5 FREE Tools That Save Me Time as a UX Designer
You guys already know about Figma, right?
UX design is a heavily tool-based industry. It’s a wonder how some tools make it across our radar at all. I’m writing to introduce you to some new or nonconventional UX design tools that helped me improve my skills and save time as a designer. All of which are free! Note that these aren’t specific for designing for UX, such as Figma or Miro. These assist with productivity so that you can spend more time creating intuitive designs.
GoFullPage Google Chrome Extension
Have you ever wanted to replicate or save an image of an entire inspirational webpage? You may have screenshotted each visible area on the screen to piece together into a page on Figma. You may have zoomed out to 200% on your web browser to screenshot the entire webpage. Well, let me tell you that you no longer have to spend those 5 minutes aligning blurry screenshots anymore. There is a Chrome extension out there that is the best tool I’ve ever used to save me time preparing for design practice.
It is the GoFullPage Chrome Extension. I first found out about it while seeking portfolio advice from a multi-decade UX designer. To demonstrate the ideal length of a portfolio, the designer clicked on this extension and I watched in awe their screen share as the knowledge of this tool was bestowed upon me. “So you’d want your portfolio to be about this long,” said the designer as they showed me the single image screenshot of their own portfolio. Two years later, I still have this lovely tool sitting on my web toolbar.
In the example below, I used GoFullPage to screenshot the entire webpage of Gantri’s shop page. I placed this image into a frame on Figma to test out various-sized column grids to determine its layout. This helped me to better understand the website designer’s decisions as to how they fit the feelings that Gantri hopes to evoke. I wrote another Medium article about it. Go check it out!
UXcel
Speaking of learning design principles, UXcel is a web-based app where you take courses and earn certifications about anything UX design-related. What I enjoy about this program is how quickly and effectively you can learn. You can earn a certificate in just a few hours. I earned three certifications in the span of a month by studying during evenings and weekends!
By learning basic design principles, you save time on your UX design while creating usable screens. You can learn the basic principles such as using grids and negative space so that you don’t end up with a non-user-friendly design and have to start over. You can learn from more advanced courses like HTML to better align with developers and know what questions to ask.
Not only does learning save you time in the long run, but each lesson is short and gamified. Each lesson is at most 10 minutes long, which adds up to courses such as “UI Components” or “HTML/CSS.” They incorporate gamification, meaning there are progress bars, quizzes, competition amongst students, and clear goals to accomplish. This app wastes no time in getting you to learn in the best environment possible.
I should note this: there is no “right” way to design. However, you can learn the tried and true methods of what makes a design user-friendly. Plus, by knowing the “rules,” you can experiment with breaking them to draw the user’s attention. I certainly wished I had learned these principles and laws before facing a blank screen on Figma! By knowing reliable methods, designers don’t have to figure out effective methods from scratch.
Notion
Notion is a document-based CMS that helps you organize your personal or work projects. To me, is the best way to manage your UX design projects. My favorite part is how Notion can display tabular data in various ways. Different views include Kanban boards, tables, timelines, calendar, and gallery view. Whatever data you have, there are various ways to display it!
How do I use it? For one, I use the Kanban board to track the progress of my job applications. When I get an update from HR regarding my application, I drag a card over to its appropriate phase. I love updating the progress of each job application because it’s so satisfying to move their respective card over to “submitted” or “onsite interview.” It truly solidified the gratifying feeling of having my hard work pay off.
Another way I use Notion is to manage collaborative UX design projects. I used Notion’s pleasant documentation aesthetic to write minutes, organize action items for teammates, and embed deliverables. I currently volunteer as a UX designer for a local non-profit organization called Ripple Effect Dragon Boat Foundation. Thanks to Notion’s ease of sharing data to view or edit, I was able to be aware of teammates’ progress and update them with mine. We could create action items easily during meetings, and prioritize them using Notion’s property types to classify data by dates or labels.
One thing I should advise is to keep your data visually simple! As you might see in the action items screenshot below, I tried to cram all the relevant meetings in the second column and it just ended up being congested and not tempting to read. Keep your data easy to read so that you can gain the most productivity from it!
Lastly, my favorite way to use Notion in UX design is to showcase my UX portfolio! I use their gallery view and the documentation feature to share my case studies. I wrote a whole Medium article about it. Please check it out!
Calendly
Have you ever played email tag when it comes to scheduling a coffee chat or UX design interview? Not only is valuable time wasted, but it’s extra frustrating that this is still a problem in our technology-heavy world.
As soon as I am asked about my availability, I send the recipient my branded Calendly link. There is a free version of this tool that allows users to have one type of meeting to share after their trial ends. The free version is packed with cool features, like the ability to block folks from scheduling a meeting with you less than 18 hours beforehand, or the ability to integrate specific Google calendars that best indicate your schedule. Plus, when you've been given someone else’s Calendly link, you can see times where your availability and theirs overlap.
Calendly also automatically sends to your recipients the appropriate Zoom or Google Meet links for video calls. This way, you avoid having to follow up with recipients with an updated event that includes a video call link.
Now, if only I can send my ultra-professional looking Calendly link to my friends for social events…
Grammarly
Let me repeat the words of those Youtube ads, “Have you heard about Grammarly?” Though their ads may seem gimmicky, this tool has been essential for me. Grammarly can save you time editing your UX writing copy or your cover letter for UX design jobs! Their free version alone is packed with amazing features. You can use their website to enter copy, select what type of tone to use in your writing, and what kind of audience will be reading it. In addition, as I type on this Medium article, the Grammarly Chrome integration at the bottom of this text box shows me, using a cute emoji, that my writing is looking friendly and confident.
I should note that this tool doesn’t fix all of your typos or grammar mistakes. But it certainly does a good job at it. It’s that friend you need to look over your work and tell you about run-ons or misspellings. However, you don’t feel obligated to buy this friend a coffee as a ‘thank you’!
Conclusion
Certainly, you don’t need any of these tools to be efficient in your designs. But they definitely do help you save time! There are also Figma plug-ins to consider, something that is also free on Figma’s free program. If you’d like an article about great Figma plug-ins, let me know!
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Thank you for reading, and have a great rest of your day!
