Interface design tool - Axure

This month, a client approached me with the idea of creating an interface for tablets. The tablets will be hung in stores and will help customers select products that are suitable for their specific cases. This will allow them to find out the availability of suitable products, as well as their location in the halls and on the shelves.

But one thing is an idea, and another is its implementation. To check how interesting it is for stores, you need to show them something. And developing MVP for these purposes will take some time.

Then I suggested making an interactive interface prototype. Only not as usual, but a demonstration one. Where the emphasis would be not on deeply thinking through all the logic, which we would then describe in the functional specification and give it to development, but on the design and dynamic elements.

Almost like a prototype for user testing, only this time to demonstrate the idea and strengthen the commercial offer.

The client liked my proposal, it took a little over a week – and so for the first time in fifteen years I did what I taught thousands of people in articles and videos on YouTube and at the same time discouraged them from using it in practice: a demonstration interactive prototype, stuffed with dynamic elements.

There were anchor links in the main navigation menu. They were constantly sticking out at the top of the screen on a translucent plate, scrolling to the desired part of the catalog and changing their color depending on the activity. And an embedded video with a video instruction from YouTube, appearing in a modal window. And a gallery that you can scroll through. In general, that's all. The client was satisfied and went to solve a much more difficult task: looking for contacts of store representatives to whom this could be shown and offered.

It seems that a generation of UX designers has grown up that might not even have heard of Axure. And I still think it's the best tool for quickly creating dynamic prototypes. However, I'll immediately note that the only dynamics I use are interlinking (so that all links in the interface lead somewhere) and global variables for different roles (so that headers for authenticated users are different from headers for unauthenticated users).

I started using Axure in 2009. Back then it was version 5.6. Today the latest version of the program is 10.

Today I get asked: “Why haven't you switched to Figma?” Firstly, because the demand for interactive prototypes in Axure hasn't disappeared. It's just ten times smaller 🙂 And if there is demand, why should I switch to anything else? Secondly, I have experience launching my own startups, thanks to which I understood very well that both Axure and Figma are just tools. Each with its own strengths and weaknesses. And in practice I was convinced that Axure still beats Figma in prototyping. And Figma still beats Axure in terms of design and transferring layouts to layout.

That's why I design and prototype in Axure. And I work on the UI in Figma (however, having mastered Figma, I still prefer to turn to designers for this part of the work, and I myself continue not to be distracted from creating design documentation). It turns out that I happily use both tools depending on the circumstances.

When a project starts with an idea, you can very quickly make an interactive prototype in Axure, without being distracted by design. And only then transfer this to Figma. And when the project already has a design and a UI kit in Figma, it makes sense to prototype in Figma itself, rather than multiply entities.

It also happens that Figma already has everything, but we need to test some new undeveloped function on users, which includes a lot of dynamics. Enter texts into fields, work with drop-down lists, the contents of which depend on each other, remember the options selected in the previous steps and adjust the following ones to them. In such cases, it will be easier to transfer it to Axure than to try to make it work in Figma using crutches.

In general, different tools for different purposes.

Despite the fact that the tenth version of Axure has been out for a long time, I use the eighth more often. Because, starting with the ninth, Axure, as it seems to me, is simply trying to move towards Figma. More convenience for working with design. Styles, effects, all that. Even the “masters” that in Axure all the way played the role of “components” were taken and renamed to “components”.

However, I am being a bit disingenuous here. After all, I bought the license for the eighth version of the program for several hundred bucks – and now it belongs to me. And for the tenth, I will have to pay 25 dollars a month. There is no longer an opportunity to purchase it as my own. And no license – no working program. Even if you need to move something a pixel to the left – you have to pay for a month.

Well, and backward compatibility. I can open a prototype made in Windows 8 in Windows 10. But the opposite won't work.

So what can Axure do?

Create a tree structure of pages, including organizing them into folders
Work with each of these pages. It's like working with a separate frame in Figma
Work with adaptive states of each page. Show how they behave on different viewports
Create components
Manage styles of anything
Program the logic of the elements on the pages. Including using global variables. Including using repeaters (for example, you can easily show the logic of filtering and sorting a product catalog from a dozen or two elements)
See how the result will look in the browser. You can highlight interactive elements. You can switch the display for different viewports.
Generate the resulting prototype as a set of html pages. You can view it locally or upload it to your server
Publish the resulting prototypes to the Axure cloud
There is teamwork and generation of project documentation, but I tested them once and never returned to them 🙂

And another hundred and five hundred functions inherent in any similar tool. Grids, rulers, working with vectors, dynamic panels, masks, all that. But, of course, today we are used to comparing everything with Figma. And if you look at the list, there will be two main differences: working with adaptivity and programming logic. This is something that Figma does not have yet.

For me, one of the advantages is also the ability to publish the resulting prototype on your server. This seems more reliable than publishing in the cloud. But the cloud is still more convenient.

When I design in Figma, I can't help but get distracted by the design. Sometimes, instead of quickly throwing the necessary elements on the page and working out user scenarios, I sit and adjust the indents, sizes and colors. And Axure is easier with this. Plus, in Axure I will never see a “hedgehog” from the huge number of connections between interlinked elements in the prototyping mode, because the work there is organized in the form of “folders” and not a “canvas”. But again: these are just tools and I use them depending on the context.

Useful links:

Prototype exampleHe is from case — trading bot website.

Axure Vkontakte Group. As Axure's popularity has fallen, so has the group's relevance. But every now and then someone comes with a question about working in the program, and I make another training video.

Axure Tutorials in the Proektorata knowledge base.

Well, that's mine too. Telegram channelIt's about interface design and freelancing.