Sketch may still be a solid tool, especially for Mac-based designers focused on high-precision design and creating static design systems. However, Figma excels in real-time collaboration, cross-platform support, and interactive prototyping. If you need features beyond simple vector design—like collaborative prototyping or working across different operating systems—Figma is a more comprehensive solution.
If you're a very simple designer, with very simple requirements UXPin is very good, especially because you can share the designs very easily. If you are an advanced designer with specific client requirements never use UXPin. Don't even get started because you will waste your time. Example is their component feature, it has a lot, but misses very crucial aspects to be functional on a broader scale.
The Sketch interface can feel a bit clumsy when you're working with a document that has many pages. As an example, I regularly work in a document that captures 10 different aspects of a product. Sketch doesn't allow me to organize all those pages into any type of folder hierarchy. I have to scroll through the complete list of pages to try and find the page I want. You can drag pages into a different order in Sketch, but that doesn't remove the lengthy list or provide visual demarcation between groups of related pages.
Nested symbols are extremely useful, but the interface available on the right panel of the screen to manipulate a nested symbol in a canvas is not clearly organized to find what you're looking for quickly. It displays as a list of items in your nested symbol with no visual delineation between objects, so it can be a bit of guesswork to make sure you're making changes to the correct element.
It would be nice if Sketch offered the ability to create a workflow with automatic connection of objects via lines and arrows, like a sitemap or process flow. I use Sketch to create all my screens, but still need to leave the app to create my visual diagrams in a separate app.
A fresh take on the UI to better delineate things visually would be a great help. As mentioned, pages can't be organized, nested symbols are cumbersome to read through, etc. Separating the main central area of the app where canvases are displayed visually from the tools on the left and right would make for a cleaner work environment.
Sometimes, it can be a bit buggy and slow if the prototype is complex with dozens of layers.
The learning curve can be steep the first time you use it. Or, if you haven't used the app for awhile; I sometimes need to relearn it if I haven't used it for a month or so.
The loading times can be quite slow where a page gets stuck. It would be great if this didn't happen.
Sketch is a core tool for us and the cost to keep it going with our teams is low. It provides a good alternative to other screen design tools for our team members who prefer to use it.
We'll definitely continue to use UXPin. Right now it provides us with everything we need in order to deliver quality projects to our clients. If at any point in time, UXPin doesn't provide us with what we need, we'll start vetting other software out there that may be similar. My guess is that UXPin will continue to make updates and improvements so we'll likely stick with it for quite some time.
At the end of the day, it's just simple. This goes a long way in design and goes even further when your talking productivity, intuitive design and turnover rate. It's not difficult to figure something out even if it's not something your directly familiar with, i.e. if you want to export in certain file formats or change the size of the canvas, you don't have to delay your end product trying to figure it out. Similar situations took me less than 30 seconds to solve without a Google search. That's Usability.
The support is relatively decent, and they are quick to respond. However, their releases are not great. Sketch could use more robust testing of their software before releases. Over the last four years, I have had many days lost while waiting for Sketch to patch issues with their releases. It's actually a running joke in our office. So, support, good. Releases in the first place? Not great.
As far as I know, my teams have only had to use the UXPin support once. The experience went really well. We just needed a bit of assistance with using the Documentation feature. UXPin's support was quick and helped my team in a matter of minutes. We will definitely reach out to their support without hesitation in the future.
I constantly use various tools, selecting the right one for each task based on my experience and understanding of their strengths. This allows me to combine the advantages of each tool to complete tasks more efficiently and achieve better results. For example, I primarily use Figma at work, but if I need to draw an icon quickly, I prefer Sketch and then export it to Figma.
I went through several tools trying to find something that was easy to use and made me faster. Visio was such a pain at creating something reusable to make me faster, too much building. Axure and Balsamiq looked like great options but were too cumbersome for my needs and I couldn't get to the live link fast enough. Moqups was my first choice before I heard about UXPin. I switched to UXPin because the had more built in features, more icons and just an overall better and more usable interface that appealed to my design side.
Saved time -- Intuitive interface saves us lots of time/money because it is reliable and easy to use. Other programs have caused serious confusion, leading to project delays.
More captivating wireframes -- Stakeholders have been finding it easier to visualize potential “final products” with vector-based Sketch designs. Because of this, we’ve been able to have more targeted, focused discussions that lead to improved final products (with fewer immediate post-launch revisions!).
Increased productivity -- Because Sketch is so easy to use, our designers have had more time to do more work. Rather than finagling difficult tools in previously used products, our designers feel no hesitation with Sketch, and are producing more often and more creatively.
Saving money by using one tool for lo-fi wireframing, high fidelity wireframing, prototyping, and user testing, rather than four separate tools.
The ability to create and use team libraries enables us to create visually consistent designs with less effort than creating every single design from scratch, which allows us to save considerable time (and therefore money!)
In-platform collaboration saves our team a lot of time and energy. With everything in one place (wireframes, prototypes, user feedback, collaboration comments), we can all be on the same page about the design workflow and pinpoint discussion points that are based on up-to-date designs.
