What are the best prototyping tools for designing mobile app interfaces with gesture-based interactions?

Figma and Adobe XD are among the best prototyping tools for designing mobile app interfaces with gesture-based interactions. They offer robust features for creating interactive prototypes that mimic real-world interactions seamlessly.

Figma is currently one of the best and easiest options for prototyping. It's a great tool for young designers or those interested in entering the design field, as the base version is free. One of the coolest features is mobile mirroring, which allows you to design on your desktop and cast it to a mobile app. This lets you interact with your design directly on a mobile device, providing a more realistic experience compared to viewing it on a desktop screen. Currently, the available interactions for mobile prototyping are "on click" and "on drag," which are generally sufficient for creating effective demos.

Figma, Principle, Framer, Dora (For 3d prototype), these tools are based on your specific needs and the complexity of the interactions you plan to prototype. Many of these tools offer free trials, so you can experiment with them to find the best fit for your project.

Figma is great for starting, with a bigger community for learning and plugins to make your work so much easier but if you are an experienced designer and you want to design more complex UI, you have Protopie and Azure

The live prototype is not needed much these days, but for pre-start startups, it is really cool to showcase your ideas and what the final outcome of your ideas will look like. It's also a great asset to product owners to present design ideas. But overall, I have not seen developers develop by prototypes. They mostly prefer faster actions with arrow-like screens to where to go. On the other hand, animated interactions on products must be prototyped to show how the app is supposed to act on certain actions, and Figma is currently the best tool to do that in the market.

None-coded prototypes are often heavy files that load slowly. Also, they take hardware resources, which makes real user testing a bit hard when you showcase a prototype. I suggest prototyping light actions and doing user testing, mostly in person, to ensure the users are not misled or confused by how the prototype is run. For example, Showcase your login page prototype to a real user, let them do the task, and see how it acts, then show the purchase flow as a different test. Based on my experience, prototyping the whole product in tools like Figma and user testing is not very successful unless the user is experienced with the tools. But who wants to test its product only with experienced users?

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For gesture-based interfaces, we do have some standards that should be respected. For example, on the size of the buttons or on the alignment of the items to use. But the main thing is that we need to improve and only with the user testing can we really see the real impact of our job. As we are talking about the gesture-based interfaces, it is always important to talk about accessibility. Accessibility is the core of design and here it's really the essential knowledge to adopt to the app. Be ready to read all the documents that you have in order to see if some ideas where already set up in previous attempts for the project. From there, prioritize accessibility during user testing. Thus, be willing to hire people with different abilities.

User testing is very important already that you have that watch the user how in real time is using the app and too his gest when is interact with this and feedback of the user about of his experience.

Maze is a reference. Even more since they added user recruitment, heatmaps and so on. But many outsiders are trying to create new solutions. Reach out to some expert UX agency as well could be a good option. Particularly for B2B products.

En el dise?o de UX, los niveles de fidelidad de los prototipos son clave. Los de baja fidelidad son útiles al inicio para explorar ideas y estos pueden ser hasta en una hoja de papel, mientras que los de alta fidelidad permiten refinar la estética y la experiencia del usuario y te ayuda a acercar lo más posible el "boceto" a la realidad, estos son un gran apoyo a los desarrolladores para que tengan el panorama general de lo que tienen que comenzar a programar. Pero finalmente lo esencial es mantener al usuario en el centro del proceso, priorizando su experiencia en cada etapa del dise?o haciendo dise?os usables, accesibles y por qué no, visualmente atractivos.

The quality of a prototype strongly depends on the product budget and needs. In my experience, low-fid prototypes will make the ideation of flows super simple to present and get flow approval. This way, product owners do not need to understand the flowcharts; they can simply see the flow's result. On the other hand, high-fidelity prototypes are cool for user testing, animated interaction, and showing off product quality. Overall, Prototyping is an important part of product development, but live prototypes with Figma prototype tools are not much.

When coming to your design research, the low-fidelity prototypes and the high-fidelity prototypes are great ways to show your solution. When you are on an early stage of prototyping, be willing to use the low-fidelity prototypes. That will help you to see the functionality of the app and how the structures are working for your goals. Here, you need the usability studies and use some accessibility approaches all along the study. Please, remember that the low-fidelity prototypes may look difficult to understand but it is very effective for the collaboration of the team. Then, you can continue with the high-fidelity prototypes that will give you a better design that is almost like the real one. Yes, you will conduct usability studies as well.

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Fidelity lebel is one form very practice for tester the user with prototype. Put more of one level since the more easy how basic interactions for the use to more complex how a protoype of mobile app that the user interact with this. In every level you can watch exactly if is good or need ajusts the design product before of realize the product.

Getting feedback rapidly on a cycle of designs will enhance the logic behind product designs across platforms. A designer must learn from the feedback to grow in its role, and when the feedback suggests a flaw in logic, usability, or accessibility. Designers should have the courage to make the changes and start a cycle of development to fix the flaws in the product. These loops help the product distinguish from competitors because you are using them to enhance the experience of the users One last note is to consider the product budget and limitations of the team developing the product. The designer should be clever to prioritize product tasks to achieve most important parts first, However this is mostly include startip projects.

Feedback loops is very very important already you have information of the interactions gesture base and know if the user is adapting to this or not. If is good for this before of design and elaborate final product.

On larger teams where a design team works on the same solution, collaboration becomes essential for both design and prototyping a product. In these collaborations, designers notice minor details and see where they are wrong. In my experience, when showcasing the design to multiple designers, hidden wrong layers will become visible with the help of each other. We can ensure the delivery of the designs to the end user. I usually would expand my collaboration to the development teams as well if possible to gather information of what is about to be developed and reach a better logical decisions behind design

Using Protopie might take a bit more time and has a steep learning curve, but it is currently the go-to tool. It seamlessly imports design files from Figma and offers a wide range of possibilities. The greatest advantage of Protopie is that it enables designers to focus on detailed and often invisible information, such as timelines, action order, hierarchy, active areas, and conditions. Additionally, it allows designers to incorporate native phone inputs like the camera, real keyboard, and vibration.

Top prototyping tools for gesture-based mobile UI: Figma: User-friendly, powerful prototyping, smooth transitions, easy gesture integration. ProtoPie: High-fidelity interactive prototypes, perfect for testing complex gestures with logic and sensors. Flinto: Great for creating custom, reusable interactions, making iterations a breeze. Origami Studio: Free & powerful, ideal for intricate gesture-based interactions with high customization. Choosing your tool? Figma: Great for beginners and collaborative teams. ProtoPie: Ideal for high-fidelity and complex logic. Origami Studio: Free and offers deep customization. Flinto: Best for creating reusable interactions.

Select a tool that facilitates seamless collaboration with other designers and stakeholders, streamlining communication and feedback throughout the design process. By utilizing these powerful tools and prioritizing user feedback, you can create mobile app interfaces that feel smooth, natural, and intuitive, ensuring a positive user experience.

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It really shows that the designer should always give a choice to the people, even to the team who is working for the app. When prototyping, it is obvious that not everyone will understand the use of the tools. Be willing to consider the accessibility of the tools that you are using before buying it. Always put the need of everyone in your team first, when you try to use one tool. When you are sharing your work, you should consider the preferences and the abilities of the people around you. For some, giving a link to the prototype itself would be a great idea; for others, exporting it into pdf would be the best option. You may also be required to create a webpage prototype along with developers in order to really show the solution.

Designers should know all about how the team is reading their designs and how they understand them; sometimes, you even have to present the ideas in person, not just by sending the prototype link. Talk to them, track their actions on their tasks, and adapt yourself to them. Sometimes, you have to show designs in old-school PDF files. More importantly, It's a designer's job to know this because it's your hard work that needs to be implemented correctly. People don't like to read your mind, You need to convince them in their method

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I would say that communication within the team is crucial. Not everything can be easily prototyped using existing tools, but clear communication with developers and managers can elevate your UX solutions to a higher level. Of course you need to consider the feasibility and ROI of your functional request before requesting a complex prototype. Effective communication can achieve this.

Depending on the team you are working with, prototypes get various priorities. So, it's best to keep the company's structure and see how its culture fits your style. I suggest always maintaining professional communication between your teammates and showing eagerness for your design implementation. In my experience, When developers see your passion for your designs, they like to bring it closer to what you wanted. Somehow you inject your soul into the developers' minds, and they like to deliver it not because it's their job

The above aren’t really design tools ! Consider tools like figma, adobe XD, Marvel and other built in tools that comes within the development environments like Xcode and Espresso