Top 5 Tools For Web Design: A Designer’s Guide

Just like any other undertaking, web design necessitates both perseverance and inspiration. Previously, website creation was the task solely of hardcore coding specialists, but today the landscape is drastically different. There are tons of tools and services meant for simplifying the process of website creation, including development, design, layout, etc. Some of the instruments have a pretty visual interface that lets users drag and drop images, links, and text as if it was a poster or banner design. 

This guide will focus on five of the most beautiful web design and development tools available today. If you are an individual web designer or one of the professional web design agencies looking for tips on practical and up-to-date tools, this article will help you get a clearer idea of what you need to boost your work process. 

Plus, if you’re standing at the threshold of your first time creating a website, it’s best not to rush into getting a payment plan and first get around to a trial version of a tool you consider useful. 

Web Design Tool #1. Adobe Dreamweaver CC 

Adobe Dreamweaver is a time-honored tool that lets users code website design even if one knows close to nothing about programming. This tool works via a combination of HTML editing and visual editing. In other words, it’s rather simple, even for beginners. Moreover, although coding a website design will require a bit more effort from you than just tinkering with a pre-existing template, you can at rest assured that you create the look you need and don’t have to circumvent some other person’s design terms.

Dreamweaver has one particularly useful feature, which is it lets you create a responsive design. That is, Dreamweaver will optimize the website you create for both desktop and mobile devices. It is particularly useful in terms of user experience improvement – people will be able to view your site without trouble on computers, smartphones, and tablets. 

In the event you are a more experienced user, you will enjoy such features as multi-monitor support for Microsoft Windows, Chromium Embedded Framework (CEF) support for working with CSS and HTML5. Plus, Dreamweaver supports Git, allowing direct source code editing from within the tool. 

Web Design Tool #2. Bluefish 

Bluefish is one of the tiniest web design instruments out there nowadays. With an installer weighing just 53MB, the tool sets up within mere moments. Although Bluefish has just a simple text-only interface, it works for both advanced web designers and rookies: it features clear-cut toolbars, syntax highlighting, and user-adjustable menus. 

The tool is principally focused on HTML, but also supports a wide range of other languages, such as Java, PHP, JavaScript, CSS, XML, and SQL. Some web designers will enjoy this tool more than tools with a visual interface because it helps create much cleaner codes. 

Bluefish includes an outstanding search feature that lets users find text across many projects. It also provides a simple way of managing tens and even hundreds of documents simultaneously. But, even though you can work with remote files through this tool, it doesn’t support direct web page upload via FTP at the moment. 

Bluefish is a practical and straightforward tool, but it may take some time for you to get used to it. It is available for free, so you can tinker with it for as long as you want and not bother with buying a premium version. 

Web Design Tool #3. Atom Text Editor 

Atom Text Editor is an open-source tool for code development, design, and editing. Atom Text Editor is simple to use, and it provides developer tools for process optimization. The embedded packet manager allows adding features right from Github. Moreover, you can enjoy a drag-and-drop feature when you need to add new files into the boil. 

Although many people might get frightened by the thought of having to code if they lack programming experience, you still may have to do some direct code editing. It provides an additional layer of creativity to your project since you get a chance to customize code existing software add-ons’ code to add all the necessary features to your site. 

Atom is available for free, and it includes a wide range of libraries that can be very useful when designing a website from scratch. Moreover, you can customize this tool’s interface and install third-party themes that seem more comfortable for you to work with. As for support, you will be astounded at the community that has developed around Atom. 

Web Design Tool #4. Webflow 

Installing and keeping the software on a computer is not always convenient, especially if you travel with a laptop a lot. So, cloud-based services can be of great help, and Webflow is one of them. It helps let people start in on web design even without knowing anything about coding. 

Webflow is a cross-platform, web-based tool that prioritizes the ‘smart carelessness’ concept. In a nutshell, you deal with a simple and clear drag-and-drop interface that lets you add texts, images, and other elements onto a web page via one of the free templates. 

Unlike many What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG) editors, Webflow allows creating clean and smooth code even without having any coding experience whatsoever (and, yes, the tool provides several expertise options during setup). The service’s automation tool generates the necessary HTML/CSS codes for the user. At the same time, additional embedded pages let you seamlessly introduce changes to separate elements. 

However, Webflow is not quite suitable for e-commerce websites, as it lacks respective plugins and marketing tools. 

Web Design Tool #5. WordPress 

WordPress is a bit different from all the other options listed in this article. The thing is that it’s not a web design/development tool, but rather a content management system or CMS. This system has its advantages since you can set a website within a few minutes (roughly speaking). A lot of web hosting packages have a one-click WordPress install in their control panels. However, even without this feature, this CMS is rather simple to get around with. 

WordPress has a very user-friendly back end for management and administration. The system has a wide range of ready-made design templates that you can use for new websites. There are also free and paid site templates that you can install by making a couple of mouse clicks. 

If you want to deal with your design and concepts, WordPress templates often have drag-and-drop features built into the framework that let you customize the site to the point where it looks like nothing else on the web. It is an excellent option if you have little to no coding knowledge and skills. 

All in all, WordPress is a quite simple CMS that almost any interested web user can figure out. If you need to set a website quickly, this is one of the most common options today. The incredibly rich array of templates and vast community allow one to create surprisingly unique websites. 

Conclusion 

Whether you’re a beginner web designer or a web design agency that looks for ways to optimize the design process, there are tons of options out there. The tools mentioned in this article will help you do it even if you want to design websites but have little to no essential coding experience or even knowledge. You and your team can handle a wide range of web design projects, creating unique, responsive, and functional websites via the tools described above and plugins that can help with them.