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Sketch's design flow consolidation

Sketch is a highly regarded design tool for web designers, UXers, and anyone working with vector-based graphics. It was one of the first tools to entirely focus on interface and web design. This makes it lightweight, uncluttered, and pleasingly faster than the likes of Photoshop—a more general purpose graphics tool.

But up until now, Sketch has been a lonely design island. Users have had to work with convoluted processes and additional tools to prototype and collaborate with their Sketch files and let others in. This is a consequence of it being a self-hosted design tool versus a cloud-based solution like UXPin

This is a big problem for Sketch's users. But realizing this is a dominant blocker for their customers, Sketch has incorporated live prototyping and cloud-based collaboration into its tool in a seamless way.

Why this is really good UX:

  • Sketch is popular because it's a lean design machine. Every feature, function, and option has a justifiable reason to be there. There's no surplus. Additions are only made when there is a valid problem or user need, which in this case is live prototyping and cloud collaboration. Sketch has solved this simply with no frills or surplus. This gives users more power at no expense to the Sketch experience designers know and love.
  • The prototyping function matches the conventions of what's already on the market to make it familiar and intuitive. You simply click the element you want to make interactive and drag the line to its destination. This way, users can hit the ground running.
  • The cloud-collaboration function is very simple. It can be set up in three steps, and then every document can be uploaded at a click of a button. From here, the design discussion can start. Each artboard has its own chat box for easy team collaboration.