Axure: Robust and Proven, but Less Efficient
Overall Satisfaction with Axure RP
Also, because Axure is considered to be the “industry standard” for prototyping, we also use the tool to collaborate with external designers, as they often already have the platform in their arsenals.
Pros
- Adaptive views enable us to create truly responsive designs, even when they are very complex.
- The platform’s many available templates and ability to create a library of reusable designs enables us to prototype faster and more efficiently than creating every single design from the ground up.
- The company provides a lot of support options, from training videos to online forums. This is a pretty complex tool, so knowing that we can always look up or ask a question and get a quick answer has helped us immensely.
- Axure’s comprehensive suite of tools to portray interactivity in prototypes has truly helped us show stakeholders and clients what an end product will look like, which has really helped us gain necessary internal and external buy-in.
Cons
- There’s a pretty steep learning curve to this tool. Even though everyone on my “sub-team” is pretty well versed in a wide array of prototyping tools, we’re still having some trouble figuring out some of Axure’s more complicated features, like repeater tables. This is a large reason why we are not using this tool beyond this small group of designers.
- The interface is outdated and much less impressive than many other tools on the market, like InVision.
- It’s pretty expensive. Even if we wanted to expand the use of Axure to the entire design team, we’d have a pretty tough time selling it to the higher-ups when there are plenty of comparable tools (a number of which we already have access to) that are much cheaper per user.
- Master styles help save time and create brand consistency in creating prototypes, as designers can choose from existing styles, which they can build their designs upon.
- Axure’s functionality allows us to build highly realistic prototypes, which enables us to easily portray user workflows for potential and existing clients, as well as for stakeholders, to create more buy-in for the end product.
- The source files aren’t a reliable resource for application code for our developers, so we have to spend significant time on documentation to ensure that the design doesn’t get built out incorrectly.
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