This article was published 5 years ago, therefore the contents of this post may be out of date.

Having the right prototyping tools give an accurate insight to designers as to how a product under design will work once the project has been completed.

These tools you’ll find in today’s post simulate application flow, measure and test expected performance. Further, they create a valid user experience. Since every UX can vary from project to project as well from tool to tool, there’s a lot of different tools that can be put into use, and each can depend on the situation at hand.

Prototyping has been with us for a time and Design handoff for coding tools is a more recent project fixture. These tools are put into use when the finished design has reached a point to where developers can take-over.

And since prototyping and handoff tools working in tandem can significantly streamline your project work flows and choosing the right one for a project, you can find that it can avoid problems and it more easily to solve those problems that can’t be avoided.

Finding the what call “best” tool in either situation may be a fool’s errand because “best” doesn’t really have no meaning and your focus should be one of getting the right tool for the job at hand.

This post I’ve present five tools that can be right for your project’s workflow and make’s life that much easier.

1. Zeplin

zeplin

Zeplin has lead the charge on design handoff since the concept was first realised, integrating with Sketch, Photoshop, Adobe XD and Figma.

Your designs sync from any of these tools which can be translated into CSS, Android, Swift, Objective-C or React Native code, which you find that it includes the styles of each layer and any assets that been marked as exportable.

This functionality you find is standard for design handoff tools, although Zeplin is at least one of the first to have it you find that the user experience of their app is almost unrivalled.

And as with all other design handoff tools, you will see that it does have an comment features that can aid feedback and collaboration with other designers.

Price: Free / $17.00/$26.00, or $129.00 per month

2. Avocode

Avocode

Avocode is a platform independent tool that automates the design handoff stage of your project. In addition to managing and handing off design workflows, it imports your design for sharing among other designers and project stakeholders.

Avocode also takes your PSD, Sketch, PSD, XD and even other design file formats and turns them into code without any need on your part to prepare your files in advance. Also it stores your design files in the cloud and keeps them organised and correctly versioned.

Price: Free / $14.00/$32.00, or $90.00 per month

3. UX Pin

ux pin

UXPin is a prototyping tool you can use from the start of your design process until the hand-off to developers. Design, prototype and collaborate in one place, this platform enables teams to share comments and feedback with clients and other stakeholders.

This platform is not only available on Mac and Windows, but it also on in your favourite browser. All your design assets, iterations, components and documentation are stored in the cloud and this tool is absolute great for freelance designers, agencies and big teams.

Price: $19.00/$29.00 per month

4. Overflow

Overflow

Overflow is a cross-platform tool that easily integrates with most design tools to get user flows done right.

It’s an intuitive and easy to learn alternative to the old-fashioned approach of having to use various tools to draw lines, connect them between screens and annotate everything or having to export PNGs and trying to fit them into flowchart software that wasn’t meant to accommodate design input in the first place.

This tool fills a large gap in any designers toolkit and with it you can easily create play-able, interactive user flows that tell a story and share them with others for feedback or deliver them to developers to start the development process.

Price: $12.00 per month

5. Webflow

Webflow

Webflow offers a distinctive approach to bridging the design-development launch process. First, this tool enables you to build prototypes that aren’t merely high fidelity images linked together with hotspots, but also powered by production ready semantic HTML, CSS and JavaScript that other prototyping tools don’t have.

With Webflow forcing you to communicate your interactions and animations to your developers, Webflow enables you to build them – without coding. You can even go a step further and populate prototypes with real data and content via its content management system.

While you are at it, with Webflow you build actual responsive experiences instead of designing every breakpoint, creating functional forms with actual error states and validation. Having built your prototype, you can use this same platform to launch a website without any need for coding.

Price: Free until you’re ready to launch

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5 Prototyping and Design Handoff Tools