Prototyping tools overview

Often static mockups are not enough to communicate a design, and you need to bring the designs to life with a prototype. Prototypes are key to support story-centered design, but creating them is not an easy task. You need to choose the right level of detail to communicate your idea with the minimal effort in order to do it as quickly as possible.

During these years I have been using different tools for prototyping. Each tool has a unique set of features. Unfortunately, whichever tool you choose, you are likely to miss (just in the moment you need it) some feature that is available in a different tool.

I prepared a series of posts about some of the tools I have been using:

• Pencil. The free tool for click-through prototypes.
• Fireworks. The all-in-one prototyping toolset.
• Hype. A tool to bring life to prototypes with animations and touch events.
• HTML. Working with the fabric digital dreams are made of.

More tools

The above list is not intended to be complete at all. Many other tools can be used to prototype. Axure, Invision, Flinto or PoP look like interesting options but I have not had the chance to use them extensively to make a fair evaluation.

Other tools such as Microsoft SketchFlow and Flash which I used at the university seem to be quite dated nowadays. Presentation tools such as Keynote or Powerpoint can also be used for prototyping purposes but lack some of the interesting tools for the creation of rich interactions since their main purposed is quite different.