Top 10 Free UX Design Tools For Beginners in 2024

The world of design is constantly changing with the persistent objective of improving user experience and interface design. At the center of this change lie the designing tools that empower designers to create, test, and improve their interfaces. From crafting an initial idea to creating a whole new user experience, these tools form a solid foundation of modern design frames. According to research by Forrester, a well-crafted UX can boost the chances of a high conversion rate significantly. If you are a design enthusiast who strives to create better designs, here are some free UX design tools that you should know about. 

Let’s get to know about them!

What are UX Tools?

UX tools assist designers with a variety of tasks such as wireframing, designing, prototyping, usability testing, and data collection. These tools can also help designers share their work with other people for feedback, questions, and ideas. When choosing a UX tool, you can consider things like ease of use, whether it has a supportive community, and how quickly you can adapt to it.

Types of UX Tools?

There are various types of UX tools including:

Prototyping tools

Prototype tools help designers communicate their ideas, test concepts with users, and gather feedback. Here are some prototyping tools types and how they help the designers:

1. Low-fidelity prototyping/wireframing tools: Like Balsamiq and Marvel, these tools help create basic visualizations of potential solutions. 
2. High-fidelity prototyping and user interface (UI) design tools: Like Sketch, Figma, Axure RP, and Proto.io, these tools help create more sophisticated visualizations of design solutions: 
3. Sketch: A common tool for developing high-tech designs and concepts, with features like icons that help designers repeat pieces and ensure compatibility with interfaces. 
4. Axure RP: A tool that allows UX professionals to create interactive prototypes, including adaptive designs that work on desktop, mobile, and tablet. 
5. Proto.io: A tool that allows users to create interactive prototypes quickly, with a drag-and-drop design function that’s suitable for many types of users.
   

Research tools

These tools help you in gathering user information and feedback. Here are some common types of research tools: 

1. Questionnaire tools: Google Forms and SurveyMonkey are typical examples of this type of UX tool as they help gather quantitative research. 
2. Flowcharting tools: LucidChart and OmniGraffle are flowcharting tools that help predict user needs and align them with business needs. 
3. UserTesting: These tools provide UX designers with videos of users using their products, which can help them gain insights from user reactions and thoughts. 
4. Airtable: These tools help users create and share databases and include UX research templates for searching and categorizing participants and session insights. 

Collaboration tools

These tools support communication between design teams, developers, and stakeholders. For example, Miro is an online whiteboard platform with features like online chat and video calls that help design teams share ideas and collaborate.

Free UX tools are available that you can use to level up your design projects.

Figma 

Figma is a cloud-based design tool widely popular for its collaborative features. By collaborative, we mean it allows multiple designers to work on a project concurrently. This powerful tool comes in handy for both beginners and professionals for wireframing, prototyping, and illustration. Here both designers and stakeholders can collaborate to work on a common project as the platform supports chat and call features. It supports animations, hover effects, clicks, and more, making it perfect for showing how your design will work.

While working on any task you can access the information on who else is there on your file. You can also follow them, do a quick cursor chat, or write comments conveniently. Besides, for the designing, it is great for brainstorming. The FigJam whiteboard provides you with a virtual space that just goes like a conference meeting. There, you can easily access sticky notes, timers, and whatnot.

Moreover, Figma has a large community that can help you with pre-designed templates. You can leverage icons, design systems, design inspiration, and UI kits by being active in the community. 

Upto 2 Figma files, 3 FigJam, this tool can be used for free. To access more functionality and unlimited files, you will need a paid plan. There are various paid plans Figma offers:

• Organization plan: €45 per month (or €25 per month for Dev Mode only)
• Professional plan: €12 per month
• Enterprise plan: €75 per month (or €35 per month for Dev Mode only)

Proto.io

As the name suggests itself, Proto.io. Claims to produce prototypes that feel real. This is, so far,, one of the best tools for creating, organizing, integrating, and testing the mockups. This web-based prototyping platform allows users to create interactive prototypes for any screen size without requiring design skills or coding. It is regarded as a good tool for UX designers, entrepreneurs, product managers, and marketers because it can help with the following:

      1. Build prototypes

Create realistic prototypes with complex features, including wireframes, low fidelity, and fully animated prototypes.

      2. Communicate ideas

Share prototypes with product managers, designers, and developers to communicate ideas and interaction patterns. 

      3. Test prototypes

Test prototypes across multiple devices and get feedback on functionality and design. 

     4. Iterate quickly

Iterate on designs without adding or subtracting code.

     5. Build the user experience.

Use Proto.io to build the complete user experience, from text formatting to specifying actions for individual elements. 

Here are a variety of features Proto.io offers:

• Drag-and-drop interface 
• Component libraries and templates 
• Over 250 UI components 
• Over 1,000 templates 
• Over 6,000 digital assets 
• Animation features 
• Screen transitions 
• Timeline transitions 
• Advanced animations 
• AI Wizard

Proto.io offers a free 15-day trial for all of its plans, including its single-user, single-project plan. After the trial ends, users can choose to upgrade to a paid subscription or downgrade to the free plan, which has limited options. If users don’t take any action, their accounts will be deleted. 

Proto.io also offers paid subscription plans, which start at $24 per month for the Freelancer plan and go up to $160 per month for the Corporate plan. These plans include more users, projects, and reviewers. Students can receive a 50% discount by contacting Proto.io with their school’s email address. 

Framer 

Framer is a web design software that allows users to create websites without coding expertise. It’s a good choice for designers and small teams who want to create visually appealing websites and high-fidelity prototypes. Framer also excels at creating detailed user flows and prototypes, making it a top choice for UX/UI designers.

Here are some reasons why Framer is popular:

1. It offers a design experience similar to Figma, with an infinite canvas and a full layout, styling, and text features. 
2. Framer supports web-specific capabilities, unlike traditional design tools.
3. With Framer, users can create websites without needing coding expertise. 
4. Its interface is easy to use.
5. Framer has both creative freedom like Figma and functionality like Webflow. This means designers can conveniently focus on creating layouts and user experiences while Framer handles the technical aspects behind the scenes. 

Framer is a free platform. You can create interactive mockups for apps, websites, and mobile devices here. Let’s take a look at what’s included in in basic free plan:

1. Create up to three websites: Users can create websites with a Framer. App subdomain and Framer branding. 
2. Invite unlimited collaborators: Users can collaborate with team members in real time, preview, share, and comment on designs. 
3. AI website builder: Framer’s AI tools include an AI translator and text generator that can help users create multilingual websites. 

Framer also offers paid plans, including Mini, Basic, and Pro. The Pro plan includes advanced permissions, cursor chat, and in-depth version history, which may be useful for teams that want to use custom code across projects. 

Miro

Miro is considered best for remote teams. It is another wireframing tool that lots of developers use to leverage its robust features and helpful resources. Miro makes it easy for teams to work collaborate and perform cross-functional team activities. You can easily organize meetings and workshops here. Miro offers a free plan for teams who are just starting out with visual collaboration.

UXPin

UXPin is a popular UX and UI design tool used by both beginners and pro designers. This end-to-end platform can deliver highly interactive and polished prototypes without much coding input. 

UXPin is user-friendly. Its interface is easy to navigate. You can find thousands of pre-built design components that you can leverage to create solid design systems. This tool can be accessed on Windows, Mac, and browsers. UXPin also hosts many AI-powered features that can ease up and expedite your design process. 

Let‘s take a look at some key features of UXPin:

1. UXPin includes pre-built libraries for iOS, Google Material Design, Bootstrap, and User Flows. These libraries are packed with interactive elements, colours, text styles, and icons that are ready to be used.
2. It also has built-in user flow capabilities to effectively showcase your design process, along with a contrast checker and colour blindness simulator to ensure accessibility and inclusivity.
3. The tool consists of interactive components that you can easily drag into your designs to create high-fidelity interactions. Additionally, it offers streamlined developer handoff with downloadable design specifications.
4. UXPin features Merge AI, a built-in AI-powered component generator designed to expedite design and prototyping processes.

Upto 2 prototypes, you can use UXPin for free. However, for further use you will need to pay. The essentials plan would cost you around  $6. The advanced plan is priced at $29/editor per month

whereas the Merge AI plan will cost $39. 

Zeplin

This cloud-based software can be used collaboratively by both front-end developers and UX/UI designers. Designers can publish their designs and generate specs, code snippets, and assets on their organized workspace.  

Here are some key features of it:

1. Here, you can easily map the user journey and document your designs. 
2. Update or organize your design system from a centralized location using Global StyleGuides. 
3. You can integrate it with other tools like Photoshop, Figma, and many more.
4. It has extensions for Swift, XML, React Native, and more.

Zeplin allows you to create 1 project for free.  It offers paid plans for further use. Like, to make 12 projects you will have to pay $6/seat per month. And, you can access the unlimited plan for $12/seat per month. 

Origami Studio

Origami Studio is a tool that allows designers to create and share interactive interfaces. It can be used to build app logic, prototype, and present designs to clients. Some say that Origami Studio is a good choice when a prototype needs to be close to the final product and that it’s easy to learn and use. 

Some features of Origami Studio include:

1. Canvas: You can use freeform drawing tools, text editing, and visual components to lay out prototypes. 
2. Patch editor: Easily combine components with interactions, animation, and behavior 
3. Layer list: Conveniently view a list of layers in the prototype.
4. Inspector: You can adjust the properties of a selected layer 
5. Viewer: View, interact with, and record the prototype.
6. Patch library: You can also view a list of patches and their descriptions, including switches, animations, and phone sensor readouts.
7. Native hardware APIs: You can use patches to unlock hardware capabilities and expand the potential of prototypes. 
8. Recording prototypes: You can easily capture, trim, and export video of the prototype directly in Origami.

The best part is Origami Studio is entirely free to download and use. 

Pen pot

Penpot is a free, open-source, web-based design tool that helps designers and developers collaborate on design and code. It has a variety of features that allow users to create designs and prototypes, and then easily turn them into code. Penpot is used by many organizations, including popular open-source projects.

Here are its top applications:

1. Allows multiple users to work on the same design in real time. You can also use Penpot to get and provide feedback on designs and prototypes. 
2. Penpot’s flex and grid layouts can generate code that developers can use to display your design exactly as you intended. This eliminates the need for translation, interpretation, or complex handoff discussions. 
3. Penpot has a variety of built-in tools, including a code inspector, properties inspector, and distances and measurements. 

MockFlow

MockFlow is an online wireframing and product design tool that assists in visualizing software ideas. It simplifies the design process and removes the necessity for multiple subscriptions, thus saving time and money. Additionally, by offering a visual representation of design ideas, MockFlow can enhance communication with your team and stakeholders.

With MockFlow, you get the following features and functionalities:

1. Create wireframes with just drag and drop functionality. 
2. It has a wide range of pre-built UI templates and components.
3. The design tokens are reusable and shareable by the entire team.
4. You can collaborate on projects in real time.

MockFlow offers a free basic plan with restrictions on the number of projects and spaces.

Axure

Axure is a UX design tool that helps professionals create wireframes, interactive prototypes, and other visual aids. It’s used by UX designers, product managers, and business analysts to improve digital product design. Axure is known for its ability to create realistic, functional prototypes without writing code. 

The key features of Axure are:

1. It can be used to create basic wireframes, from low to mid-fidelity, and make parts of a screen interactive.
2. Using a check-in and check-out system, team members can share designs, receive feedback, and make changes in real time. 
3. Axure RP’s widgets can help with dynamic content, adding a new dimension to prototyping. 
4. Axure RP allows users to conduct un-moderated user testing. 

Axure offers a free 30-day trial that’s fully functional for PC or Mac.

Need a Team of Expert Designers? 

While there are plenty of tools available for free, it’s worth noting that they are not entirely free. That’s where you need expert designing solutions. Kinex Media have been in the designing industry for more than a decade. We help bring your vision to reality. Let’s collaborate!