Abstract, from the company of the same name headquartered in San Francisco, offers a collaboration tool for developers and others, featuring a version controlled master file set and approval workflow.
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Sketch
Score 7.4 out of 10
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Sketch is a visual design tool of use for application prototyping, coming with a wide variety of extensions, plugins, and an active user community.
It is very simple to master and has a variety of built-in tools that allows one to begin prototyping quickly, and can be powered using a variety of plugins for presentations. However, Sketch struggles with more complex designs, particularly those where animations or transitions are desired. It also isn't a good fit for agencies that use a variety of prototyping tools, as results from importing are not predictable.
Color management can be finicky. For instance, the eyedropper tool sometimes isn’t very precise.
It would be helpful if there was a built-in commenting system that included tagging where designers and developers could have real-time collaborative conversations about designs.
Sketch is only available to Mac users. This is fine internally, but an issue when working with external folks.
Sketch is a core tool for us and the cost to keep it going with our teams is low. It provides a good alternative to other screen design tools for our team members who prefer to use it.
Abstract has a difficult learning curve. If a feature-branch workflow is new to you, then it will take some getting used to. They make a lot of updates to the interface and these feature releases get ahead of their documentation. They rely heavily on an excellent customer support team and are present on various Slack channels to help design professionals with issues.
At the end of the day, it's just simple. This goes a long way in design and goes even further when your talking productivity, intuitive design and turnover rate. It's not difficult to figure something out even if it's not something your directly familiar with, i.e. if you want to export in certain file formats or change the size of the canvas, you don't have to delay your end product trying to figure it out. Similar situations took me less than 30 seconds to solve without a Google search. That's Usability.
Abstract by nature is complex and has to respond to whatever changes in Sketch. So there are frequent issues. Support can be slow to respond and are not always helpful, but they are quick to find and patch the bugs. Overall, it's not the best support, but it hasn't been detrimental.
The support is relatively decent, and they are quick to respond. However, their releases are not great. Sketch could use more robust testing of their software before releases. Over the last four years, I have had many days lost while waiting for Sketch to patch issues with their releases. It's actually a running joke in our office. So, support, good. Releases in the first place? Not great.
Sketch is great for creating digital assets quickly and easily. It is simple to figure out and easy to use. It has a very clean user interface and isn't a resource hog like Adobe products tend to be. Its export feature is fantastic, generating multiple asset sizes/resolutions in one shot. For anything other than print design, Sketch is my go-to.
Sketch has had a positive impact on the amount of time my team needs to spend in meetings gathering feedback. By creating screen views in Sketch and posting to our InVision projects, we're able to collect feedback without requiring multi-person meetings.
Sketch is an extremely affordable price point with many free and inexpensive add-on options that allow me to work the way I want without spending a lot of money on additional products.
