Web Design Tools Guide

Web Design
Web Design Tools Guide
Article by Maria Martin
Last Updated: March 13, 2024

To attract and retain visitors in an endless sea of competition, websites must provide aesthetics and functionality. The most convenient way to achieve this is by relying on web design tools.

Web design tools are directly responsible for creating all internet content — websites and all their elements.

Considering countless web design tools could confuse inexperienced users, we categorized them based on their functions and made lists of our top picks.

What To Look For in Web Design Tools?

The many web design tools available make it difficult to choose the best one for your needs. So what precisely should you be looking for?

Here are some of the features the best tools for web designers should provide to maximize your productivity and time-effectiveness:

  • Ready-to-use website templates don’t require advanced web designing skills as starting from scratch. Having adequate templates will make it easier to begin and give you an idea of how your website will look like if you choose a particular template.
  • Customization features allow you to adjust your web design and make it unique. Without a visual editor, your website could be identical to your competitors. Considering how important uniqueness is for your brand recognition and visual identity, ensure the web design tools allow you to customize fonts, colors, backgrounds, etc.
  • System integration shows if the web design tool is compatible with your current content management system (CMS). If it's not, it may be impossible to import new content without ruining the website’s performance.
  • Typography significantly affects a website’s visual identity; therefore, web design tools should offer you plenty of options for fonts and graphics that will express your style.
  • An intuitive interface is a feature that will save you a lot of time and headaches, allowing you to focus on website design instead of losing hours trying to figure out how to run the tool.
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5 Types of Tools for Web Designers

We divided the best tools for web designers into five categories:

  1. Tools for website building
  2. Tools for eCommerce
  3. Tools for marketers
  4. Tools for graphic designers
  5. Collaboration tools

Let us introduce you to our top recommendations in each category.

1. Web Design Tools for Website Building

Whether you're building websites or mobile apps, web design is essential because it attracts clients and leaves a positive first impression. Good web design also enhances user experience (UX) and website navigation.

Tools to design a website are irreplaceable in graphic design, prototypes and wireframe creation.

Here are our favorite choices:

WordPress

Did you know that 43% of websites use WordPress CMS?

This open-source CMS is easy to use and allows you to set up the website in less than an hour. WordPress offers thousands of free plugins that enable you to customize the functionalities and aesthetics of your website.

WordPress supports many integrations, extensions and themes; it is SEO-friendly, responsive, and, most importantly for beginners, it doesn’t require any coding.

Many famous websites, such as New York Times, BBC America, Microsoft and Vogue, are built on WordPress.

You can check if a site is using WordPress on the IsItWP page.

Wix

Wix is a website development tool that allows you to design, manage, and grow your online presence according to your specifications.

Wix provides three choices for website building:

  • Wix Editor is a user-friendly website builder with drag-and-drop capabilities and customizable templates, primarily designed for beginners.
  • Wix Artificial Design Intelligence (ADI) is an autonomous website builder that develops a whole site after requesting user information about their preferences.
  • Velo by Wix is an open-source platform for creating sophisticated web apps, ideal for independent web developers who provide custom website user experience.

Wix offers some attractive features: integrated online payments, multichannel sales ideal for eCommerce, SEO-friendly infrastructure and tools, built-in accessibility tools, free branding tools, analytics and reports and many others.

Squarespace

Squarespace is a website builder that allows you to create a website without coding using a drag-and-drop menu.

Simply choose a template, font and color scheme that fits your business objectives; add extensions and your website is ready to be published.

Squarespace also offers some great marketing tools to get you going and grow your audience.

Some of Squarespace’s key features are free hosting, SEO and branding tools, third-party integrations, and connected services.

The Squarespace tool is available as a web and mobile app for iOS and Android.

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2. Web Design Tools for eCommerce

eCommerce building tools create beautiful online stores that promote your brand and provide great reach, many advertising options and a beautiful user experience while responding to customer and market demand.

Here are the best web design tools for eCommerce in 2023:

Shopify

Shopify builder is the most used eCommerce tool, supporting over a million eCommerce websites in 175 countries.

It's excellent for beginners who have never built a website before because it is intuitive and customizable and doesn’t require any coding. Still, it's also appropriate for more experienced users who can use Shopify's complex CSS and design tools.

Shopify builder offers the following features:

  • More than 100 free and premium mobile-friendly themes.
  • Good social media integration and the possibility to sell directly on Facebook (including gift cards and discount codes).
  • Over a hundred add-ons and extensions for various uses, including accounting, design, marketing, orders, and shipping.
  • 24/7 support.
  • Free SSL certificate on all user plans.

BigCommerce

BigCommerce is an excellent alternative if you don't like Shopify’s interface. It offers everything you need to build a solid online presence as a foundation for your business growth.

This popular eCommerce platform provides many similar features to Shopify:

  • Many attractive mobile-friendly themes for all categories and industries, free and paid, to express your brand's unique style.
  • The unlimited number of staff accounts.
  • Coupons, discounts and social media features.
  • Possibility to sell straight on eBay, Amazon, Square POS, Facebook and Pinterest.
  • 24/7 support.

WooCommerce

WooCommerce is one of the greatest eCommerce website builders available. Install a plugin WordPress and you’ll get a complete online store.

WooCommerce lets you maintain total control over your website and make changes to every little aspect.

Here are some of WooCommerce’s most prominent features:

  • The plugin is free and installs quickly.
  • It has an intuitive interface and is easy to use (similar to WordPress).
  • User keeps complete control of the eCommerce website.
  • Great blogging tools availability.
  • Excellent selection of website themes.
  • You can add any feature using WordPress plugins.
  • Great SEO tools.
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3. Web Design Tools for Marketers

Marketers often have to multitask and handle some web design tasks, especially when designer teams are overloaded with work. They create infographics, presentations, fun images web pages and content.

Marketing purposes don't demand professional graphic design tools, such as Photoshop, because there are tools for marketers and here are our preferences:

Adobe Spark

Adobe Spark is a storytelling tool ideal for marketers, freelancers, bloggers and design enthusiasts.

It allows you to combine different types of content (images, slideshows, videos and text) — all in one independent web page without requiring technical knowledge.

Some Adobe Spark features that delight marketers are the following:

  • Ideal for creating simple but professional-looking graphic and video projects.
  • Doesn’t require design skills.
  • Integrates Adobe Stock (premium plan) and Unsplash (free version) images.
  • Free and paid versions available.
  • Ideal for all private and business users.
  • Web and mobile apps available.

Pixlr

Pixlr is an online image editing app available on the web and mobile versions.

It is ideal for private and business users, marketers, content creators, artists, photography enthusiasts and anyone who wants to improve their image content.

Unlike Photoshop and similar tools for web designers, Pixlr is intuitive and simple to use.

Pixlr's features are related to image editing: create photo collages in various styles, adjust colors, add effects, remove flaws, add text, crop and resize images, etc.

Piktochart

One of the best marketers' web design tools, Piktochart, allows you to make infographics of all kinds professionally and quickly. The platform is intuitive, easy to use and suitable for beginners and knowledgeable users.

Besides infographics, the tool offers more than 600 templates for various purposes — brochures, flyers, newspapers, presentations, and resumes. Choose your preferred style and customize it with desired fonts and color schemes.

You can download the final work in high-resolution PDF, JPG or PNG format and use it for business purposes.

Piktochart is a web-based app that works equally well on Windows and Mac OS.

4. Web Design Tools for Graphic Designers

The most precious tools any graphic designer can possess are creativity and imagination. Paired with professional web design tools (and skills to use their features), they can produce advanced graphic design solutions for various marketing and business purposes.

Take a look at some of our favorite multi-media development software:

Adobe Photoshop

The company Adobe Systems is the creator of the most popular image processing software of all times — Adobe Photoshop, the golden standard in the graphic design world.

Photoshop offers numerous image editing tools for beginners and professionals, with many free courses and tutorials. The tool’s interface is intuitive, user friendly and easy to manage.

Numerous image edits and special effects plugins are available.

It supports many file formats, such as JPG, TIF, PNG, BMP and others.

Easy integration with other Adobe programs.

Stock images, templates, fonts, videos and icons library.

Canva

Numerous web design tools can help you create and edit visual content and Canva is one of the best. This web design tool doesn't require any prior design knowledge. Even if you're a beginner, its user-friendly drag-and-drop interface will help you to create images easily.

Use Canva’s extended library of images, templates, backgrounds, and fonts to design infographics, digital postcards, posters, website graphics, social media images or funny memes.

Although it offers a great number of free templates, premium content also requires in-app purchases.

Affinity Designer

Intuitive interface makes the Affinity Designer tool an excellent choice for beginners and graphic design enthusiasts. It is perfect for website mock-ups, wireframes and other digital content creation.

Affinity Designer offers 1,000,000% zoom and you can use it for computer-aided design (CAD). Optionally, you can change the resolution level to suit your needs.

Version history is another significant aspect of this tool — you can return up to 8,000 steps!

Affinity Designer is a cost-effective alternative to Adobe Illustrator and provides many similar features that are easy to use:

  • Color encoding profiles for color management.
  • Numerous time-saving branding features and tools.
  • Real-time changes with preview options.
  • Multiple file formats.

5. Tools for Web Design Collaboration

Necessary for successful and productive teams, collaboration tools aren’t related to the design, like the previous tool groups. Still, they play an essential role in the work organization process.

Project management tools enable precise work task distribution and monitoring of their progress, which helps to meet deadlines and eases communication between coworkers.

Here are some of our favorite collaboration tools:

Asana

Asana is a work management tool available in desktop and mobile versions, used by over 100.000 paying customers across 190 countries. It is developed to increase efficiency and help teams organize, monitor and manage their work.

Key features Asana offers are:

  • Automated workflow builder to coordinate your teams
  • Board, list and timeline view to see and track your work
  • More than 200 app integration to assemble everything your team needs to communicate and collaborate in one place
  • Repetitive tasks automation
  • Real-time insight into the progress of any stream of work

Trello

More than 2 million teams worldwide use Trello web and mobile apps to organize workflow — that’s how popular this project management app is.

Trello uses the kanban board system to divide tasks into three columns: “Waiting,”, “In progress” and “Completed.”. You can expand the number of columns and assign them to suit your work demands.

Trello has an intuitive interface that makes it easy to understand and use. Therefore, this platform is excellent for beginners in using project management tools.

Figma

This all-in-one design platform offers vector graphics, vector editing and prototyping; therefore, it's ideal for creating design wireframes, website mockups and prototypes.

Figma is suitable for digital illustration, graphic design, and UX design, but also for developing software prototypes and presentations.

Great diversity in design creation and the possibility of sharing design prototypes using shareable links make Figma one of the best tools for web designers.

Within Figma, you’ll find another tool — FigJam, a whiteboard for brainstorming and team meetings. Both Figma and FigJam are free of charge for students and educators.

Web Design Tools: Final Thoughts

The right web design tools can improve and facilitate the way you organize and execute your work tasks. Choose them according to your design knowledge; over time, you’ll improve your skills and move to more advanced options.

Try the best tools for web designers we listed above and find your new favorites, or let the professional web design agency do the work for you.

Web Design Tools FAQs

What tools does a web designer use?

A web designer typically uses a variety of tools, including:

  • Graphic design software, such as Adobe Creative Suite or Sketch
  • Code editors like Visual Studio Code or Sublime Text
  • Version control systems, such as Git
  • Prototyping tools like Figma or Adobe XD

What is the best tool for designing a website?

The choice of the best tool for designing a website depends on individual preferences and project requirements. Popular options include Adobe Creative Suite, Sketch, Figma, and Adobe XD for graphic design and prototyping. On the other hand, code editors might prefer Visual Studio Code for web development.

Ultimately, the best tool is the one that aligns with the designer's workflow and project needs.

Is Figma good for web design?

Yes, Figma is widely considered an excellent tool for web design. It offers collaborative features, real-time editing, and a user-friendly interface, making it popular among designers for creating and prototyping web interfaces. Figma is particularly praised for its cloud-based platform, allowing seamless collaboration among team members and simplifying the design process.

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