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About 4 years ago, someone asked the community here to suggest tools they use for mocking up responsive websites. Of course, since then, times have changed and so I'm raising the issue again here in 2017. Many new tools have come on the market and I'd like to hear suggestions again for tools by each of the following types:

1) BEST OVERALL RESPONSIVE SITE DESIGN TOOL: What tool do you like the best these days for making responsive websites?

2) FASTEST PROGRAM TO CREATE A NEW RESPONSIVE SITE: Excluding weebly-type online stuff, what desktop program do you like the most for being FAST to create an entirely new responsive website with multiple views? Presumably, it would have templates. Of course, an online tool is acceptable, too, if it allows independent HTML output to a regular hosting company.

3) ONE TOOL FOR SKETCH TO FINAL DESIGN: Can you suggest a tool that goes from wireframe to final design in the same program? I'd like a tool that can let a designer build a wireframe based upon some templates, and then move within that same tool to the final web design (html etc.) output? It seems like such a waste to sketch in one program and then draw the final design from scratch in another program. Ideally, one tool should be able to say, "alright, you want a form with 4 textboxes, a DDL, and a submit button so I'll start you with that in final design mode."

4) TOOL FOR TEAMS WITH DEVELOPERS: What responsive website design tool would you suggest that helps tracks pages in progress, finalized pages, add comments for developers, and then let's developers take only completed pages to then integrate into database-driven websites? Without this being in a tool, people have to make various network folders for categories, drop TXT files for developer notes, etc. and that is not good enough these days.

5) TOOL WITH SUBSCRIBER / BACK-END TEMPLATES: Most tools with templates / prebuilt views are designed to just make front-end websites. But in reality, designers need to create "log in" pages, and have menus for members, customers, subcribers, whatever. What program would you suggest that has prebuilt views for this type of "complete" website and not just a basic 3 page public website?

Thanks!

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  • Are you asking for 5 different categories of recommendations?
    – Cai
    Commented May 9, 2017 at 21:07
  • Some people may have knowledge of one area (e.g. team development) whereas other people may be able to comment from a different perspective (e.g. speed of design for a single person operation). I'll take any info one wishes to contribute from their respective area of expertise.
    – stackonfire
    Commented May 10, 2017 at 5:58
  • You should probably answer 5 questions. Although the question number 5 is all of them, even notepad has this feature.
    – joojaa
    Commented May 20, 2017 at 20:50

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1) Sketch - Sketch was built for UI design and is easy to use. In its recent updates it has some native functionality that allows the user to create fluid design patterns. Lots of plugins out there that also do this

2) I can't speak to this as I don't use tools for this step. I would recommend a CSS framework like Bootstrap, Foundation, or Semantic UI

3) I would say use Sketch for this again. If you need to include functionality in these wires or mocks UX Pin is a great tool. It also allows you to show responsive screens (but without any type of transition for the actual responsive animation you would expect to see)

4 I'm not sure you will find all these options in one app. You usually need to come up w a workflow across a few apps but you could get most of what you are looking for in these apps: UX Pin, Invision, Zeplin to a lesser extent.

5)I'm not sure here. You may be looking for a service like Wix. Sounds like you are looking to do a lot of heavy lifting without having skilled developers and designers. You may want to check out Wix or possibly get into Wordpress or Drupal. you can find tons of templates and even plugins that will give you easy access and output of these types of screens/functionality bits.

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  • Thanks for the reply. For clarification, I am definitely not looking for a service like Wix and I do work heavily with designers and developers. I just don't like that the workflow employed by most these days is cumbersome and old-fashioned. I think it could be much better and that's why I posted here to solicit ideas for some modern apps and tools. Thanks.
    – stackonfire
    Commented May 15, 2017 at 23:26

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