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Design Toolbox
_{An opinionated list of tools for service design teams}

How it works • Contributing • Toolkits • Bins • Tool list • Website
v2.1.0

Finding the best set-up is hard, especially when there's new tools what feels like every day. Design Toolbox eliminates decision fatigue by only listing recommended tools.

Each recommended toolkit is named for a workstream, such as UX, Front-End, etc. Find the right kit for your stream, scan through the tools and grab whichever you need. Other useful lists and utilities can be found in the bins.

Tools are judged on the following rules of thumb. The rules leave room for an opinion on which is best, so that you don't have to spend as much time evaluating each tool. In principle, if you agree with the rules, you can trust the list.

Rules of thumb

Universal > Mac/iOS > Other

Native > Web

Open Source > Proprietary

Free > Paid > Subscription

Open File Formats > File Portability > Vendor Lock-In

Established > Challenger > Beta

For any size team > For big teams > For small teams

Fewer tools > More tools

A full list of all tools can be found after the toolboxes. The full list contains more information on each tool, including any killer features, dealbreakers and a link to the source.

If you have a suggestion, correction, the list is out of date or you think the recommendation is plain wrong, you can raise an issue.

All tools need sharpening once in a while, so contribution is welcome. If you just want to make a suggestion or correction, raising an issue is the way to go. If you're comfortable with Github you can also open a pull request to suggest a change.

• Abstract
• After Effects
• Bodymovin AE Plugin
• Catalog
• Fontbase
• Invision Cloud
• Invision DSM
• Invision Studio
• Sketch

• Integrity
• Omnigraffle
• OmniOutliner
• QuickDBD

• Lookback
• Miro
• OptimalWorkshop

• Axure RP
• Framer
• Invision Cloud
• Miro
• OmniGraffle
• Sketch
• Sketch.systems
• Twine

• Axe
• Colour Oracle
• Contraste

• Airtable
• Atom
• Scrutiny
• Social Sizes
• WebScraper

• Catalog
• CodeSandbox
• Lottie
• Pa11y CI
• Visual Studio Code
• Wakamai Fondue

• Google Analytics
• Google Lighthouse
• Heap
• Hotjar
• Mixpanel
• Optimizely
• Pa11y Dashboard

• Fontbase
• Illustrator
• InDesign
• Photoshop

• Lightroom
• Photoshop

• Brave
• G Suite
• Notion

• Miro
• Notion
• Resilio Sync
• Slack

• Airtable
• Harvest
• Jira
• Whereby

• AWS
• BitBucket
• CloudFlare
• Digital Ocean
• Jenkins
• Octopus Deploy
• New Relic
• Pingdom
• TeamCity

• AppSpector
• Browserstack
• tota11y

• AutoCAD
• SketchUp

• Autodesk 3DS Max
• Autodesk Maya
• blender
• Cinema 4D

• Mailchimp