Top 10 Design Tools That Will Simplify Your Design Process Copy
Boost Your Design Workflow with These Top 10 Design Systems for Improved User Experience
Design systems are all the rage and most articles talk about what they are and best practices for creating them. Aside from implementing design systems into your workflow, design systems are a tremendous untapped resource for learning how to create better user experiences and interfaces just by studying them!
What better way to understand how to design an e-commerce user flow than from Shopify or an iOS mobile app than from Apple?! These are what we call Design Patterns and great product designers know how to use these to inform the decisions they make with their designs. No need to reinvent the UX wheel when the best companies in the world have already paved the way tested them with actual users and published their UI/UX and product design methodologies online!
“Sometimes I think everything I draw is just a combination of all of the millions and millions of drawings I’ve seen.”
Try Design System Manager for yourself.
“Design systems provide a convenient, centralized, and evolving map of a brand’s known product territories with directional pointers to help you explore new regions.”
—Chris Messina, tech evangelist and former developer experience lead at Uber
What better way to understand how to design an e-commerce user flow than from Shopify or an iOS mobile app than from Apple?! These are what we call Design Patterns and great product designers know how to use these to inform the decisions they make with their designs. No need to reinvent the UX wheel when the best companies in the world have already paved the way tested them with actual users and published their UI/UX and product design methodologies online!
“Sometimes I think everything I draw is just a combination of all of the millions and millions of drawings I’ve seen.”
Google — Material Design System
Material Design is a comprehensive design system developed by Google. Google developed a treasure trove of simple, elegant design templates and style guides. Material is an adaptable design system — backed by open-source code — that helps teams quickly build high-quality digital experiences. It provides guidelines, components, and tools to create visually appealing and consistent user interfaces across different platforms.
Languages: Android, iOS, Other
Theming Support: Dark Mode, Design Tokens
Atlassian Design System
Use Atlassian’s end-to-end design language to create simple, intuitive and beautiful experiences. Atlassian Design System is a comprehensive design system developed by Atlassian. It provides design guidelines, components, and resources for building consistent and user-friendly products within the Atlassian ecosystem.
Languages: React
Theming Support: N/A
Microsoft — Fluent Design System
Fluent, an open-source, cross-platform design system, helps designers and developers create engaging product experiences with accessibility, internationalization, and performance. Microsoft’s Fluent Design System emphasizes immersive, intuitive, and responsive user experiences. Depth, motion, and transparency dominate. Microsoft’s Fluent UI principles, components, and tools. It provides a consistent and adaptable user interface across web, mobile, and desktop platforms.
Languages: React, TypeScript
Theming Support: Dark Mode, Design Tokens
Shopify — Polaris Design System
Polaris by Shopify. It combines the workflow of a designer and a developer—reusable elements and styles, packaged through code, for building admin interfaces. Polaris is Shopify’s design system that provides guidelines, components, and resources for creating consistent and delightful user experiences across Shopify’s platform. It focuses on simplicity, accessibility, and extensibility.
Languages: React, TypeScript
Theming Support: N/A
Ant Design System
Help designers/developers build beautiful products that are more flexible and work with happiness. Ant Design is a design system created by the Ant Design Team at Alibaba. It offers a wide range of reusable components, icons, and patterns for building high-quality, enterprise-level applications.
Languages: React, TypeScript
Theming Support: Dark Mode, Design Tokens
IBM — Carbon Design System
Carbon is IBM’s open-source design system for products and digital experiences. The Carbon Design System by IBM offers a set of design guidelines, UI components, and code patterns for creating enterprise-level applications. It emphasizes modularity, accessibility, and scalability.
Languages: Angular, React, Vue
Theming Support: Dark Mode
AWS Amplify
Official design system from Amazon Web Services. Amplify UI is an open-source design system with cloud-connected components and primitives that simplify building accessible, responsive, and beautiful applications. It is a complete solution that lets frontend web and mobile developers easily build, ship, and host full-stack applications on AWS, with the flexibility to leverage the breadth of AWS services as use cases evolve. No cloud expertise is needed.
Languages: iOS, Android, Web, Flutter, and React Native apps
Theming Support: Dark Mode, Design Tokens
Mailchimp
Having recently updated its branding and identity system, Mailchimp has been a long-time leader in user-friendly email marketing and has grown beyond email into an all-in-one marketing platform for small businesses. Mailchimp empowers businesses to grow while staying true to themselves. Their brand embodies what’s important to the Mailchimp team — a devotion to craft, a love of creative expression, and an obsession with quality.
Languages:
Theming Support: Dark Mode, Design Tokens
Lightning Design System (Salesforce)
Lightning Design System is Salesforce’s design system that provides a set of guidelines and components for building web and mobile applications within the Salesforce ecosystem. It promotes a consistent and efficient user experience. Salesforce pioneered cloud-based CRM software and has helped 150,000+ companies run more effectively. They deliver personalized experiences to your customers through integrated CRM that enhances marketing, sales, commerce, service, IT, and more.
Languages: React, TypeScript
Theming Support: Dark Mode, Design Tokens
Audi Design System
Audi user interfaces are as varied as their uses — from inspiring websites to applications for a particular service. The aim is to create varied solutions and a well-balanced, system-wide user experience — from the app to the vehicle. Joint standard components, modules and animations provide the basis for this.
Languages: N/A
Theming Support: Dark, light
Conclusion:
In conclusion, design systems have become a crucial tool for UX/UI designers in 2023. Companies like Airbnb, Uber, and IBM have paved the way by implementing their design systems, revolutionizing the creation and innovation process within their teams. Design systems offer more than just a collection of elements and code snippets; they provide a centralized and evolving map of a brand’s product territories, enabling efficient design management and process optimization.
By studying design systems created by leading companies like Google, Atlassian, Microsoft, Shopify, Ant Design, IBM, AWS Amplify, Mailchimp, Salesforce, and Audi, designers can gain valuable insights and learn from established design patterns and best practices. These design systems offer guidelines, components, and resources for building visually appealing, consistent, and user-friendly interfaces across various platforms.
Design systems are particularly important in the current landscape of millions of mobile and web apps, each with numerous screens. As organizations worldwide invest in digital transformation, reducing the time it takes to create new products becomes essential, and design systems play a significant role in achieving this efficiency.
As the design industry continues to evolve, keeping up with the top design systems and incorporating them into the workflow can significantly enhance the user experience and streamline the design process. By leveraging these design systems, designers can benefit from the tested methodologies and expertise of the world’s leading companies, ultimately improving their design practices and creating better user experiences.
Top 10 Design Tools That Will Simplify Your Design Process
Accept nothing less than the best
It’s natural to pause at the year’s end and think about what we’ve accomplished and learned. Now is the time to reflect on our progress thus far and think about ways to enhance our efforts moving forward. Similarly, I’ve been contemplating the many design tools that have improved my workflow and forced me to think outside the box.
Thanks to these tools, which range from user-friendly software to carefully crafted templates, I’ve approached my work with a newfound level of sophistication and nuance. These programmes have given me the means to skillfully and precisely implement my ideas, whether working on an illustration or a comprehensive branding strategy.
In addition to their utility, these resources have also sparked a sense of curiosity, encouraging me to explore new design methodologies and techniques.
So without further ado, Let’s dive in.
xTiles
It is a fantastic tool that allows you to create a visual workspace for your ideas and projects. I created my dashboard in xTiles, which combines all my plans for the year/month/week, work projects, and all the notes I need to return to later. I appreciate the quick notes feature. It instantly syncs my notes from the mobile app to the web version. It’s perfect for people who need extra context and want to see the bigger picture to support their thinking, writing, or creativity.
Creatives love it for its simplicity and flexibility. So whether you’re a writer, artist, designer, or just someone with many ideas floating around in your head, xTiles is the perfect tool to help you stay organized and on track
Built for mars
Built for Mars are a renowned UX consultancy and a wealth of knowledge. With over 10000 hours of research compiled into 54 case studies, it is like a UX university without the fees.
They cover a wide range of topics and provide in-depth analysis from experts in the field.
They delve into the design and user experience elements contributing to the app’s high ratings and popularity. One example of their case studies is their analysis of an iOS app with an average rating of 4.9 stars after 500,000 reviews. So, they broke down what makes this app so successful.
Reading these case studies, you can understand what it takes to create a successful product and apply those lessons to your work.
Absurd Illustrations
If you want to add some whimsy and quirkiness to your projects, absurd illustrations are just what you need.
Their surrealist vector artworks are perfect for livening up websites, presentations, apps, and articles. These illustrations bring a touch of paradox and playfulness to any project.
Whether you want to add some quirk to your landing page or inject humour into your app, our absurd illustrations will surely fit the bill.
3D Transformer
As the name suggests, 3D transformed lets you turn any image into a beautiful 3D mockup with just a few clicks. It also comes with a Figma plugin, so you can quickly turn any frame into a stunning 3D mockup.
Design systems for Figma
This is a collection of popular design systems from all over the world, each backed by code for easy implementation.
Featuring design systems from top companies like Spotify and Uber, you can access tried and tested templates and guidelines to ensure consistent branding and design across your projects. And if you need extra guidance, they have a fantastic blog with a wide range of discussions on design systems.
Userbrain
Userbrain cloud-based platform is designed to help businesses measure and validate customer experiences through continuous feedback. With features like issue tracking, tagging, access control, and task management, you’ll have everything you need to ensure your customers have the best possible experience.
It also allows you to target specific audiences based on demographics like gender, age, and location and create custom test scenarios to get a feel for how your customers use your product.
If you need more than that, it also lets you automate your user testing schedule and even conduct periodic tests to ensure your customer experience is always top-notch.
Kickass UX
Kickass UX’s mission is to reinvent UX design education and give you the skills and resources you need to thrive in your career.
Their team is dedicated to helping you excel at overcoming stakeholder subjectivity so you can make a significant impact in your field.
In their UX library, you’ll find a wealth of helpful articles and case studies to help you stay up-to-date on the latest trends and best practices. They also offer free templates to help you fast-track your work and save time.
And that’s not all — they also have UX kits and other helpful resources to make your journey to becoming a top-notch UI/UX designer easier.
A stream of brands - ASOB
Are you a brand designer or someone who loves staying up-to-date with the latest visual identities? ASOB is a collection of unique visual identities. They curate the best creative works into carefully documented galleries.
But ASOB isn’t just for staying in the know — it’s also a comprehensive brand design library meant to inspire the creatives shaping the brands of tomorrow. You can use it to explore the library of visual identities, find inspiration for your next project and discover new typefaces,
Superflow
Superflow has a vast library of styled Webflow components.
With Superflow, you can easily copy and paste a component into your project and customize it to fit your branding. No more wasted time on cloning templates — choose from their massive selection of components and work on creating the perfect website for your business.
Apple & Banana
It is a publication dedicated to making every UX research study more easily incorporated into your projects. They understand that research in the real world can be messy, so they provide practical guidance to help you navigate it.
And the best part? Their publication is loved and recognized by researchers all around the globe, from big tech companies to small teams. So join the thousands of others and make your research fruitful with Apple & Banana.
How exactly do product manager and UX designer collaborate?
What’s the difference between a UX designer and a product manager? When both roles are on the team, they often wonder where each other’s responsibilities start and end.
This is a custom category page for Business.
I’m writing this from a UX perspective, but sometimes a professional may start in one role and work in the other. Some job duties overlap. It’s common to meet a product manager that started as a UXer or vice versa. When I compare these roles, I see clear-cut responsibilities. For example, a Product Manager has typically led prioritising feature requests.
Let’s examine why they are the perfect match for the product team. Then, some responsibilities are murky. Who makes personas? Who owns User Research? I’ve seen it at one company as the PM, another UX, and another Marketing—the same story.
In practice, there’s quite a bit of overlap between these two roles. This can cause friction for some, but under the right conditions, having both product managers and UX designers on the same team creates some of the most successful products and services.
People in each of these roles often come from various backgrounds. On the one hand, you have UX from graphic design, art, or even business and technology backgrounds. Product managers also come from multiple experiences, such as business or technology; in fact, many UX designers end up moving into product management!
If you read different job descriptions, you’ll start to see a lot of overlap in significant responsibilities:
It's not about roles; it's about skills.
I've found that defining roles matters less than how a company operates.
Highly collaborative teams have Product Managers and UX Designers assigning each other tasks based on what they need for the project. Whoever is best suited at that moment to do it does it. Sometimes the UX Designer might be doing research; other times, the PM, and hopefully, they will work on it more often. Everyone can move forward without feeling territorial.
We must realise that both Product Managers and UX Designers are essential, but they can make decisions together. If these two roles do not share responsibilities, you will have a disconnect between your team and product.
Product Management with no User Experience Design creates functional products that don’t make users excited. User Experience Design with no Product Management produces delightful products that don’t become businesses.
The overlap between UX and product management
A great deal of shared responsibility lies between UX designers and product managers.
Both people focus on solving customer problems through the product they are creating. It brings us to the first point of overlap between the two roles… defining the problem.
UX designers and product managers actively define the problems the product and features are solving for its customers. This work happens most effectively when product managers and UX collaborate.
Product managers are charged with meeting specific business goals through product development. To do this requires defining which problems to solve for customers that will also meet these key business objectives. For UX designers, the overlap occurs when they collaborate with product managers to define further those chosen problems to solve with a deeper understanding of the design and user implications of solving them.
The next area of overlap exists in understanding the product’s customer (or users). Both product managers and user experience designers should conduct and participate in user research. Whether interviews, usability tests or field study observations, each role is critical in learning more about the customers and creating key insights from user research.
Collaborating on a solution is the most significant overlap between UX and PM. Whether creating concepts, journey flows, or prototypes, these roles often work together to paint a picture of the solution for the customer. From there, iterating on that solution in the early stages or even post-launch is another shared responsibility between both roles.
User experience and product management are mutually reliant.
Innovation never occurs in a vacuum.
Making a fantastic product for customers requires a well-functioning team with the correct abilities and a positive dynamic among its members. The success of a product or service depends on the collaboration, communication, and understanding of the product’s creators and management. The most effective product managers appreciate the importance of user experience design, design thinking, and the work of product designers. In contrast, the most effective product designers understand the goals and roles of product managers and always strive for mutually beneficial partnerships.
Stop using Dribbble & Behance to find practical design inspiration
Ignore Dribbble and Behance as sources of design ideas. Check out these resources instead.
As designers, we monitor the industry for emerging styles and developments. To achieve this, we frequently look to the work of other designers for guidance.
Nevertheless, only some of the designs on Dribbble don’t solve UX concerns, which is one of the most significant issues with using Dribbble as a source of ideas. The designs seen on Dribbble may be lovely, but they must still be practical or even address actual issues.
Our designers are responsible for producing aesthetically pleasing, practical work and effectively resolving real-world issues. Nonetheless, Dribbble tends to emphasise form over utility. As a result, you may want assistance in implementing the solutions proposed by the ideas you discover on Dribbble.
Following these steps increases the likelihood that the ideas you draw upon will be suitable for solving your design problems. You may receive fresh ideas for user interface design from sites like Dribbble and Behance. Dribbble and Behance may not be ideal if you’re interested in usability, UX, and aesthetic appeal. Hence, designers should hunt for inspiration somewhere than Dribbble, namely in utilitarian designs that address real-world issues.
These are some things to remember when you search for real-world design projects to inspire your own.
- Compliance with the UX rules in design. While brainstorming new ideas for design projects, it’s helpful to consider how those laws may be used. By studying existing designs that adhere to UX rules, you can ensure your creations are practical and easy to use. As a result of considering the user’s actions and preferences, designs that adhere to UX rules are more successful and popular.
- Although aesthetics play a significant role, a design’s viability depends on whether it accomplishes its intended goal (either addressing a real problem or satisfying a genuine demand). Designs that address actual needs are another critical criterion for evaluating motivation. Find challenges you’d like to solve and draw inspiration from ideas that do just that.
- Designs that have already undergone extensive development and consideration are also essential. To create something valuable and practical, it’s best to model it after existing designs. Looking at concept designs for ideas is beneficial, but you must also consider how the concept might function in practice.
For those of you looking for simple ideas for your projects, I have compiled a list of over twenty websites that you might peruse.
Check out the websites below and bookmark this post since they cover a vast database of items. I've been looking for previously produced and released things through these platforms. All right, let's get started.
Pagecollective
This is a great place to find ideas for both websites and their individual parts.
Best Website Gallery
Collection of top-voted websites that can be filtered by various web frameworks.
Appshots
Newest designs for mobile apps, hand-picked by an expert curator. (Used as a model for many successful mobile applications)
Designers must go outside their field for ideas to stay relevant and produce unique and functional designs. Diversifying your inspiration sources is vital rather than relying on sites like Dribbble. Original, imaginative, and designed following UX standards that answer actual problems are more likely to be seriously considered. Considering these points will increase the likelihood of the ideas being helpful and usable in design projects.