Tools R Us

We are addicts. Addicted to design software and productivity tools. Here is a list of our favourite tools at UNITiD Interaction Designers. Some are design tools and others are “how-to-handle-office-stuff” tools. Let’s go!

1. Sketch (Bohemian Coding)

sketch tools UNITiD interaction designers

What is it? Vector based design app. Think of a user friendly mix of Photoshop, Illustrator, Fireworks. Read more about it in this blogpost.

Who is it for? Interaction designers and visual designers

How often do we use it? On about half of the projects. Has to fit in the project’s / client’s workflow.

Price $79.99

Makes us happy because

  • Infinite Canvas
  • Artboards & Pages
  • Vector based

Sometimes makes us sad because

  • New releases bring (too many) new bugs
  • Proper color management is lacking right now

2. Fireworks (Adobe)

Fireworks tools UNITiD interaction designers

What is it? Wireframe app. Great for interaction design. Combined with the power of our prototype tool TAP, this has been and still is a valued workhorse.

Who is it for? Interaction designers

How often do we use it? On about half of the projects. Fits in nicely with the workflow of many clients, especially in combination with visual design in Photoshop.

Price €24.59 per month for just Fireworks (or €69.99 per month for entire Creative Cloud suite)

Makes us happy because

  • Focus on screen design
  • Prototyping with TAP works great
  • Pages / masters/ layers and symbols

Sometimes makes us sad because

  • Some of our people report frequent crashes
  • Will no longer be developed beyond the current version

3. Flinto

flinto tool UNITiD interaction designers

What is it? A tool for creating interactive prototypes from PNG’s for iOS and Android.

Who is it for? Interaction designers and visual designers

How often do we use it? On almost every iOS or Android project. Whenever we are user-testing. Read more about our Nano User Testing methodology.

Price €20 per user per month

Makes us happy because

  • Ease of use for prototyping
  • Great transitions

Sometimes makes us sad because

  • No feedback or discussion possibilities, focuses only on prototyping

4. InVision

InVision screen tools UNITiD interaction designers

What is it? InVision is a prototyping, collaboration and workflow tool for digital designers. It is useful for communicating your designs with your clients and allows for prototyping and comments. You can read our best practices for InVision.

Who is it for? Interaction designers and visual designers

How often do we use it? On about half of the projects. Replaces our previous standard, Basecamp, for project communication with clients.

Price starts from €0 per month to €100 per month for unlimited number of projects with 5 designers. Enterprise solution available beyond that.

Makes us happy because

  • Great for collaboration with clients
  • Nice ui

Sometimes makes us sad because

  • You can only comment on screens. You can’t simply send a separate message to the client (for example about a meeting you had).
  • You can not put a responsive design in one single project. Each screen size requires a separate project.
  • User management between private, trial and team accounts is messy.

5. Dropbox

dropbox tools UNITiD interaction designers

What is it? We don’t have to explain this, right? Dropbox is a cloud service that lets you bring your photos, docs, and videos anywhere and share them easily.

Who is it for? Everyone

How often do we use it? Always. All our files are in the cloud. We encourage our people to never work with local files.

Price $15 per user per month

Makes us happy because

  • Great for collaboration within the office
  • Doesn’t make us think about versioning

Sometimes makes us sad because

  • Doesn’t work great with Keynote files
  • Syncing takes a long time and doesn’t start with an index file

6. Glui

glui tools UNITiD interaction designers

What is it? A tool to capture, review and share screenshots.

Who is it for? Everyone with an opinion

How often do we use it? 25% of our people every other week or so

Price $6.99

Makes us happy because

  • Makes communicating review work super easy

Sometimes makes us sad because

  • None really. It does a simple job very well

7. LiveView

LiveView tools UNITiD interaction designers

What is it? An iOS and Mac OS tool for remote screen viewing. Work on your desktop (laptop) and see your design right away on the target device

Who is it for? Interaction and visual designers

How often do we use it? For every responsive project

Price Free!

Makes us happy because

  • Ease of use

Sometimes makes us sad because

  • iOS only, what about our Android users?
  • Setting up the canvas can be a bit of a hassle.

8. Google Analytics

google analytics tools UNITiD interaction designers

What is it? Google analytics is the free starting point for website analytics. If you are running an e-commerce website or a web-ap, there are better tools out there, like Mixpanel or Kiss metrics. For our website Google Analytics does the trick, allowing us to run simple A/B tests and gives, through webmaster tools, insight into keyword use for SEO purposes.

Who is it for? Online marketeers

How often do we use it? Every week

Price Free

Makes us happy because

  • Loads of data
  • Loads of possibilities
  • It’s free, so suitable for everybody

Sometimes makes us sad because

  • Horrible ui
  • No individual visitor data

9. Yammer

yammer screen tools UNITiD interaction designers

What is it? Yammer is a private social network that helps us collaborate, reach out for feedback and share interesting stuff among our colleagues.

Who is it for? All our colleagues

How often do we use it? Every day, every hour!

Price $3 per user per month

Makes us happy because

  • Share with your colleagues! Makes us happy

Sometimes makes us sad because

  • Can’t edit posts. Why? WHY?
  • Why would I want to see a two year old post on top by default?
  • The app s***s (not good).

10. Harvest

harvest screen UNITiD interaction designers

What is it? Harvest is a hour tracking tool. Also offers the possibility for invoicing directly to your clients.

Who is it for? All our colleagues

How often do we use it? Every week

Price $10 per user per month

Makes us happy because

  • Simple ui
  • Has apps

Sometimes makes us sad because

  • Administrative stuff, mweuh….

11. Massage calendar

massage calendar tool UNITiD interaction designers

What is it? There are times when we work hard and there are times when we relax-aaaaah… Every Thursday we get massages at our office. The Massage calendar is our custom calender tool so our people can pick the best time for their weekly massage. It helps us avoid any discussion and tension on whose turn it is.

Who is it for? Everyone who works at UNITiD office (clients included, so come work with us!)

How often do we use it? Every Thursday

Price Contact us for pricing 🙂

Makes us happy because

  • Ease of use
  • Simple & effective

Sometimes makes us sad because

  • All spots are taken!

12. Honourable mentions:

Photoshop, Float, Google Drive, Google Docs, Google Adwords, Pages / Numbers / Keynote, Opensiteexplorer, Ubersuggest, TAP, Basecamp (37 signals), InDesign, Illustrator, Skala Preview, Evernote, Office, Spectacle, Hazel, Twitter, Cam Scanner Pro, Sonos, iA Writer, Alfred App, Moom, Hazel, Textexpander, BarTender, Caffeine, Glui, Teehan Lax Tools, Behavior Wizard, Controle Plane, Selfcontrol, Notability, Interviewy, AirServer, Launch Center Pro, Sketch Mirror, xScope, Axure…. and more!

 

Is your favourite tool missing in this list? Let us know in the comments and we will check it out!