a responsive website. A web page needs to be accessed easily from all the devices and platforms. By using such tools, the developers may know whether the site responds fully to the smaller screen sizes or not.
• Wireframe tools’ prime concern is usability, as they don’t have any design elements. However, modern UI wireframe tools provide various design solutions, most of which play a minor role. It permits developers to keep an eye on the website’s operations. Wireframe tools assist in explaining the bugs in the navigation, architecture, or functionality of the web page. Resolving these bugs in the starting stage is very easy and can enhance the user experience significantly.

Features Of A Wireframe Tool – Consider Before Choosing a Tool

While choosing the best wireframing tool, you should know the below factors. Let’s check them out

Up-To-Date Software

In website designing, this is a significant need. A wireframe tool, which has become out of date (not updated), will make your site outdated. The presence of innovations, such as integration plugins, communication facilities, and pre-loaded UI kits will help your site become user-friendly.

Easy Navigation

It is a mandatory need of every site. It would be time-consuming to figure out the functions of each feature. Therefore, the tool you choose should be easy as you also would need your website to be simple. Users prefer picking software with a logical hierarchy and compact interface to locate the required link in a couple of seconds.

Testing Potential

It is the primary feature, the absence of which would make a site useless. A good wireframe tool provides the caliber to check a web page of all the platforms and web browsers. It would assist your site in adapting to the needs of most of the commonly used devices, be it an Android device or an iOS device, a Windows PC, or other.

UI Kits

The UI plays an essential role in developing a wireframe, but not while developing a website. The designing components impact the visitor’s choice of leaving or staying on the web pages. That’s why a tool that holds engaging user interface libraries, including pre-loaded templates, is chosen as it assists in developing an appealing interface.

Top Wireframe Tools For Mobile Apps

There are a plethora of mobile apps wireframing tools available in the market. You should pick the best that meets your app’s design. Furthermore, you should consider various factors for that, like features, user interface, usability, functionality, integration caliber, and the ROI for the tool.

1. Proto.io

Pricing (per month)

• Free Trial – 15 days
• Freelancer – $24
• Startup – $40
• Agency – $80
• Corporate – $160

Proto.io is a web-based mockup tool used for prototyping and wireframing to offer developers an idea of the final look and feel of the app. Besides, it permits them to build interactive wireframes and test how users will interact with the wireframe. It will assist them in getting valuable user feedback in the starting stage only. Additionally, Proto.io provides various mobile widgets and allows developers to include their wireframes into a site.

Features

• Interactive comments
• 100% web-based
• Drag-and-drop User Interface
• High-fidelity prototypes

2. WireFrame

Pricing (per month)

• Free Trial – 7 days
• Solo – $16
• Trio – $39
• Enterprise – $99

It is a straightforward web-based Wireframe tool for mobile apps. WireFrame comes with various functionalities, like in-built templates, color palettes, and drag-and-drop elements. It permits the developers to work on the design process rapidly and speeds up their development as it holds limited features and a minimalist user interface.

Besides, it arrives with distinct sharing options that assist team members and clients in offering and viewing feedback.

Features

• Simple & Faster
• Multiple Elements

3. Mockflow

Pricing (per month)

• Basic – free version, unlimited
• Premium – $19
• Team pack – $39
• Enterprise – $160

Mockflow, a smooth wireframe tool for mobile app development, allows developers to design and collaborate on UI designs. Even using it, the developers can plan and prepare the UI better and quickly. Through this wireframing tool, specification and documentation can be auto-generated.

With the assistance of its unique cloud-based features, like design, comments, role-based permissions, approvals, and real-time editing, many developers can perform together.

Features

• Easy Prototypes Sharing
• Simple and Clean Interface
• A Wide-Range of Pre-Made Themes
• Various Customisation Options

4. Fluid UI

Pricing (per month)

• Solo – $8.25
• Pro – $19.08
• Team – $41.58

A wireframe and mockup tool, Fluid UI arrives with various libraries from where developers can easily drag elements and develop layouts. The use of in-demand technologies such as JavaScript, CSS, and HTML5 help in developing this tool.

Using this mobile and web app wireframe tool, the developers can build a design plan for their application by crafting links to join screens, and it makes a diagram that reveals how things come together.

When the developers hover over a link, it offers them the ease to change the transition’s type in place. The app provides feedback, sharing, and collaboration features.

Features

• Live team collaboration
• Pre-built component libraries
• Chats, comments, and video calling for feedback
• Video presentations

5. MockPlus

Pricing (per month)

• Individual – $41
• Team – $419
• Enterprise – $2099

This design system allows developers to prototype, collaborate, and craft systems rapidly using an app’s UX and UI. It provides free pages and templates for higher productivity. Depending on the developer’s needs, they can emerge with the iPhone, iPad, and Android templates.

Additionally, it offers 3000+ icons and 200+ components. The drag-and-drop feature assists in creating interactive prototypes quickly. Moreover, developers can run tests on an actual device just by scanning the QR code.

Features

• Varied Ways of accessing specs
• Exhibits relations in full view storyboard
• View duplicate elements
• View tiny details of specs

6. Moqups

Pricing (per month)

• Individual – $13
• Pro – $20

This cloud-based web application permits developers to craft and collaborate with other team members at the same time while they work on wireframes, mockups, diagrams, and prototypes. Its cloud-based feature assists in reducing the difficulty in uploading and downloading files. The intuitive interface makes the collaboration straightforward among team members. Additionally, it offers access to a vast library of widgets and smart-shapes and a drag-and-drop feature, which eases the app’s usage.

Features

• Mind Mapping
• Idea Management
• Product Management

7. Pidoco

Pricing (per month)

• Basic – $9.99
• Pro – $29
• Unlimited – $199

Developers use this software to build click-through wireframes and entirely interactive UX prototypes. With the assistance of its touch gesture, clicks, device motion, location data, and keyboard entries, developers become capable of triggering configurable reactions in their prototypes. Furthermore, using its collaborative features, sharing prototypes, accumulating comments, and working on screens will become productive. Besides, developers can check their prototypes by testing on Android and iOS devices. When they are offline, they can export prototypes as HTML, PNG wireframes, or vector files. Furthermore, they can obtain specification documents also from the app.

8. Sketch

Pricing

• For individuals – $99, one-time payment for one year, $79: for optional renewal
• For teams – $9 per contributor per month

The sketch is a vector design tool and is best for macOS users. Furthermore, the developers use this tool for creating advanced UI and icon vector design. Besides, it is an intuitive and straightforward tool for prototyping, vector editing, and collaboration. Again, it provides a design toolkit for app development that holds various symbols that are shareable and usable within the design community. Moreover, developers can add data to their designs and transform them into user flow diagrams.

Features

• Components Panel
• Cloud Libraries
• Variable Fonts
• Smart Layout

9. Protoshare

Pricing (per month)

• Standard – $29 per editor
• Professional – $49 per editor
• Business – $59 per editor

It is a web-based wireframing and mockup tool that helps in creating interactive wireframes for mobile apps. Furthermore, it incorporates a library of drag-and-drop elements, a sitemap, and the caliber to use custom CSS. Developers can streamline their work by crafting Templates and Masters from scratch and reusing them across various pages or projects.

Features

• Brainstorming
• Real-Time Editing
• Discussion Boards
• Task Management

10. Marvel App

Pricing (per month)

• Pro – $12
• Team – $42
• Team Plus – $84

It allows developers to create designs rapidly with its perfect design and prototyping tools by providing wireframing, prototyping and designing. This tool also facilitates the immediate generation of design specifications. Also, the integration with various tools streamlines the workflow. The team members can also collaborate and perform collectively on the ideas and feedback. The developers can also perform user testing to check how the user interacts with the app.

Click here to know more about what is an app testing 

Features

• Prototyping
• Developer Handoff
• Validate designs faster
• Streamline your workflow

11. Figma

Pricing (per month)

• Starter – Free
• Professional – $12 per editor
• Organization – $45 per editor

Figma is an interactive and collaborative tool that crafts responsive designs. It assists in automating work and diminishing repetitive jobs. In the layer panel, there’s a storage of all artboards and UI elements. Besides, it’s an exceptional tool for standalone designers and permits many users to work on one project simultaneously and save all the changes.

Features

• Quick arc designs
• Be expressive with OpenType
• The latest pen tool

12. Adobe XD

Pricing (per month)

• Starter – Free
• Single app – $9.99
• Single app for teams – $22.99

An all-purpose tool, Adobe XD is best for iPhone and Android wireframing that comes with a cluster of functionalities and features. Additionally, its toolkit arrives with an asset panel for the responsive orientation of content, easy duplication of features, and consistency. The team of developers uses this tool to craft efficiently, prototype, collaborate, and also share. It also holds a chat facility, tooling, and API for native integration.

Features

• View and inspect sub-range text
• Unified share for the development links
• Grid view in the shared links
• Commenting on mobile web prototypes
• Document presence

13. Axure

Pricing (per month)

• Pro – $29
• Team – $49

Azure is an enterprise-grade wireframing and mockup tool developers use to set user experience with features like adaptive views, conditional flow, and animation. Moreover, it permits them to build wireframes, flowcharts, prototypes, diagrams, and user journeys. Using sitemaps, UIs, and HTML, the developers can insert functionalities and also design interactive diagrams.

Features

• Password-Protected Projects
• Animations
• Check-In/Check-Out System
• Adaptive Views
• Conditional Flow
• Annotate Prototypes and Diagrams

14. JustinMind

Pricing (per month)

• Professional – $19
• Enterprise – $39

An all-in-one tool, Justinmind allows the development of high-fidelity prototypes and wireframes for apps. It is exceptional on mobile app design compared to existing mainstream design tools because of the excellent transitions, gesture operations, and interactive effects. The developers can develop interactive wireframes with the assistance of interactions and animations without code.

Features

• Mobile gestures & transactions
• Sketch & shapes
• Requirements management
• Responsive design
• Pre-built UI Libraries

15. Balsamiq

Pricing (per month)

• Free Trial – 30 Days
• Two projects – $9
• 20 projects – $49
• 200 projects – $199

This wireframing tool arrives with varied functionalities, making it quick and therefore assisting developers in designing rapidly. Moreover, this tool allows developers to share and collaborate their jobs that lead to more feedback. It is an intuitive wireframing tool that makes the developer’s life easier by its ready-to-use elements and objects.

Features

• Software Prototyping
• Usability Testing
• UI/UX Prototyping
• Version Control

16. InVision

Pricing (per month)

• Free version
• Starter – $15
• Professional – $25
• Team – $99

It is a fantastic tool built by designers for designers. If you prefer crafting your wireframes on a whiteboard to ease everyone to revise and contribute, then this wireframing tool is best for you. With InVision, developers can develop interactive mockups and share them with their teams. Later, the group leaves comments directly on the screen.

Features

• Idea Management
• Collaboration
• Presentation Tools
• Analytics/Reporting

17. UXPin

Pricing (per month)

• Basic – $19
• Advanced – $29

It is a wireframing, UX design, and mockup tool, which arrives with the comment, share, review features, and other features, such as task assignments, approval requests, and Slack/email notification. It allows users to make their workflows smooth. Its simple drag-and-drop functionality enables the users to drag custom UI elements, icons, and images to improve a wireframe.

Features

• Code Components
• Built-in libraries
• Engaging Stateful Elements
• Real-time collaboration
• Conditional Interaction

Wrapping Up

A wireframe tool for mobile apps permits the developers to create all the essential elements for the final design. Moreover, they help them decide and build a better user experience for the end-user, reflected in the application later.

So, you may also use a wireframe for your apps by considering the points mentioned in this post, as it will save a lot of time, craft a better outcome, save lots of effort, and guide you to avoid mistakes.

Also, if you are in need of professional app developers then Emizentech can help you. We are a fast-growing & reputed app development company dedicated to building robust mobile apps.