Justinmind review
Whether you’re designing for the web, for desktop, or for a mobile app, one tool to consider is Justinmind. A prototyping and wireframing tool with cloud sharing and HTML export features, San Francisco-based Justinmind has built a good reputation since its initial release (way back in the Windows 7 and Mac OSX 10 days).
Settling on a new UX design tool can be difficult, so we’ve done the hard work for you. Justinmind, available for Windows and macOS, has been evaluated on price, features, ease of use, and customer support. We’ve also compared it with competing tools (desktop and browser based) to see how it fares.
Justinmind: Plans and pricing
Justinmind is available with free or paid plans. Four packages in total are available: Free, Standard, Professional, and Enterprise.
The Free version affords unlimited projects and views, vector-based design, a pen tool, UI design and wireframing, interactive forms, export to PNG, JPG, and SVG formats, and slicing for exporting specific areas of a design.
The Standard plan is $9 per editor per month with annual billing ($19 a month with monthly billing). This adds advanced interactions, form design, advanced collaboration and teams management, unified billing and admin, testing on mobile devices, variables, shared UI libraries, and unlimited cloud storage.
With the Professional plan, you get all of the above plus design masters, smart templates, data simulation, user flows, HTML export, user testing, custom branding, and priority support. This is $19 per editor per month with an annual subscription ($29 month-to-month).
Finally, the Enterprise plan adds SAML single sign-on, shared fonts, document export, management of requirements (including track changes and UI element linking), integration with Jira and AzureDevOps, and support for collaboration on your own servers. (This feature will require a custom quote.)
Perpetual, one-off licensing is also available for Justinmind’s Standard and Professional plans. These are $245 and $455 respectably. Perpetual is available for Enterprise, which again requires a quote.
You can sign up to Justinmind using Google, and payment is made via credit card. Note that the subscription will automatically renew, whether you select monthly or annual payments. The software receives automatic updates.
Justinmind: Features
Justinmind is an all-in-one tool for vector-based design and prototyping, specifically for web and mobile interfaces.
Providing tools to build your wireframe in low fidelity and build it out into a high fidelity, working demo, Justinmind lets you add forms, interactive components, and start either from scratch or using a template.
Templates can be reused, components shared, and projects exported and shared. Whether collaborating or demoing, Justinmind includes support for HTML export, visualization, simulation, and emulation of projects. You can even slice aspects of a design to share with colleagues.
Beyond the all-in-one main tool, Justinmind offers a standalone wireframing tool, as well as design templates. Some interactive UI components are also available. These can all be downloaded from the Justinmind website (check the Free resources link on the site menu).
Justinmind: Ease of Use
Justinmind has a straightforward user interface that doesn’t overwhelm. The design area can be configured to desktop, mobile, and larger displays (such as TVs), and the work previewed. Previewing the project locally and on mobile is possible, depending on the parameters of the project.
The beauty of this tool is that it is simple to get started and use. Justinmind is feature-packed, but the tidy interface and menu system keeps advanced options out of the way until required.
Justinmind: Customer support
A number of online resources are provided to help you maximize your time using Justinmind.
The support portal offers training guides, user guides, advanced how-tos, and access to forums for Q&As. Customer support is available, but this is limited to Professional and Enterprise accounts.
We checked with Justinmind’s sales team, who informed us that the response time for initial requests is within 24 hours. Meanwhile, escalated issues requiring a specialist can take longer.
Consequently, Free and Standard package users are limited to accessing the support portal. This isn’t a huge problem insofar as it is an excellent resource. However, the lack of customer support access for Standard users is puzzling.
Justinmind: The competition
Justinmind is one of many wireframe and prototyping tools currently available. Some are desktop based, others run in the browser. Browser based tools include Framer, Figma, and Proto.io. Desktop competitors for Justinmind include Balsamiq (which also has a web version) and the all-in-one mind map, flowchart, and prototyping tool Mockitt.
So, would you opt for Justinmind ahead of these competitors?
With such rich competition, it is very difficult to say. However, while Justinmind doesn’t have a web version, this shouldn’t put you off trying it out. The software delivers a collection of tools and resources that most others in this field do not. The powerful vector design tool, for example, or the interactions tool, bring a complete design experience to your PC.
And if you don’t need those advanced tools, Justinmind offers a free wireframing tool.
Justinmind: Final verdict
The UX design market is pretty competitive, with a collection of tools ranging from Canva to Sketch and alternatives like Balsamiq and Justinmind. Where this benefits the design teams and solo creatives is that they’re all trying to offer a better design experience in the creation of a better user experience.
While not as well known as some design tools, Justinmind is worth checking out. Throw in its excellent design resources and you’ve got a great tool. Justinmind might miss some of the advanced collaboration features of some of the competing applications, but otherwise Justinmind isn’t too expensive, and with its free version an option beyond the trial period, it is worth considering for long-term evaluation.
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