The 25 Best Design Technologies To Use On Your Websites
The world is a big place and the internet even bigger. There are a lot of design technologies out there that’ll make your website look great, but which ones should you use? In this post, we’re going to take a look at some of the best design technologies for websites.
There are several different types of design techniques that can be used on websites including HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript, and jQuery. The type you choose will depend on what needs to happen with your site and how much money you want to spend.
For instance, if you need animations or scrolling effects then it might be worth using something like JavaScript or jQuery whereas if all you need is basic text formatting then CSS3 would be perfect!
The design technologies you use to make your websites can impact the success of your website. Here are some things to consider when choosing technology.
What type of content will be on your site? How much time and money do you have for designing and maintaining it? Do you want to take advantage of the latest web trends or stick with tried-and-true design principles?
HTML5
HTML5 is a markup language used to describe the contents of web pages. It consists of elements like <header>, <article>, <aside>, etc., containers like <div> tags, and attributes that help define content within those containers.
It also enhances existing tags with new functionalities. For example, HTML5 defines how you should structure your code for video files so they would play correctly across different platforms without having to download additional plug-ins or programs.
When using HTML5 you should be aware of browser compatibility.
CSS
Cascading Style Sheets is a style sheet language used for describing the presentation semantics (the look and formatting) of a document written in a markup language. Its most common application is to style web pages written in HTML and XHTML, but the language can be applied to any kind of XML document, including SVG and XUL.
CSS gives you control over multiple elements on your page at once without having to write numerous individual lines of code. It’s definitely an important part of building websites because it allows you to separate content from design.
JavaScript
JavaScript is one of the core technologies used by nearly every website today for like validation, user experience enhancement, and page analytics. Its main job is to interpret the user’s actions (i.e., clicking, mousing over) on the website. When working with JavaScript, you want to make sure that you use jQuery or another popular library for ease of use and compatibility reasons.
Invision Studio
InVision Studio is a prototyping tool from InVision used by designers everywhere to build high-fidelity web & mobile mockups as well as interactive product prototypes fast.
The software brings together design files from Sketch, Photoshop, Illustrator, InVision templates, and InVision’s simple Drag & Drop Interaction building tools – all into a single screen where you can quickly browse designs by list view or full-screen preview mode.
Adobe XD
Adobe XD is Adobe’s answer to InVision Studio – they created it as a prototyping app for both web and mobile projects. This tool also brings together design files from Sketch, Photoshop, Illustrator, and even InVision templates into one screen where you can quickly browse designs by list view or full-screen preview mode. A key difference with Invision Studio is that Adobe XD requires a designer and a developer to work with the platform.
Axure
Axure was built as an easy-to-use HTML/CSS framework for designing websites – no coding experience required! Axure empowers UX designers to create prototypes rapidly through its drag and drop interface. This allows a UX designer to create almost anything they can imagine without writing a single line of code.
The prototyping tool comes with a number of pre-built widgets, components, and interactions that can be dragged into your designs or you can add custom interactions from the library that comes with the software. Axure is offered in three different editions: Pro, Express, and Free.
The Pro edition includes elements from both the Express and Free versions, along with access to tools for collaboration, reusable templates for documentation, sharing and exporting FBX files to Adobe After Effects. It also runs on Mac OS X, Linux, or Windows operating systems.
Adobe Photoshop
This is the granddaddy of graphic programs for designers. In fact, you can build websites right inside Photoshop with Adobe’s extended web platform. There are a number of extensions that you can find through the Photoshop Exchange – many specifically for front-end programmers and back-end developers.
Adobe Illustrator
Illustrator is another one of the tried and true vector graphic programs out there, but it also has quite a few things going for it as far as being useful to website builders. If you combine Illustrator with Fireworks, the two programs integrate very well together for both vector images and raster images. And if you have an active Creative Cloud account, then using both programs is easy because they integrate so well together.
Pixlr Editor
A browser-based design tool that is perfect for designing graphics, icons, buttons, and other website assets without having to download software.
Pixlr has an easy-to-use interface that is well suited for users of all ages – including kids who are just learning how to create images on the computer. Pixlr also includes over 1 million different fonts, so you can find virtually any font you want to use in your designs.
Fireworks
A vector graphic editor was created by Macromedia (which was acquired by Adobe). It’s not as common as Illustrator or Illustrator’s little brother – Fireworks – but it is a great program nonetheless because it handles both vector images and raster images beautifully. Additionally, Fireworks creates multiple pages within its own document, so each page can be dedicated to a different section of the website.
Inkscape
Inkscape is an open-source vector graphics editor. It’s similar to Illustrator in many ways, but Inkscape is free and runs on Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows. Like Fireworks, Inkscape focuses not just on images as vectors but also as pixels.
One of its most useful features allows you to select a path element with your mouse and then have it automatically generate a Bézier curve that fits that exact path! If you need a lot of custom shapes – or you just love using Illustrator CS5 or earlier – then Inkscape should definitely be one of your key tools for web design work!
Dreamweaver
Dreamweaver used to be one of the best web design tools in the world, but Adobe killed it a couple of years ago and turned it into a CMS. Nowadays, there are plenty of alternatives that offer a much better experience within your browser than Dreamweaver ever did – especially since you can’t even edit HTML or CSS anymore!
If you still really want to use Dreamweaver for web design work, then be prepared to spend hundreds on an Adobe Creative Cloud subscription just so you get access to the latest version.
Visual Studio Code
Another great option is Visual Studio Code, developed by Microsoft. Visual Studio is a full-blown IDE that includes tons of tools for web development – but unlike Dreamweaver, it’s completely free!
Visual Studio has great support for HTML/CSS/JS files, plus it can minify your code to make things load faster in browsers! There are also plenty of extensions you can add which give you extra functionality.
One example would be the CSS Hat extension, which allows you to edit colors inside your stylesheet without ever having to open Photoshop again.
Sketch
There are other alternatives available for designers who prefer to use macOS instead of Windows. The most popular choice amongst them seems to be Sketch. It’s an incredibly powerful app that works brilliantly with OS X.
It has a great user interface that makes it easy to undo actions, plus it includes the ability to publish your designs in multiple resolutions with ease.
Another feature that makes Sketch so impressive is its powerful exporting tool. You can preview each file format before saving your work in order to make sure everything looks perfect!
There are also tons of plugins available for Sketch, allowing you to add extra features/functionality if you need them.
WebFlow
If you’ve never heard of WebFlow before, you’re in for a real treat! This fantastic tool is all about making your life easier. It allows you to easily build responsive websites without having to touch any code.
Best of all, it saves you time because there’s no need to debug or fix anything that goes wrong (it has already been done for you). It doesn’t even cost an arm and a leg. You can use it free for 12 months (then after that initial period they’ll still let you continue using the app but only if you pay a monthly fee).
Figma
Have you tried Figma? It’s a design tool that works simultaneously across multiple platforms. That means you can collaborate with anyone, anywhere. It also comes with an extensive library of elements for you to use, along with built-in components that are easy to personalize.
Quasar Framework
Quasar is a front-end framework that makes it easy to build responsive websites quickly and efficiently. There are two different ways to use this software: either you start from scratch by building the entire thing yourself or you download one of their readymade themes (like the popular Bootstrap theme) and edit/improve things as needed.
Bootstrap
Everyone knows about Bootstrap so I won’t go over it here in much depth, but what I will mention is its sister project, Bootstrap Studio. This is a website design tool that allows you to build your own customized version of Bootstrap.
It contains the same powerful components as the other product except it gives you more freedom for customization and doesn’t require any coding knowledge.
Foundation
Foundation isn’t quite as popular as Bootstrap but it’s still an amazing set of frameworks that allow designers to quickly produce beautiful websites with little work. Foundation has been used by big brands like IBM, Facebook, Google, Mozilla Firefox, Intel, NBC Universal, The Washington Post, Mashable, and many others.
BlueFish
Let’s talk about how BlueFish can be used to create a website. You can use BlueFish to specialize in controls that Bootstrap doesn’t contain or customize the ones it already does.
BlueFish contains over 100 components and has styles for many popular UI frameworks like Bootstrap, Foundation, HTML5 Boilerplate, Pure, etc.
The best thing about BlueFish is it allows designers to build cross-platform themes which means you can make your website look good on any device from small mobile screens to desktop monitors without having to change a single line of CSS.
Affinity Designer
You can try Affinity Designer for free and it is perfect for vector work. This is great for creating UI elements like buttons, icons, headers, and footers. This software gives you all of the options you need to create amazing designs.
GIMP
GIMP is another one of the best design tools available because it’s open-source and free-to-use. This software has many of the same features you’d find in Adobe Photoshop, so there really isn’t any downside to using GIMP apart from having no support or paid upgrades.
UXPin
UXPin is seen as one of the best online prototyping tools out there, but it can also be used for designing and wireframing websites. You can drag and drop your designs and resources into a template and create interactive wireframes that look professional.
Fluid
Fluid is a great piece of software for the minimalist who doesn’t need all the bells and whistles of a full-blown professional design app. This software has some great features for beginners, such as adjustable grids and sizes, but also has enough tools to create more advanced designs with ease.
Flat UI Pro
Flat UI Pro can work with Photoshop and is an amazing tool for both designing and prototyping websites in HTML and CSS. Flat UI Pro makes it easy to choose between plenty of different flat themes and elements. Once you’ve finished your prototype or design, you can export it into HTML easily.
Final Thoughts
Design is a critical component of any successful website. It’s important to understand the latest design technologies and how they can be used on your site in order to get ahead of the competition, increase conversions, engage with customers more effectively, and improve the customer experience for higher satisfaction ratings.
This article featured the 25 best design tools you should use when creating or updating your web pages. Utilizing these tools will help you create stunning websites that are also SEO-friendly so they rank well in search engines like Google!
