Likelihood to Recommend Still the best IMHO for dynamic prototyping. Sometimes you need to wireframe novel on-page widgets, such as draggable search areas (in the context of map-based search), or interactive annotations on diagrams. And sometimes real data values are necessary for test participants to give good feedback. However, this is something of a niche scenario. The majority of uxers prefer xd or
Figma and find that static prototypes (screen1->click->screen2) is sufficient.
Read full review I still have some issues, especially with color integration between the style guide and also project. When we update the colors, it's not automatically sync to every project. Aside from that, zeplin solves my problem for hand-off design from design to developer. I set zeplin is source of truth design file
Read full review Pros Adaptive views enable us to create truly responsive designs, even when they are very complex. The platform’s many available templates and ability to create a library of reusable designs enables us to prototype faster and more efficiently than creating every single design from the ground up. The company provides a lot of support options, from training videos to online forums. This is a pretty complex tool, so knowing that we can always look up or ask a question and get a quick answer has helped us immensely. Axure’s comprehensive suite of tools to portray interactivity in prototypes has truly helped us show stakeholders and clients what an end product will look like, which has really helped us gain necessary internal and external buy-in. Read full review Ease in automatically building design style guides, saving time that might be spent on building style guides in another tool (such as InDesign). Users can use Mac, PC, or web versions of this app to collaborate on a single project, enabling us to work with a wider pool of contractors. Accelerates the design-to-development workflow, as it’s very easy to import Sketch or Photoshop files through plug-ins, and HTML/CSS codes are automatically created based on designs. Provides cross-platform specifications for web, iOS, and Android, which can save developers time in figuring out specifications beyond the “main platform" on their own. Read full review Cons The user interface is somewhat old and not always the most intuitive. I've been using Axure RP for 5 years and often forget that it has a steep learning curve, which makes it harder to onboard new employees. The "teams" functionality, as far as working and sharing the same files, has some room for performance improvements. Results of the Preview function varies per browser (although it works best on Chrome). Read full review The uploading and syncing of assets is great for sketch and photoshop but we use illustrator and that can be cumbersome/tedious at times. There are certain elements that have been a bit confusing to navigate at times, but for the most part, it's pretty user-friendly More integrations Read full review Likelihood to Renew Great tool
Read full review Usability Axure feels like a tool that started with a simple interface that wasn't redesigned over time. Simple tasks sometimes require clicking through multiple layers. Crucial pieces of functionality are hidden under text links, or just flatly aren't discoverable. Much of the quirks of the interface only come from having screwed up numerous times, and knowing that certain things are just difficult to accomplish.
Read full review -Inconvenient table of contents; -Search only checks screens' names in the Zeplin project, not checks text on the screens, even though it's stored there as text and can be easily read from a technical perspective; -I have to log in too often. This is too secure for such an application
Read full review Support Rating I've never used the support for Axure but they do have an online community that can be helpful when you're unsure how to accomplish a specific bit of interactivity. Overall the community for Axure is a great benefit for the software. There are also a lot of shared library assets which can help reduce the time you spend on projects.
Read full review Zeplin has classic support with a chat from the website. It's working fine, and we're also getting the support needed when needed. However, Zeplin is very good at closing the incidents and moving on. It was a while ago we had a case with their support so that it might have improved since then.
Read full review Online Training I think that the online training videos cover all product features and are a great resource to point people to. The newsletter is also frequent and passes on a range of tips and techniques for users that are eager to learn more, or just want to keep themselves up to date
Read full review Alternatives Considered Since Axure RP is a desktop software that can work without a cloud connection, it is easy to have approved within a highly restricted corporate environment for a low cost with a small team.
iRise is a solution that requires greater amounts of management, best service a group of designers in a corporate environment.
InVision is cloud-based and, although not impossible, would require a long-term agreement to be made between the corporate and
InVision . These could take years.
Origami is free and desktop based and has great control of the transitions and data - but is so granular that additional time commitments may have to be made to make a prototype of this fidelity
Read full review Zeplin is great to inspect and share user interfaces, specifications and assets, perfect for developers. Tools like
InVision and Marvel are much better to create prototypes for both developers, coworkers and even stakeholders, but they don't have this kind of feature (inspection) as Zeplin does. So each of them can be used for different purposes, offering different approaches to share and interact with layouts for apps and websites.
Read full review Return on Investment Axure allows for us to quickly get the entire sales team trained on a specific narrative and gives them a fool proof click path for them to use in the demo. Axure is relatively inexpensive and allows for purchasing the software without having to pay a monthly subscription (although they do have that option). The Sketch integration has allowed for a 10 fold increase in productivity by taking designs already created in another program and quickly adding them to Axure. Read full review Development time has reduced as the design updates are communicated in real time to developers and they don't have to write the boilerplate code as it's already generated. Employee engagement has improved as every stakeholder is aware about the design changes from the beginning and can give their inputs. Designers save a lot of time as they don't to explicitly communicate when the update or publish their designs and also it just takes a couple of clicks to publish their designs. Also, lot of rework is saved as every stakeholder is involved right from the beginning. Read full review ScreenShots