Have you guy played around with Framer X?
It’s a cool design app tailored to responsive UX design. The engine is based on React (facebook’s popular open-source javascript framework), so any designs you create in Framer X can be handed over to developers who can hook it up with business logic and it’s ready to be published in the Android and Apple App stores.
Neat features of Framer as opposed to other design apps, like Illustrator, Photoshop, Sketch and others:
- It handles responsiveness really well. It automatically assumes (almost always correctly) how you want the element to behave when the screen is resized, and you can adjust it manually if you have to. So your designs are automatically responsive, you only have to work with one canvas for all screens, not multiple for each screen size. And you can test it live how it would react to different phones, orientiations, etc.
- It handles grouping of objects automatically and again very intelligently. If you draw a frame around two objects it automatically groups them. Lots of manual clicking is saved. You still retain control.
- Stacks is a cool feature where you can put elements into a frame and then the app automatically handles spacing even if you move the elements around within. It’s a little hard to explain, but once you see it you will be wowed. Tons of time saved.
- It handles animations and interactions. You can link up pages, scrollable frames, micro animations, etc.
- You can preview your work in the app on your screen with multiple devices, but also on the web or in your mobile device. Your software acts like a server to serve up the files. It’s neat for presentations.
- It has a really cool store which offers tons of free elements to use. So for example if you want to add a status bar on the top of your design to simulate an iPhone with the clock and wifi, etc. you just have to install the iOS elements, and then drag the status to your canvas. It even shows you the real time, not just static elements.
- If you’re ambitious you can even learn React the programming language and create your own intelligent or animated elements, and connect different elements together. Theoretically you could write a whole game.
There is a cool free course on Framer X.
Framer X is not free though. There is a free trial but after that you need to pay $12/m. If you do UX design, it’s well worth it, because of the time saved and because of the end product you can provide to your client. Practically your design is not just visual design, it’s front end development that’s largely done. You can charge more for your work to your client theoretically.
Watch the intro video: