Axure RP 8 - still going strong

I was trained on Sketch at the beginning of my career, and when I transitioned jobs, I argued for Sketch, since I wasn't familiar with Axure. Now that I have been using Axure for 2+ years, I don't think I'll ever go back to Sketch. Axure saves me time while allowing me to communicate design concepts and information architecture.

Pros

One of the best things about Axure is that you can write text within elements. In comparison, in Sketch, you need to add an additional text element. For low-mid fidelity wireframes, Axure is way more efficient than Sketch. The second best thing is how well balanced the features are- everything is there in one place. You got your creation covered (complex interactions included), you got the generation of a share link without needing to export the screens to another app, you can also collect feedback via the discussion panel. Widgets are customizable, there's plenty of user help available on the web regarding how to do various things... Axure is great for rapid prototyping.

Cons

Collaboration features are mostly non-existent, but that can be solved by storing the .rp file in a cloud, such as Google Drive Stream. I wish the widget names would save when pressing 'enter' on the keyboard instead of clicking out of the field, but that is a minor issue. In Sketch, I do still prefer the way they use symbols, in Axure the masters vs panels seem to be a bit convoluted.

The Best Software for UX Work

Axure allows us to quickly and easily put together high fidelity prototypes to share within internal and external stakeholders. The functionality is powerful enough that our prototypes often get mistaken for full working builds of software.

Pros

- Extremely powerful prototyping toolset - All the "fit and finish" features you need from Illustrator or Sketch

Cons

- Team and cloud functionality needs more features - Documentation and customer support isn't always helpful

I wouldn't buy it again

I used Axure several times, once for a smartwatch-project, the other times for smartphone app-projects. Then I switched to InVision. Why? Because it was painful to handle Axure. I don't like it and it feels like the developers didn't like what they do. And here's the problem. I want to love creating prototypes and I want to love the prototypes. But I can't love it all using Axure.

Pros

You can create good prototypes for many different devices with Axure and it will do as it should with routing, sound and functions. Through some lines of code it will offer you more if you like and if you find it.

Cons

The user interface is not the strength of Axure and the prototypes you get don't look good. Yes, it's a prototype, but a good look - somehow - or a good feeling would support to carry over what you want to create. Instead you get something that looks like it stands on legs made of wooden sticks. Crafting the prototypes isn't feeling fine and you can waste a lot of time because it doesn't feel natural.

Great tool loosing its market

Honestly, it is a great tool of its purpose.

Pros

It is by far the best tool to create hi-fi interactive prototypes. No other tool comes close to its features to create interactive behaviors. These prototypes are so good they can be used for intensive user testing, as users are not able to tell them apart from real apps or websites. I can mock with Axure in a couple of weeks what would take a dev team months to code and deploy. And that can save huge amounts of development costs.

Cons

Learning to use Axure is complicated. Mostly because of the ton of options, and partly because it is difficult to discover how the internal mechanics operate. But the biggest con is that when I look into the UX design job market, practically there are no positions requesting knowledge of Axure. Everything is Sketch or Figma, that while great to create UI mockups are no rivals of Axure when creating interactive prototypes. However Axure has lost totally its market appeal. Probably Axure should have bought Sketch or Figma when it realized it was going to be overwhelm by these tools in the UI authoring arena. Also unlike Sketch, Axure does not have a 3rd party plugin market. And this closedness has reduced further more its utility.

Puissant mais complexe

La prise en main a exigé de longues heures de pratique et de lectures de tutoriels. Puis c'est la phase de découverte du logiciel qui exige beaucoup de temps pour comprendre toutes les arcanes du logiciel. Enfin, après de très longues heures de pratique on découvre un monde caché de fonctionnalités qui libèrent la créativité et la finesse de création de prototypes HD. Une fois le logiciel maîtrisé, il permet de tester des concepts rapidement ou encore de tester des workflow complexes avec des utilisateurs, ravis d'une telle richesse fonctionnelle.

Pros

Possibilités de créer des prototypes très riches et ajouter des micro-comportements très utiles pour mener des tests utilisateurs complets.

Cons

La courbe d'apprentissage du logiciel est longue et parsemée d'embuches. Le plaisir de travailler avec Axure est un chemin long mais le résultat est incomparable avec d'autres outils.