The Different Softwares That Product Designers Use To Create Prototypes

Fascinating inventions and innovative designs are launched in the market at a fast pace in today’s world. The masterminds behind those inventions can be some engineer or so, but the expert hand that makes the innovations stylish and stunning with their designing capabilities is the product designer.

This article will reveal the efficient software that a product designer hands play with for creating prototypes of products.

Product Design Courses at Anant National University:

Anant National University, one of the leading colleges for product design offers remarkable product design courses and here are the course details:

Bachelor of Design (B.Des.) in Product Design:

Master of Design (Integrated Product Design):

Also Read: Edible cutlery: Product design for the market

What is prototyping? What are its benefits?

Product Design involves five stages as mentioned above and prototype creation is the fourth stage in it. This stage involves digital product design implementation from paper ideas.

Prototypes are models or early-stage products which are created for better understandability, for finding any issues, adding up more features, etc.

Product designers create prototypes for various benefits and some of which are listed below:

• Concept Validation and Fresh Perspectives
  Creating a prototype according to the client’s needs will understand and identify the black holes in the concept. Hence, concepts will be evaluated and prototypes help to validate. Upon concept validation, prototypes will also help develop fresh perspectives for better designing of products.
• Cost Efficiency Analysis and Cost Reduction
  Prototype creation helps in identifying checkpoints that can be worked on to reduce cost. At the same, prototyping also helps make cost efficiency analysis.
• Development and Boosting of Production
  Prototyping helps in the development process of the model and helps in planning and boosting the production of the final product effectively.
• Testing Components
  The major benefit of creating prototypes in product design is the chance to test the components and product model. Testing components will reveal the efficiency, reliability, and quality of the product prototyped.
• Raising Investment:
  Raising investment is a major part of any product development. Prototypes will explain the product to the investors and help raise investments by a product designer.Having seen the benefits of prototyping, let us know about the softwares used by the product designer engineer to create prototypes.

Softwares used to create prototypes by a product designer

Product designers use a wide range of softwares to create prototypes of products and here are the top 3 of them.

Invision

Invision is an online whiteboard platform launched in 2011 where a product designer can explore and create product prototypes. Here are its best features:

• Single platform for designing, animation, prototyping, and wireframe creation
• High-Quality vector-based design option
• Components for prototype reworks
• Sensitive and detailed motion and AI tools
• Live collaboration option with a freehand tool and commenting tool
• Option to import and run sketch files

Mockplus:

Mockplus is a prototyping tool that offers a great platform for developing high-quality prototypes with various test backgrounds and options. Here are the best features that make a product designer choose Mockplus:

• Compatible with Android, iOS, and Web
• Flexible workflow options that allow product designers to communicate and customise their prototypes
• Option to export specs directly from Sketch, Adobe XD, Photoshop, or Figma
• Comes with 4 ways to compare two pages – “Split”, “Fade”, “Slide” and “Difference”
• Pin tool that aids product designers to share ideas and feedback
• Auto-generated Style guides

Sketch:

Sketch is a product designing tool exclusively designed for macOS. It is an all-in-one digital design platform with various options. Here are its features:

• Symbols plug-in for smart objects
• Smart guides option for better designing
• A wide range of templates to support product designers
• Pixel-perfect prototype-creating options

These three software stand top in usage among the product designer community. Yet, there are other good softwares for prototyping, and here are some of them:

• Balsamiq
• Axure
• Adobe XD
• Figma
• Usabilla
• io

Also Read: The Importance of Considering Ergonomics in Product Design

Conclusion:

Product design is today one of the promising industries which offer significant career opportunities. Students can take up product design courses along with software learning which will help them reach greater heights in product design. A product designer has great scope for a career at a global level where new innovations are launched frequently.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. Which software is best for prototyping?
   According to the product designer community, Invision launched in 2011 is considered the best software for prototyping.
2. What are the 4 different types of product prototyping?
   
   • Rapid Prototyping
   • Evolutionary Prototyping
   • Incremental Prototyping
   • Extreme Prototyping
3. What are the 3 types of prototyping?
   3 most prominent types of prototyping are as follows:
   • Rapid Prototyping
   • Evolutionary Prototyping
   • Incremental Prototyping
4. How do you create a prototype product design?
   A prototype product design is created by implementing the product concepts along with animations, wireframes, etc in any of the best prototyping softwares.