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Tooling our design process in 2020

November 24, 2019

Some of the tools we plan on using in 2020.

Last year, I decided to share what tools we’re using throughout our design process. Today I want to share with you the tools we plan on using in 2020 that will help us create the next generation of empowering products.

At Threefold, we work with clients all over the world in a wide range of industries, so productivity is essential to our success. We provide several UX & UI design services that will help our clients create better digital products.

And for everything we do, we follow a design thinking philosophy throughout all of our work. So we want our tools to help us support the process as much as we can.

Although these are tools we use throughout our design process, we try to keep things flexible so that the tools are right for the people who use them.

Tools to help us understand

These tools help us to understand the problem, the business goals, the user, their needs and their goals.

Google Analytics

It helps us understand what people are doing, where they’re coming from, how long they’re spending, and so on.

Our website traffic in Google Analytics.

HotJar

It is one of our favourite tools for understanding user behaviour. It’s one of the few tools we use to its full extent, from heatmaps right up to feedback polls.

HotJar heatmap of our website.

Zoom

We use it for chatting with clients, performing team stand-ups and for user interviews.

A user testing session using Zoom.

Confluence Cloud

We recently moved to Confluence Cloud, and we love it. We use it for documenting everything from our playbook right up to user research. Previously we used Dropbox Paper for all of this, but we won’t be going back any time soon.

Our team wiki in Confluence Cloud.

Tools to help us explore

These tools help us explore ideas that will solve problems.

Pen & Paper

Nothing beats it for getting an idea, so it deserves a mention.

Sketch

Over the last two years, we use it for all our UI design. But it has started to become a bit too buggy, so we’re going to be exploring Figma and Adobe XD. Sketch may not be on this list in the future.

UI designs in Sketch.

Photoshop

We use it for any photo editing or graphics that we need since it is by far the best for this job. Remember, use the right tool for the job.

It is still our go-to for photo editing.

Principle

We use it when we want to animate interactions. It is super easy to use, and they’re plenty of tutorials so you can master it quickly.

A loading animation created in Principle.

InVision

We use it as our one-stop-shop for prototyping our ideas and for creating mood boards for inspiration. It works perfectly with Sketch through the Craft plugin.

Our latest InVision projects.

Tools to materialise

These tools help us test whether the idea solves the problem and if they do turn the concept into reality.

Maze

We use it with our InVision prototypes to discover how users interact with prototypes. In particular, the report feature is great to share with the team.

A report in Maze. Great for sharing with clients.

UsabilityHub

It gives us the ability to run remote user testing so we can test our assumptions. It helps us to ask questions about our ideas and get answers from real users.

A list of the recent user tests we performed with UsabilityHub.

InVision Inspect

For developer handoff, we use InVision’s Inspect feature. It just works great, and all our team is very familiar with it.

Inspect mode for one of our recent app designs.

Plant

It provides us with version control for our designs. It integrates with Sketch so we can stay in our standard workflow and still have the safety of version control.

Our design version control.

Thats it!

There are plenty of tools out there, but these are the ones that work best for us. My recommendation is to pick tools that work for you and not because they’re the hottest new thing! What tools are you using

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