Web development tools benefit both novices and experts alike. Beginners, without much expertise, can use these tools to create their dream site. Likewise, expert designers can use these tools to increase their workflow and perfect the art of designing.
With more tools coming in and designers adopting them, one would be at a disadvantage if he doesn’t make the most of it. These tools also cover communication, analysis, navigation, and testing. But with a multitude of options, which means should you use?
We are sharing the criteria here to help you pick the right tools for your website. After that, you will have a brief overview of some tools you should consider.
Essential Criteria While Selecting Web Development Tools
When choosing a tool for web development, ask yourself whether it fits these criteria:
Functionality: Your tool should help you achieve your goals. It should serve a single purpose so that you don’t get distracted from your ultimate goal.
Ease of Use: It’s good that your tool has multiple features, but make sure that you have the most control. You should be able to do it all yourself without a website development company.
Scalability: The tool should help you increase your output with the least amount of time, energy, and effort.
Customization: Meeting individual customer preferences is essential to success in online business. Make sure that the tool offers more personalization options.
Security: The tools use customer data to generate insights to better customer experience. Since you share a lot of data, you must ensure that their sites are well-secured.
Pricing: The money you invest in web development tools should give you good returns. You can consult a website development company and ask their opinion about the pricing and its worth.
Operating System: Whether you use Mac, Windows, or Linux, ensure that the web tool runs on different operating systems.
Popular Web Development Tools to Consider
Marvel
Marvel is a wireframing and prototyping tool that helps beginners and experts in web design. Its simplicity and easy-to-use features are a plus for beginners venturing into the web design industry.
The tool covers various stages such as wireframing, prototyping, and user testing, but its forte is prototyping. Users can import web designs and add screen elements to create the prototype they need quickly.
As for pricing, it’s free to design the first two projects. The tool has separate pricing plans for individuals, teams, and companies.
Marvel runs on three systems: web browser, Mac OS, and Windows. You can import images from third-party sites such as Dropbox, Google Drive, Sketch.
Marvel provides learning resources for beginners in the industry. They have blogs, FAQs, tutorials, and videos to help you use the tool. Besides this, you can find prototype designs shared by other designers in the Marvel community. For additional help, you can get the digital marketing services of an agency.
Review
If site navigation is your priority, Naview is your tool. It appeals to business analysts, information architects, and website designers who offer digital marketing services for their clients.
Besides helping create navigation prototypes, the tool also helps test the usability of the navigation system. The tool shows you previews of information architecture structure and sitemap.
No worries if you don’t have a background in coding, as the tool helps you create drop-down menus without coding. User testing enables you to complete surveys and test how users feel about your site remotely.
The site map view helps you analyze survey responses visually. With this feature, you can see where your users navigated when they answered your surveys.
MouseStats
MouseStats is a tool that helps you monitor mouse interactions of your users. Its features include a video recording of visitor sessions, scroll heat maps and form analytics.
Mouse movements mirror eye movements and so tracking mouse movements help you know how users interact with your design. With this tool, you can record visitor interactions and playback their interactions.
The heatmaps help track user clicks, eye movements, area stats, and user scrolling. In addition, you can create your customized heatmaps. The tool enables you to do micro surveys to ask customers how they feel about your website.
Its free plan gives you 1000 visitor recordings per month, and it’s free for a lifetime. You can register only with your email with no need for a credit card. If you want unlimited recordings and unlimited domains & URLs, they have paid plans.
Read Also: Precisely what is Employee Performance Monitoring?
