30+ Tools and Resources for Product & UIUX Designers for 10X Productivity

Today we are going to give you 25 plus design tools and resources where you can go and find everything what a designer needs from a starting workload. Let's say how do you even do research or how do you even make prototypes or how do you even go and refer your answers and how do you even make some of your what you call searches really useful and how do you really make your entire design journey smooth with the powerful 25 tools and resources? What I'm going to suggest you. Okay, definitely you need to take a notes and you and in this podcast I'm giving you a link and reference also like how you can go and find that particular website or maybe a login where you can create an account and try it out today itself. I'm not promoting any products guys. It's out of my experience and the tools which I've used and tried and tested over the years. I'm suggesting you. Okay, so with that let's jump into this podcast. When it comes to design, it is normally very much required for a designer. Somebody needs to really tell them like where they can go and get some good information and how and which tools they can use and what are the difference and what are all the benefits and disadvantages of using those things. Right. So take a lot of notes. The first thing is I'm going to be suggesting you some best YouTube channels being a product designer and UI UX designer. Okay. The first channel which I would prefer you is the futur. The futur. Okay. It's actually focused on business centric design education so that people can learn in a more deeper way. It's a very good YouTube channel. You can get updates on it. The second is Dansky, you can get more of graphic design related tools and Adobe Creative Clouds. You know what, this is absolutely one stop YouTube channel where you can find every tool, every shortcut which is written to Adobe and graphic design software so that you can able to get more clear on illustration and creating wireframes and prototypes. Okay. The third is you can go to Charlie Mary tv. Okay. So you can find. She's a UI UX designer. So you can find a lot of things which is relating to UI UX design and freelancing advices, how you can build those particular business within the comfort of house using your own resources and settings to gain a lot of salaries as a designer. The fourth is you can watch Will Patterson W I L L P A T E R S Y N Don't worry, I'll be pasting the link. Also you can take out from there, okay. It's majorly focused on logo design and branding tutorials, being a UI UX designer and product design. Sometimes we'll be getting those projects as well. Right. So you need to be very what you call good in taking care of that. It's a very good YouTube channel and you can watch another YouTube channel called the Design of Business. So it focus majorly on business relating to the design and what are the insights which a design design community is getting in terms of business advices and all. And There is another YouTube channel called Ben Award. Okay. B E N A W A D It focuses on freelancers and career advice regarding product design and UI UX and also it majorly focuses on user interface and user experience design. And the very good channel which I would other suggest you for the UI for the UI UX and product design is Aaron Walter. Aaron Walter W A L T E R It focus majorly on user research prototyping. You know what user research not normally talks about. Not many channels really talked about. This is really good. You can go and study about product design research and particular prototyping and wireframing methods. And then you can go to mkbhd which is a tech reviews and product design analysis and you can find any particular products technical reviews over this. So when you are a product designer you should be able to even analyze what is the product's defects and what is the product's advantages and needs and how it is being deciphered. Right? Like it's like a slightly moving away from a customer and becoming a critic over the design control. You can watch that YouTube channel MKBHD. The last one is beautiful YouTube channel which is Core77. It is majorly focusing on industrial design and product innovation and architecture and design competitions. This is mind blowing YouTube channel. You can able to find out a lot many things guys. Okay. This is first of YouTube channels. You can find the future the Dansky, Charlie Mary tv, Will Patterson the Design of Business, Ben Awards, Aaron Walter MK BHD and course. Next let's come to the podcast. The first very good podcast which I would suggest is mine Design for Change. Okay. Because if you are really listening to this podcast, I hope there is a big connect which is already happening because this particular podcast, why I'll tell you it's very different. It covers some of the major pain points which design community has not been talking prevalently. Right? A lot of times when you see a design podcast or this that they'll talk about the superficial things which is outside, which is outside layer aesthetics. But when you really go into the deep, like let's say how do the really designers face problems? Sometimes they face problem in communication, sometimes they face problem and doing primary and secondary research, sometimes they find even problem in presenting their concept. Right. So this kind of deep pain points have been covered. So that's why I always suggest you. But yeah, it's up to you, it's your choice. But the second podcast channel which I would suggest you is Design Better. It's a mind blowing podcast. The length of this podcast will be a little bigger, but the content will be really good because a lot of industry experts will be talking, right? So that's the podcast for it. And you can also go for another podcast and subscribe. It's called the Crazy one. Okay. It's all about the design leadership, the kind of creativity, how it's flourishing in the business. And you can able to find that it's a very good podcast. It's one of the affiliated with the Futu or future YouTube channel. Okay. And also the other one is Wireframe exploration of design impact on our lives. What is the real what you call change which is happening in people's life. And Wireframe is a very good podcast which talks about it. There is another podcast called Honest Designers show. So candid discussions on design profession. It's a very natural. Just like that, honest. What is your feedback like? Not having a script or content like it's a very honest feedback and you will get to talk to a lot. You will get to understand a lot of different designers in industry across globe and in your vicinity as well. Okay, the next podcast channel, the fifth podcast channel is 99 youth. It's a very beautiful design inspiration and you know what, a lot of career tips and creative advices is also given. You can able to find that. And there is another podcast channel called Exponent E X P O N E N T where you can find interviews of entrepreneurs like you know what, in design entrepreneurs interviews are really, really different. Like they really focus on the struggle and how do they really come up. And they were able to creatively tell you how you can able to get that feedback if you're starting up as a designer and many product leaders will come and talk in this podcast. Another podcast is User Testing which is like user research, usability, product development. So this particular podcast talks about a lot of different user testing related. Okay, so these are the seven different podcast which you can see. The first is Design Better podcast and the very first is Design for change. The second is design better, third is crazy one, fourth is wireframe, fifth is harness designer show, sixth is 99U, seventh is exponent and the eighth is user testing Podcast. Okay, so now let's come to another section of this podcast which is books. Okay, so first you can read a book called Design of Everyday Things by Don Norman. It's a very, very fundamental book I would suggest for all the beginners that are starting up designers. This give you very elemental and fundamental principles of design. What you call design thinking and particular process of design in a very detailed and a simpler way. You can read a book called Sprint like it's majorly for problem solving and idea testing. If you're working in a corporate or if you're working in a design studio, this is highly recommended. In fact, it's a very short book. You can read that out in one or two ways. Okay. Sprint by Jake Knapp. Don't worry, I'll be pasting you the Amazon link. Whatever you want, you can get it in Flipkart or your local websites anywhere. Okay. The third book is Don't Make Me think by Steve Krug. It majorly covers on web design and usability principles. It's a, it's a very good like a textbook I would say you can use for this references. The other book is Creative Confidence by Tom Kelly and David Kelly. So this was predominantly by what you call IDEO founder David Kelly. Okay, so he has written this book. He has written another book called Design for Change. Okay. Change by Design, Sorry, Change by Design you can able to find. It's by Tim Brown who was actually the founder of, who's actually what you call a guy who worked in video. And Tom Kelly and David Kelly were the other people who have actually designed this book which is Creative Confidence. You can read about this. It's focused more on nurturing your creativity and design. And there is another book which I suggest you called Hooked. Okay. How to build Products which is habit forming. It's by Nir Eyal. It's a beautiful book, guys. It's. It's like psychological aspect of the user behavior, aspect of the user marketing needs and how creativity can capture that. It's a beautiful book. You can read about it. Okay. The other book, what I would suggest you is Thinking in Systems, one of the best in class book which a system designer needs to understand. If you're learning design for a lot of time, like let's say two, three years. This is a highly, highly recommended book, guys. It's not for the freshers because you need to understand how systems work. You need how you need to know how systems are connected when you're designing for a holistic product or a service or an environment. Right. It was written by Donnella Middlese. It's a very good what you call book for people who are starting up as a designer. Sorry, starting to think like a system designer. And the next book I would suggest you is Steal like an Artist by Austin Kleon. It's a very short, illustrative graphic book. You can read it in two, three hours. But you can understand how this is really interesting how you can steal some ideas being an artist. Right. It's always about stealing the right ideas and making it even more creative in your own sits. Right? So this is a beautiful book where you can go and read about it. Additionally I've told you Change by Design by Tim Brown. You can read that book. It's a beautiful article. Where you can find and there is a book called Cradle to Cradle. You can find that particular book which is related to more of sustainability and what you call. You can find something like how you can use re materials and how you can find the circular economy in a more different way. Because this one particular books talks about huge amount of things where nobody has really talked in that detail. Okay. That's why this book is very famous. And this book itself is made up of what you call recyclable material. Recyclable ink and recyclable covers and everything. It's a heavy book. In fact it's a small page but it's a heavy book. Okay. The content is really, really superb. This authors was Michael Browngart and William McDonough. It's a beautiful book, guys. Credit to Cradle is one of the unforgettable books I would say you can read as a designer. Okay. Another book, what I would say is Habit. It was written by Duhigg. Okay. One of the best books. What a designer who's designing a big level of products or maybe services should remember that it becomes a very good book before you read Atomic Habits and other things. A lot of people tell Atomic Habits is that. But Habits is one of the primary book which if you read you will get much more clearer idea on holistic perspective of how certain market products are being sold. Okay, so this is the horon books guys. I suggest you more than 10 books so you can, you can read about it. And let's come to the software part now. Okay. So the very first software is you can use all the Adobe Creative Cloud tools. Okay. It includes some free trials also sometimes multiple plans are available starting from what you call 12amonth. If you are a professional you can try that and you can use a software called Sketch. It's mostly focused on illustration and it's a vector based design for majorly interface and experience designers. Okay. There is a 30 day free trial available and you can find nine month, nine dollar per month plan. Also it's a little cheaper one which students can able to afford. And you can find another very good tool which is figma. Why figma is beautiful, it's because it's a collaborative interface design tool where individuals and small teams and startups can use free plans. Is definitely available. Starting plan comes with 12amonth. You can use it up. There's another software called webflow. I have not tried this webflow but I mean it's. It's said that this is one of the best in class website builder software which every designer and user interface designers can use it. Okay, you can try it out. So it comes with a free plan also you can do it. But what I do for designing website is wix. I also suggest my students to do WIX website. You can. It's a very beautiful thing and nowadays WIX is coming with AI enabled features. You can do that. And there is a beautiful thing called wix Studio free account. You can try that. Okay. If you're not able to pay certain amount, you can try with a free account and you can go for the paid one later. So webflow is one of the good thing for web design and development without coding. So it comes with a lot of good feature. And you can find another tool called humint. H U E M I N T. It's a AI powered color palette generation along with Adobe colors. Okay, so it's a free tool, you can definitely use it. It's a beautiful thing. If you wanted to go for a higher level. It's a $12 a month particular plan which you wanted to take. You can take it. Okay, so this is all about the softwares. So now let's go into another software which is Adobe XD. In specific I talked about Adobe suits but Adobe XD is very good, similar to Figma. But I would say Adobe XD is very professional because it's used by a lot of industries when it comes to privacy. When it comes to data security, I would normally suggest Adobe XD is the best one compared to any other thing because it's an industry protected software. Okay. And there is another tool called InVision. It's a tool for using some prototypes, mind mappings, user testing. It's a collaborative Tool. It comes with free version. It's a beautiful tool. You can try it out. There is a pro plan also which is like $9 per month. But this is really good. You can start off with there is another tool called Miro. It's a completely free one and you can able to find lot many mind mapping options and user flow diagrams and creating wireframes and project plans and collaborative research environment. So it's a complete big canvas where you can use all these materials in a more use useful way. And let me now go into another part part of this partner which is design research tools. See first you can use Chat GPT. It's a very good tool for doing your user research. And you can use Google Bard. You can verify the data because Bard offers certain features like let's say comparative study and checking with Google Online sources. Whereas Chat GPT ChatGPT4 has this feature, but that's a little expensive. Like it's $20 a month. Where you can use Bard, which is free of cost for this particular thing. And the second thing is what you can use is you can use something called SurveyMonkey. It's an online survey and questionnaire tool where you can collect information from the user and get it. Okay. And you can use Google Forms and Microsoft Forms also which is free of cost. But SurveyMonkey has a limited benefits in free of cost which you can use. The other tool but I will say for research is Usability Hub. In five seconds you can able to find lot of usability parameters. And you know what, this is a first impression analysis tool. How much people are going and clicking in that particular option, how much people are touching this area. You can find heat maps taken out of it. So that heat map means like let's say if your mobile is there where the user touches majority of the time when your application page is displayed like people if they touch for like button or people if they touch for payment button. So you can, you can decide, okay, a lot of people are prompting to pay at this page. So you can inbuilt that screen and you can able to accentuate it better. So this kind of a. What do you call psychological behavior analysis. The Usability Hub will be able to give you guys. Okay. Usability Hub is nowadays termed as listnr L Y S S N A and I'm pasting you the link. Also you can try there is another tool called hotjar where you can find heat maps and session recordings for a particular user behavior. And you can even define that freehand and you can check it Out. Okay. It's a very beautiful tool. There is another tool called Maze. It's a split a B testing method and website optimization tool where you can try your free account and you can try it out how it's really going to work. And you can find another software called research tool called Look Back. So video user interviews and feedback collection majorly is being done using this look back tool. And there is another tool called User testing. So when you're doing a user testing remotely and if you wanted to do some usability studies, you can set parameters very clearly. It is very similar to Usability hub where you can find lot of materials which is related to testing parameters and components where you can send the form and people can able to give your insights so that you can find. Let me recap this particular what you call information, whatever I've given you. Okay, so the first is user testing. The other one is usability help. The other one is Lookback. The other one is Maze and the other one is survey Monkey Google forms and teams. Next let's come to the wireframing and prototyping tools. So pretty much we have covered with Adobe HD figma, but let me add one more tool which is Balsamic Balsa M I Q See, it's not mandatory to learn all these things. We wanted two tools which is really good and very well. You can adapt all the interfaces quickly. Guys, it doesn't take months or years to learn all these things. Okay? It takes only four hours of without any interruption to learn Adobe xd. It takes another three hours to learn figma. It takes completely one week. You can learn Photoshop Illustrator Figma along with Adobe XD and you can become a great, what you call designer to build that particular thing in software. So it's not a big deal. So do not get worried about it. It's all learnable software. So every weekend plan one or two tools to learn it on that weekend, let's say Saturday or Sunday without spending much time. Four, four hours, eight hours. So that you become more comfortable. The moment you become comfortable on using the tools, it gives you psychologically a great confidence. Even though sometimes tools like Balsamic is not really required. But people really do feel it's important because they, they feel it's going to be very important when it comes to real time tool making abilities. Okay, and the other tool which I'll be suggesting you is Proto IO. So whenever a prototyping is being done, if they wanted to test for a user, if they wanted to find a real feedback, how the User is behaving. Proto IO is very much useful. You can create a free account and try it out. Now, assuming your entire software is already built, your methods is already defined. So this becomes a testing tool. Okay. There is a tool specifically for checking out product field testing. Okay. So whenever you're using. So you can use something called product Board. So this is a very good product management tool and it's a road mapping tool like let's say if you're building a big project with multiple people having multiple tasks. So this product board can help you define rules and have a timeline tracker. Same like they're using Excel sheet in a Gantt chart and everything. Right. So it's a very good productivity and product management tool. There is something called Trello. It's a collaborative product management tool where you can use teams collaboration, where you can have video calls, where you can have some conversation, where you can have a grouped conversation between different, different teams to manage and effectively assign tasks for them. It's very much similar to Slack. Slack is a very good tool where startups and small scale industries and even design studios many times use this tool. It becomes more convenient to track your project management and you can have a very good conversation flowing across your teams and things like, let's say it's like Microsoft Teams like what big corporates use it again, Microsoft Teams is also very good productivity improvement tool. Very contract. There is something called Asana where you can assign some tasks, where you can create some kind of a particular set of templates and format so that it's assigned to different people. And it, when it approves, it goes for the next level. When it approves, it goes for the next level and next level. So that when it's a hierarchy is made in design organization for tracking multiple activities and learning materials. This is a very good productivity tool which is called Asana. There are some good online materials also where you can go and learn LinkedIn materials and you can choose very good mentorship program, a personalized mentorship program I would always suggest because it's very, very engaging and it's very interesting because if somebody is monitoring you, you become more accountable, you take it more seriously. And when you take a paid membership course, you pay really serious attention. If something is given free, normally we don't take it very seriously. Right. Sense of urgency. And if it's paid, we will definitely take action and do it. You know, my mentor used to always say, people, when they pay money, they take action. When they take action, they get results. When they get results, they become successful. Simple. So you need to really understand this. So join a very good program or you can even join a very good highly paid online program or whatever based on your capability and you can start learning and you know what, compared to free material, you will pay more close attention and accountable for this. There is something called blogging website. Okay, you can go and read a magazine which is called a smashing magazine, which covers a lot of web design and development articles. You can read Medium blogs. You can read a blogging website called a list part, a list apart. Okay? So it explores the design development content strategy in a more different way. There is something called UX Design Institute blog where you can find a lot of insights relating to user experience design, which is more trendy and it's more what you call in in line with the industry's requirement in the latest trains. Okay, you can read something called Creative Block Creative Bloq. It covers a lot of 3D illustrations and design so that you can find it in online. You can conveniently read it in your phone phone in your website, in your tablet or whatever methods it's there. And the last blogging website is Nielsen Norman Group. It's a beautiful website and you can find hundreds of blogs and articles about it guys. Okay, you can find a lot of articles related to usability, user experience, usability principles, design thinking approach, because Don Norman was the founder of it. And the kind of material what they're posting is really good. I've checked a lot of materials in them. It's beautiful. And particularly when you're subscribing it to a blog called Medium. Medium is a very qualitative blog, I would say, in that there are premium content creators who create a lot of good stars. The very first blog article which you can follow in Medium is Principles of Design by Interaction Design Foundation. Second is you can read about 10 laws of UX by John Yablonsky. Okay? He has his own perspective representing that. And you can read a blog called Psychology of Design by Daniel Squat. Don't worry, I'll be pasting you the link. You can go through that. And fourth is a guide to Color and Design by Alex Bigman. These are all some very good standard blogs which has been shared by a lot of people. Good content is there. And you can read a blog called Understanding the Gestalt Principles and Design by Jerry Cowell. And you can check out the blog by Design for Change. Also, I posted on 12 blog articles where you can go and study about and how you can able to improve it. I have shared my own Perspectives on taking away for it. Okay, this is about the blog websites. When it comes to movies ajagdish you have so far suggested a lot of softwares, research tools, productivity tools, this, that. But can you make it more entertaining? Let me tell you guys, there are very good design movies which you can watch, okay? The very first movie is Objectified. The second movie is Helvetica. Okay. It examines the font impacts on design. An objectified is a world of industrial design and product designers, okay. Physical products majorly and the principles remain same. If you understand that you can very well do it for additional product as well. The third is design and thinking. It explores the thinking principle. It's a beautiful, beautiful, beautiful material guys. In fact they have a corporate version, they have a student version also you can able to purchase from them. Okay, It's a design and thinking and there is a beautiful Netflix series which is called Abstract of Design. Okay, and. And in the abstract of design there is a big episodes like five different episodes are there covering experimental design, graphic design, illustration design, photographic design. And you can find that season one and season two. Also if you're a Netflix Netflix subscriber you can find that it's a documentary covering all the different different big designers like Paula Sheeler and so many more designers. Epic works has been covered as a case study along with their life history. You can go and watch a movie called Art and copy. It's. It's 2009 it released. It's a chronicles of advertising industries creative revolution. You can watch it. It's a beautiful movie. And you can watch another movie called Design Disrupt us. It's like free of cost. You can watch that two hours movie. It's a wonderful, wonderful guys, you know what around 10,000 plus different design professionals and their expertise and their what you call the kind of tonneau over what they made in the design industry closing to almost US$2 billion I guess. So that particular expertise has been given us a nutshell in two hours movie. It's a very good movie. In fact I used to suggest for my students and we watched it along. It's a very good movie you can watch out which is called Design Disruptors. Okay so if you're watching TV channels and program I'll tell you one classical channel, okay, which is called Genius of design by BBC BBC2. It examines the design history and innovation. Absolutely wonderful. You can watch another program called what you call which is called Bauhaus Design Principle Bowers Design. It's split into three different parts. It's available in YouTube, you can watch that. Okay, if you're an Amazon prime customer, you can watch a movie called the Creative Brain. It explores the creative process of a brain and how does it work and how designers can able to tap that particular creativity and use it to design a meaningful product. And you can watch something called Netflix Abstract, which is Art of design. I mean I already covered this. And you can watch World's most Extraordinary Homes by Netflix. It covers a lot of design exploration, architecture, interior designs, where you can get more inspirations being a designer. And one of the best important channel is how it's made. It's a science channel guys. You can, you can watch manufacturing and design process and other things in that particular how it's made. Okay, so it's a nat Geo and BBC also screens this sometimes it's available in the YouTube as well. And there is something called a very beautiful channel in Nat Geo which is called how stuffs are made. Okay, like let's say a big skyscraper. So maybe a car manufacturing industry or maybe a tooling industry. So as a designer, when you watch this kind of a creative perspective, what happens is when your product and design goes into an industry, how does it really takes up? How does people really mass manufacture it? How does people really what you call accept and understand it? Okay, this is a very beautiful thing and you can watch something called Science of Stupid. Being a designer, it's very important to understand how people sometimes behave little funny and what you call a very stupid way of saying as the name suggests the program it's a signs of stupid normally be an adjoin post. It's a very good series where you can laugh, you can learn and you can even think how as a designer you can able to do it. Okay, so around 30 plus tools we have given and books and materials and YouTube channels and reference of podcast has been given. So I hope definitely this would have given you a lot of clarity in using these things. Again there is a caution, you don't have to get overwhelmed with a lot of things. Choose one or good tools, one or two good tools. Try to implement it in your weekend and see how it works. If it really feels good and comfortable, you can definitely upgrade for the higher paid version. Until then you can use a free version because every tool, whatever I told you has a free version of it. Okay, so thank you so much guys for listening to this podcast. I hope it would have given you some clarity. Give me a best star rating in Spotify and Apple. If you think this has added value, subscribe me for further episodes. Thank you. Take care. Bye Bye.