Simplify Your Workflow: 10 Essential Tools for Product Designers
Product designers use a stunning array of software to bring the stuff you use to life. From prototyping to designing the user interface, there is software for every stage of product design. These tools can simplify their workflow.
There is software to help prototype the product, to help create a UI for a website or an app, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Software for product designers is as varied as their roles in the industry. That’s why it is important to choose the right software for you.
With all these choices, what are good bets for the digital design pipeline? Where do these tools for product designers fit in? Read on for ten essential tools for product designers!
1. Global Vision Desktop
Global Vision Desktop, or GVD, is a quality assurance app meant for production lines. Its suite of tools lets you inspect your files for accuracy and consistency across the board. If you want to check it out, you can find more on GVD here!
2. Grammarly
Grammarly is the app to use to make sure your writing is as good as it can be. They have a free tier for their software, and it works everywhere. Making sure your copy is as perfect as you can make it is one of the biggest design essentials you can have.
3. Slack
Slack is the ultimate team communication app. With Slack, your team can be in constant contact, and its collaboration tools are well-loved by its users. The best part is the software’s plugin options if you need extra functionality that’s not in the app.
4. IconJar
Product designers work with icons all the time, and having a place to store them all can be a godsend. You can keep a shared library in cloud storage and your whole team can take advantage. And you can export your icons to the digital design software you use.
5. Figma
Figma is a browser-based tool for web and mobile UI and UX design. It has great collaboration tools, too. Like with Slack, there are tons of plugins you can add if the mood strikes you.
6. Affinity Designer
Affinity Designer is a tool much like Adobe Illustrator. It works as well as Illustrator the shortcuts are very like Illustrator. Anyone who switches to Affinity Designer won’t find the learning curve difficult.
7. Fable
A newer app on the digital design table is Fable. It lets you build animations of how your product should move when it is complete. Once built, you can export them to a video or a GIF to show them off.
8. Dropbox
Dropbox is essential software for product designers because it gives you a place to share your designs. Many programs can use Dropbox for shared libraries. Cloud storage is great for team collaboration, too.
9. HotJar
When you need deep analytics for your app or website, HotJar has you covered. Heat maps, funnel tracking, polls, and surveys are all a part of HotJar’s suite of tools. It’s a breeze to set up and start collecting data.
10. Flowmapp
Flowmapp lets you plan the UX for your website or web apps to make sure your users get where they need to go. Using the flowchart and site mapping tools is easy. It’s a great tool for product designers.
Essential Tools For Product Designers
If you are a product designer, then these tools will help streamline your workflow. There is so much software for product designers out there, and this list gives you a good start to pick out your favorites. Every step of the process has software that can help!
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