Four prototyping tools that let you record mobile app & web prototypes
Why do I need to record my prototype?
If you’re a UX designer from London (like me), working with clients all over the world, it’s difficult to be with the customer all the time during multiple iteration. Especially, if your prototype involves complex flows, you can’t trust customer to figure out the right flow all the time. In that case, won’t you like if you could record your prototype and share a video with clients? Recently, leading prototyping tools recognised this requirement and came up to solutions to record your prototypes and share with your customers.
Okay! I gotta record my prototype. Tell me how?
There are so many screen recording software which lets’ you do that but many prototyping tools have recognized this growing need and provide an integrated solution to record it quick and collaborative.
Here’s a few tools that lets you record your prototypes ( and some of them also let you do user testing ) —
Adobe XD
Adobe recently came up with their own UI designing & prototyping tool — Adobe XD. It has integrated prototype recording option. Here’s a quick video on how to record prototype in Adobe XD.
Pros: Integrated within design tool. Works with mobile and web prototypes both. Can’t be used in user testing.
Cons: Cumbersome to manage for multiple downloaded videos. No audio support available.
Invision + LookBack
Invision is a popular prototyping & collaboration tool. It has the in-built Live Share collaboration which is helpful in real-time discussion but lacks the recording which makes it difficult to share the ideal path flow with the customer.
Lookback compliments Invision to record the prototypes with users using the SDK integration and users to download the LookBack app. They can not only record the screen but also the face and audio.
Pros: Lookback records audio and face along with the screen navigation. Can be used in user testing.
Cons: Limited to iOS prototypes. Complicated SDK integration. Reviewers have to download the app causes slow response. Doesn’t support user testing in web prototypes.
Lookback is cumbersome to set up for my test users and response is very slow.
CanvasFlip
CanvasFlip is a browser based mobile and web prototyping tool that also allows you to do quick remote user testing. it allows to record session videos in web browser directly without any app/plugin downloads.
All recorded videos are available in single dashboard and you can also record multiple versions.
Here’s how you can record “your own” prototype session:
Pros: Web based recording. Very useful in self recording and even user testing of mobile and web prototypes.
No plugin or app download needed. Works seamlessly with Sketch (CanavsFlip Sketch Plugin ). Video versioning (Private beta) — Record and manage multiple versions in single dashboard. Supports web and mobile prototypes both.
Cons: Audio capture is “paid” feature.
CanvasFlip records session videos in web-browser — no plugin or app download is needed. Awesome response in my user studies after I switched to CanvasFlip.
Marvel App
Marvel is another quite popular prototyping tool that allows you create web and mobile app prototypes. It doesn’t have any web based recording but allows you to record prototypes from the Sketch plugin.
You gotta sync mockups to web to create the prototype and come back to the plugin to record it. The output is a downloadable .MP4 video format.
Pros: Recording link is available in Sketch. Works in mobile and web prototyping, both.
Cons: No web based support. Recording is slow and sometime not responsive. No audio support. Cumbersome to manage for multiple downloaded videos. Not useful in user testing.
Conclusion
There are multiple tools which are useful at different use cases. I personally use CanvasFlip because it allows me to record my user’s videos as well and since it doesn’t need app or plugin to record any videos, the turnaround time is awesome.
I’ve tried my best to provide my unbiased views and if you have any suggestion, feel free to let me know in the comments.
Thanks for reading!
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