5 Apps every UI/UX Designer must have on their phone
Ever since I started working as a UI/UX designer, I have worked on a few projects for designing or enhancing the UI/UX of mobile apps. During this time, I have learnt that having right reference materials and right tools plays a crucial role in how good of the app you are going to design.
If you are looking for apps that help make designs in more organized, effective and efficient way, here is a list of 5 apps to give a try. Whether you need an app to inspect your alignments, pick a color from other app, get a font from an app or need reference to any UI/UX term or process, have a look at these apps. I’m sure they will help you to save your time and resources and be more productive.
(Note: All the apps listed below are for android devices. But I’m sure iOS versions of them can be found on the appstore.)
1. MaterialX
MaterialX in a library of references for material design implementation. Their designs follow the guidelines provided by google. Often in the designing process we come to a stage where we have all the information to be displayed and we need a layout to present it. By browsing through the templates in this app for components like bottom navigation, cards, buttons, grids etc., we can choose which one suits best for us and make the design accordingly.
Another plus point of this app is if you are a developer then you can even get the source code for the designs. Although you need to spend a few bucks from your pocket to get them. You can get them from the following link.
https://codecanyon.net/item/materialx-android-material-design-ui-components-10/20482674
2. Designer Tools
When developers develop the app that you have designed, there are often chances that the color or layout is slightly different than what you had designed. Designer tools helps you validate whether the app that was developed is pixel perfect to the design that you provided.
This app is divided provides us 4 important features namely grid overlay, mockup overlay, color picker and screenshot details. Grid overlay provides an on-screen grids to check inconsistent spacing or misaligned elements. The grid size and lines are customizable. Mockup overlay is used to put a mockup image over your app. With color picker you can get hex codes of colors from other apps. And finally screenshot details adds a panel to the screenshot with details of device, screen resolution and android version.
3. What the Font
What the font is used to identify fonts from images. Images can be from a photo or a screenshot. Whenever you see a great design and want to identify the font you can take help from this app. You can enter your own text to try them out on the spot.
4. Wire Flow
There are a lot of wireframing tools for desktop but wire flow is an option for wireframing on the phone. Wire flow allows you to create linear screen flow and share them with your team. There are times when you need to draw a quick wireframe to show to your team or clients and you don’t have your laptop around. Rather than using paper and pen, this app can be a good alternative.
5. UX Book
UX book is an easy-to-use UX design guide containing the industry best practices, methodologies and guidelines. This guide was designed to help designers deliver excellent solutions and user experiences.
