Tools

Figma

The default interface design tool for most product teams, built around multiplayer editing in the browser.

Web · macOS · Windows

Sketch B.V.

The tool that defined modern interface design, now a native macOS app with a web companion.

macOS · Web (viewing and handoff)

Kaleidos

Open-source design and prototyping, self-hostable, built on open web standards.

Web · Self-hosted

Framer

Design tool that publishes real websites, with genuine interaction and animation capability.

Web · macOS · Windows

Webflow

Visual web development producing production sites, with a CMS and a real understanding of the box model.

Web

Figma

Figma's whiteboard, useful mainly because it sits next to the design files.

Web · macOS · Windows

Miro

The most widely adopted collaborative whiteboard, with heavy facilitation and template support.

Web · macOS · Windows

Mural

Whiteboard with a strong emphasis on structured facilitation methods.

Web · macOS · Windows

Excalidraw

Deliberately rough-looking diagramming, which keeps early sketches from reading as decided.

Web · Self-hosted · VS Code extension

tldraw

A fast open-source canvas, notable for being embeddable in other products.

Web · Embeddable SDK

ProtoPie

High-fidelity prototyping with real conditional logic, variables and device sensors, without code.

macOS · Windows · Web player

Axure

Long-established tool for complex, data-driven prototypes and detailed specifications.

macOS · Windows

Meta

Node-based prototyping for precise interaction and motion behaviour.

macOS

Dovetail

Research repository for storing, tagging and searching qualitative data across studies.

Web

Condens

Research analysis and repository tooling focused on the synthesis step itself.

Web

User Interviews

Participant recruitment from a panel, plus tooling for managing your own participant pool.

Web

Respondent

Recruitment with a stronger focus on professional and B2B participants.

Web

Maze

Unmoderated testing on prototypes and live sites, with quantitative task metrics.

Web

UserTesting

Panel-based video testing at scale, with fast turnaround.

Web · iOS · Android

Lyssna

Quick preference, five-second and first-click tests, formerly UsabilityHub.

Web

Optimal Workshop

The standard toolkit for card sorting, tree testing and first-click studies.

Web

Lookback

Moderated remote sessions with observer rooms and mobile screen recording.

Web · iOS · Android

Catchpoint

Detailed performance testing from real devices and locations, with filmstrips that show what the page looked like while it loaded.

Web · API · Private instances

Amplitude

Product analytics built around funnels, retention and cohort behaviour.

Web · SDKs

Mixpanel

Event analytics with strong ad hoc exploration.

Web · SDKs

PostHog

Open-source product analytics with session replay, experiments and feature flags in one place.

Web · Self-hosted · SDKs

Contentsquare

Session replay, heat maps and on-site surveys for behavioural context.

Web

FullStory

Session replay and behavioural analytics with retroactive search across sessions.

Web · iOS · Android

Matomo

Privacy-focused web analytics, self-hostable, with full data ownership.

Web · Self-hosted

Deque Systems

The most widely used automated accessibility testing engine, available in browsers and in CI.

Browser extension · CI · Libraries

WebAIM

Visual accessibility evaluation that annotates the page itself.

Web · Browser extension

Google

Built into Chrome, covering performance, accessibility, SEO and best practices in one run.

Chrome DevTools · CLI · CI

Microsoft

Guided manual accessibility testing, not just an automated scan.

Browser extension · Windows

Stark

Accessibility checks inside the design tool, before anything is built.

Figma · Sketch · Browser extension

NV Access

Free, widely used Windows screen reader, and the most practical starting point for manual testing.

Windows

Apple

Built into every Apple device, and the primary screen reader on iOS.

macOS · iOS · iPadOS

Storybook

The standard workshop for developing and documenting components in isolation.

Web · Node

zeroheight

Design system documentation aimed at the whole team, not only engineers.

Web

Supernova

Design system platform with token pipelines and documentation generation.

Web

Amazon

Open-source build tool that transforms one token source into every platform format.

Node

Chromatic

Visual regression testing and review built on Storybook.

Web · CI

Figma

Inspection, measurements and code references for developers working from Figma files.

Web · macOS · Windows

Zeplin

Handoff workspace that organises designs by screen and flow for implementation.

Web · macOS · Windows

Notion Labs

Flexible documents and databases, used by many teams as a lightweight research repository.

Web · macOS · Windows

Atlassian

Enterprise documentation, usually chosen because the organisation already runs Jira.

Web · Cloud · Data Center

Linear

Issue tracking with a strong keyboard-first interface, frequently cited as a craft benchmark.

Web · macOS · Windows

Atlassian

The most widely deployed issue tracker in enterprise software.

Web · Cloud · Data Center

Atlassian

Async screen recording, useful for walking through designs across time zones.

Web · macOS · Windows

Anthropic

General assistant with strong long-document handling, useful for synthesis, writing and structured review.

Web · macOS · Windows

OpenAI

General assistant with a broad tool and plugin ecosystem.

Web · macOS · Windows

Vercel

Generates React and Tailwind interface code from prompts and images.

Web

Anysphere

AI-assisted code editor, increasingly used by designers building real prototypes.

macOS · Windows · Linux