Wireframe software is designed to help designers to frame the layout of websites rapidly and easily. There are several wireframing tools that can be used to drag and drop placeholder elements for images, logos, banner, and text to get a glimpse of the design drafted initially.
The UX/UI designers can take advantage of wireframe to transform their design ideas into reality. A reliable wireframing tool can make the entire UI/UX design process of a web or mobile app easier and smoother. This blog post describes the top 10 website wireframe tools for UX/UI designers along with the advantages and shortcomings of each tool.
1. Mockplus
Mockplus is a free tool used to quickly make interactive wireframes for web and mobile applications. It is quite popular among the designers across the entire globe because it provides a simpler UX collaborative design. The main features of Mockplus are:
- There are several kinds of free templates available to swiftly form a wireframe.
- It offers more than 2000 vector icons and 300 components to just drag-and-drop and complete the interface design in few minutes without any coding.
- Project management and team collaboration becomes easy as it allows 30 users divided in groups to work mutually.
Cons:
- Previewing with Html can appear unbalanced occasionally.
2. Lucidchart
You can go for a free trial of this wireframing tool and you have to pay to upgrade later for accessing more features. Lucidchart is an ideal tool for building correlative, demo-ready wireframes and mockups. Its mockup tools facilitate simplicity in the design and testing of your design ideas.
Features:
- It’s a cloud-based tool so you need not download or update it timely. You can also access your wireframe on almost any platform and incorporate it with extra services like Slack and G Suite.
- The drag and drop features and ample formatting options help in making wireframes readily.
- Team collaboration becomes much easier as team members can do video chat.
Cons:
- You can’t work offline and the templates do not have shape details.
3. Gliffy
Gliffy is an efficient tool for building the framework of a web application and provides a handy flowchart solution that is straightforward to use and appropriate for various business flowchart requirements.
Features:
- The creation of figures and shapes becomes easy with maps and Venn diagrams. It is best suited to make business diagrams and organization charts while the templates allow flawless creation of wireframes.
- Web designers can use the Gliffy API to include diagramming features in their web apps and the framework is also very simple to use.
Cons:
- There is no spell check option and the shapes do not resize automatically as you enter text.
- There are few predesigned icons to pick from.
4. MockFlow
Mockflow tool is based on Adobe Flash Platform and comes integrated with UI mockups plus UX suite. It has a sparkling organized interface and the editing feature set is wide-ranging. You can choose various elements like buttons, graphs, tabs, profiles, and images, etc. for your design. Its export options are also excellent along with comments written by others.
Cons:
- The wireframing process is slow and it lacks animations.
- Several objects and labels can’t be selected simultaneously for edition.
- The color of text within a textbox can’t be altered.
- The monthly billing plans of this paid tool are very costly.
5. Balsamiq
Balsamiq is very popular among UI/UX designers because it helps in quickly creating wireframe design. It comes with a big library of UI elements and web designers can collaborate easily with clients with stretchy sharing controls.
It functions well with Google Drive for mockup file formation and administration. The hand-drawing style of elements is also exceptional and pre-built widgets can be arranged very well with a drag-and-drop editor.
Cons:
- Balsamiq is not fit for creating large prototypes due to lack of comprehensive animations.
- Its usage costs a lot and predefined icons can’t be edited.
- It offers limited sitemap formation options.
6. Wireframe.cc
Wireframe.cc is a free wireframe tool which comes with numerous icons and toolbars to sketch your design. It offers a simple interface for sketching your wireframes within minutes. You can draw just with mouse whatever you wish and there are simple design patterns for web and mobile apps.
It provides good team collaboration as entire team can access and edit the project. You can also easily share the wireframe link with the client.
Cons:
- Animations are not offered and sometimes the interface can be fretful.
- There are inadequate customer support and tutorial videos for its usage.
- It lacks some basic functionality of web and mobile app UI/UX design.
7. Justinmind
Justinmind is an awesome UX tool to create web and mobile app wireframes. It includes all features of an ideal tool like drag and drop elements, re-sizing, formatting, and widgets import/export to yield refined prototyping outcomes. It is easy to share the wireframe by a single click and obtain user reviews.
Justinmind offers the best design solution and you can form interactive wireframes with animations regardless of coding burden. Then you can also share and test your design with users and get their feedback.
Cons:
- There is a lack of documentation so learning to use Justinmind might take more time than usual.
- Few bugs can appear while previewing the sample design created but these can be ignored.
8. Canva
Canva is a popular tool to swiftly create effective web wireframes and form the base for an apparent, graceful design. Its interface is quite easy to use and you can drag and drop elements, insert text and grids rapidly to transform your design ideas into remarkable web wireframes.
A wireframe can be shared just by a click on the “Share” button and you can also permit other users to edit your design. There are enough image editing options to give your website a perfect look.
Cons:
- Canva lacks alignment tools.
9. WireframeSketcher
WireframeSketcher is a desktop application that helps designers to make customized templates, icons, and widgets. This tool allows well-organized team collaboration and prototype management. You can share your wireframe to clients with a sole click or present it in a full-screen view.
Cons:
- There are insufficient documentation and limited animations.
- Freeform drawing is not possible with this tool.
10. Pidoco
Pidoco is a web-based UX prototyping tool that helps to build totally interactive prototypes to impart a spectacular look for your application. The components once created are reusable which enhances design uniformity in your projects. The best part is that it is very simple to learn and designers can create click-through wireframes with minimum efforts.
Cons:
- It does not provide a drag-and-drop solution and the variety of templates is limited.
Conclusion:
The creation of wireframes is an essential step in website design and you have to plan the bigger prerequisites of a UI project. You are now familiar with the top 10 website wireframe tools along with the pros and cons of each tool. There is no such tool that alone provides all solutions for each and every design requirement.
Hence it is wise to see wireframe online reviews form famous websites like Capterra and G2 before choosing any wireframing tool. Consider these above-mentioned tools list to narrow your search for best UX/UI solutions.
Author Bio:
Paru Saxena is the Sales head at TechIngenious, a rapidly growing company having reliable web & mobile app developers in India. He is passionate about writing and has been writing for the last 5 years. His skills include digital marketing and web application development.
