Collaboration, tools, UI/UX desingn

5 of the Best Design Collaboration Tools to Empower Your Design Team

To collaborate and share design concepts over email can be frustrating for designers, and that’s where design collaboration tools come in handy. A great design collaboration can provide effortless communication and allow for transparency among your team, and there are a bunch of collaborative tools online to make it easier to get feedback and approve artwork in a professional & timely manner so as to achieve great design collaboration. 

Here, we’ve made a roundup of the best design collaboration tools which make sharing feedback and design concepts a breeze, no worries about the remote work any more. If you’re a freelancer or in a small agency, then this list will be perfect for you.

1. InVision – Design Feedback and Collaboration Tool

Editorial ratings: ★★★★

InVison Team Collaboration

This tool is familiar to those who need make prototyping design, but InVision is also a great collaborative design tool. With a rich set of tools, such as Crafts, Boards, Insight, this tool makes it pretty easy to get real-time feedback among team, know about the most recent project progress, and design user design navigation effectively. Taking example of LiveShare, it’s rather intuitive and convenient for multiple users to make online reviewing and project comments on the same project by simple drag-and-drop.

InVision Collaboration on Browser

InVision Comment

Plans & Pricing: $15/mo-Starter, $25/mo-Pro, $99/mo-Team

Free trial: There is a Free version, but only allows 1 project

Number of team collaborators: Unlimited

2. Mockplus – Rapid Prototyping and Team Collaboration Design Tool

Editorial ratings: ★★★★★

Mockplus Team Collaboration

Mockplus, an all-inclusive prototyping tool for all platforms, has become a rising star in the competitive industry of prototyping tool for its functionality and simplicity. It lets users make online reviewing and have page revisions in real time, with no limit on the team members. Not only does it let users make online comments on the project and page, but also makes it possible to set page editing permission with password-protection option. It’s also one of the best UX design collaboration tools.

Here are more details in below:

How it works exactly?

1. Create a team project and get it synced to the cloud for remote sharing.

2. Add the team collaborators by entering their email addresses and sending email notifications.

3. Open the team project from the client.

4. Get page editing permission and make project editing on the project at the same time.

5. Publish to preview it and invite others to make comments & remarks.

Mockplus page remark

Mockplus comment remarks

Mockplus page comments

Supported platforms: Windows, macOS

Plans & Pricing: $199-Pro, $399-Unlimited Perpetual License (all new updates with extra charges)

Free trial: Free forever with unlimited features, plus 1-month trial for students, 6-month trial for teachers & educators

Number of team collaborators: Unlimited

3. Red Pen – Team Feedback and Version Control Tool

Editorial ratings: ★★★

Red Pen Team Collaboration

If you have ever used Google Docs for work, then you will adapt to this tool with ease. Basically, this is a commenting tool that allows the team to provide input which is related to usability and design flaws. One of its best features is that the software will automatically keep track of the numerous versions, with no login required. A downside is it has strict limits on the number of project and needs enhancements on interactivity and feature diversity.

How it works? It’s pretty simple:

1. Drag and drop to upload your completed design in images;

2. Generate private link and enter the email address of reviewers;

3. Click anywhere of the screen to add notations/comments.

Red Pen Comments

Red Pen Annotations

Plans & Pricing: $20/mo-5 projects, $30/mo-10 projects, $60/mo-25 projects, $90/mo-40 projects

Free trial: 14 days

Number of team collaborators: Unlimited

4. Mural – Online Brainstorming and Collaboration Tool

Website: https://mural.co/

Editorial ratings: ★★★

Mural Team Collaboration

As its name hinds, Mural provides a big HTML5 drawing whiteboard for users to collect inspiration and gather team feedback, by simply dragging and dropping rich media files, links and documents. It’s not just designed as a pinboard like Pinterest, it’s incredibly easy-to-use and helps to streamline your collaboration process. Its advantage lies in the visual aid system and it lets people voice their feedback, without fear of retaliation.

Mural Flow

Mural Comments

Supported platforms: Windows 10, iPad & iPhone

Plans & Pricing: $12/mo (billed yearly)

Free trial: 30 days

Number of team collaborators: Up to 50 people, not suitable for large design project

5. Moqups – Online Mockup, Wireframe & Collaboration Tool

Editorial ratings: ★★★

Moqups Team Collaboration

This software enables teams to collaborate on mockups, wireframes and prototypes, which makes it a universally-friendly platform for all designers to use. It has great integration to quite a few third-party collaboration platforms, including Slack, Google Drive and Dropbox. Most recently, it supports the server of Jira and Confluence. 

Moqups Advantages

Moqups Comments

Plans & Pricing:

(Monthly Billing) Personal – $19/mo, Creative Team – $29/mo

(Annual Billing) Personal – $13/mo, Creative Team – $19/mo

Free trial: Only 1 project, with 5MB storage

Number of team collaborators: Up to 3 people

Sum Up

For designers, to know to collaborate and communicate with other teammates can not only improve work efficiency, but also reduce the workload a lot. Above are the most recommended design collaboration tools which are powerful and easy-to-use. In regards to functions of collaboration and design as well as the limits on project and collaborators, Mockplus is the best solution for you to design faster with full support to your requirements.

prototype, tools, UI/UX desingn

5 Best UX/UI Design Prototyping Tools for Windows

Looking for the Best Prototyping Tool for Windows?

Still looking for the best prototyping tool that can turn your ideas into visual prototypes to the fullest as an experienced product interaction UI/UX designer on your Windows 7/8/10 computer? Or still searching for a top Windows prototyping program for practicing and improving yourself as a beginner? No worry! In order to solve such problems, 5 best prototyping tools for Windows users will be introduced here and hope you can find the one that suits you the best here:

1. Axure RP

Compatibility: Windows and Mac

Price:

Free Trial – 30 days

Pro – $29/month, Team -$49/moth, Enterprise -$99/month

Axure RP is a professional and all-in-one windows prototyping tool often recommended and used by most experienced UX designers thanks to its powerful functions, like exporting visualized conditional flow, adding vivid animations and data-driven interactions, and completing a team project, etc. And it can help edit a project to the very super details.

However, with a very professional interface, it is also a little bit tricky for people who are not familiar with its over professional features and complicated operations.

So, it is more suitable for an experienced UX designer, not a beginner, to design and create a sophisticated and professional prototype with Axure.

 Prototyping Tool Axure Rp

2. Mockplus

Compatibility: Windows and Mac

Price:

Basic- free forever

Perpetual – $239/year (Pay once for a lifetime deal and no additional fees charged)

Mockplus is a free, easy and fast prototyping tool which especially offers a windows version for Windows 7, 8, 10 and Vista users. With over 200 components, 3000 icons, 8 previewing and sharing ways, and other powerful functions, this windows version brings every user a much easier and faster experience to create and edit an interactive prototype project.

Moreover, recently, its newly released version with Team Collaboration, Repeater, Auto Data Fill, Mind Map Design Mode and far more features, also offer users a much easier, smoother and more pleasant experience.

Hence, Mockplus is much better for a beginner or experienced UI/UX designer who wants to transform his ideas into visual, beautiful and interactive prototypes with ease and fast speed.

Prototyping Tool Mockplus

3. Justinmind

Compatibility: Windows and Mac

Price:

Free Trial -30 days

Pro -$19/month

Justinmind is an easy-to-use windows prototyping tool for a mobile phone app. With this desktop tool installed on a Windows PC, a UX/UI designer can freely and easily make a special Android or iOS mobile phone application prototype without any coding.

So, this desktop prototyping tool is a nice choice for a designer who wants to edit and finish a mobile phone app prototyping project.

Prototyping Tool Justinmind

4. Balsamiq

Compatibility: Windows and Mac

Price:

Free Trial – 30 days

A Solo User License for 2 projects -$9/month

Multi-User License -start at $49/month for 20 projects

As a simple and fast wireframing tool, Balsamiq allows UX/UI designers to reproduce the experiences ofsketching on a whiteboard by using a computer, and its Quick Add function also allows you to drag and drop acomponent with ease.

However, it is much better for a designer to sketch a draft out according to his flashing ideas quickly, not making a vivid, beautiful and pleasant prototyping project.

Prototyping Tool Balsamiq

5. Proto.io

Compatibility: online

Price: A Single User License for 5 projects- $24/month

Unlike all prototyping tools mentioned above, Proto.io is a cloud-based online tool and can help complete all prototyping processes online without any downloading and installing. And, in this aspect, it is workable both on a Windows and Mac OS.

If you do have such needs and do not want to download or install any software on your Windows 7/8/10 computer/desktop, this also could be worth trying.

Prototyping Tool Proto.io

Conclusion

Therefore, if you are a beginner who has learned UX/UI design for a really short time, while trying to choose a proper windows prototyping tool, the easy and fast Mockplus would be better for you. If you are an experienced UI/UX designer, Axure or Mockplus would be a good choice. If you are trying to complete a special mobile phone app prototype, you can give Justinmind a chance. If you need to catch your flashing ideas and want to draw the prototype draft quickly, Balsamiq would offer you a pleasant experience. Of course, if you only want to complete designing and editing a prototyping project online, Proto.io would be nice. In short, hope you can find the best one for your windows computer after reading this article.