Web designing starts and ends with brainstorm sessions, sketches, iterations, feedbacks, design shipping and coding. We all know that's the process and we have been following the same at Brucira.
Yet oftentimes, these offline methods of design and documentation can cost your teams. Imagine losing that rough web design sketch your team made! Client feedback also proves to be a task when you are noting it down offline - there's so much to track and revise, right? That's why digital web design tools are necessary for your teams.
Web designers already have a lot on their table on a daily basis. If you are one or are closely working with them you would agree in an instant. To streamline their work, web design tools come in handy. From designing till task breakdown and project collaboration, these tools cover everything up for web designers.
Having tried almost all of them at Brucira, here's presenting our recommendations for them. Each of these tools have a core specialization: collaboration, task management, designing, coding. We are sure that they would make web designing a cake walk for you, take a look:
For Collaboration and Task Management
Productivity of web designers relies heavily on collaboration and effective task management, using these tools, you would be able to amplify the same:
1. Trello
Say bye to sticky notes and bulletin boards, Trello digitally streamlines all your tasks, deadlines and makes task management, collaborations easier for you. Add your team members on Trello, assign them cards through boards. See how productive web designing and even other projects become for them then!
2. Ruttl
There are many website annotation tools but we were looking for the fastest one. Having failed at finding one, we developed Ruttl, our in-house feedback tool to review live websites and make website feedback sharing seamless for our web design teams. Through Ruttl, your web design teams can make edits on live website, they can review client feedback, inspect CSS, and even collaborate with developers, writers and clients for quick revisions.
3. Slack
Communication is key for effective web-designing. If clients have given a certain brief then the web-designing team needs to be aware about the same. For new updates related to the same, you need a single platform where all the communication can be accessed. Slack lets you do all of that using its workspaces. Through multiple channels on these workspaces, web designers will be able to check all the threads of communication, share updates about project progress and more.
4. Brutask
Web designing calls for structured breakdown of tasks. From preparing the wireframes till designing the interface and experience, all these processes need clearly defined tasks and deadlines. Brutask, yet another in-house tool built by Brucira, is a simple task management tool - its minimal interface won’t overwhelm your web-design teams and will assist them in completing, tracking tasks in no time.
For Designing and Coding
Despite being a secondary phase of project management, for web-designers, designing and coding tends to be their core job. It goes without saying that processes under this phase require support of robust tools. On that note, take a look at the best tools for designing, coding:
1. Invision
Hands down, Invision is one of the most trusted tools for design prototyping and collaboration. Using Invision, you can change your web designs into interactive, dynamic prototypes. Additionally, you can also infuse transitions, animations, call to action buttons and more to it without getting stuck with HTML. Web designers get a real time clarity for their designs through this tool. Clients can also interact with the designs made on Invision and check the demo.
2. Figma
Over the last few years, Figma has become the go-to tool for various web designers and design agencies. Its flexible designing interface allows designers to easily showcase their work and create as well. Their in-app commenting feature, holistic ecosystem doesn’t need constant updates or mockup creations.
3. Sketch
As a comprehensive vector based tool, Sketch lets you create prototypes, mockups, interfaces by easy collaborations. It is faster than other design softwares as it does not offer redundant features. Furthermore, the interface of Sketch is pretty minimalistic and efficient. This makes the work of busy web designers really easy. There are also various community plug-ins available on Sketch, so you can use them any time to make your workflows breezy.
4. Adobe XD
From prototyping to wireframing, you can do everything using Adobe XD. This platform lets you create multiple mockups and various versions on a single file. Its minimal interface and ease of use effectively helps web designers and even developers in many cases. While you work on Adobe XD, you need not keep integrating tools. Most importantly, you do not need to export iterations after every revision.
5. Webflow
Coding is a deal-breaker for many web designers and it is understandable considering how much involved they are with the creative process. Webflow is loved by web designers across the globe for its no-code-fuss-free web design offerings. This website-building tool is as easy as Ruttl’s visual feedback tool. Using Webflow’s drag and drop feature, you can make websites in no time without using any code, that’s quite something, isn’t it?
With these many tools in your armour, we are sure web designing will become easy and quick for you.
For more design and collaboration related insights, feel free to check our blog.
