Turn design files into live websites without code | RapidUI Review

Introduction

Most of the prototyping tools available today provide the best communication mediums between different stakeholders in the digital products design process. The platforms coupled with their inbuilt features are useful when linking and harmonizing the efforts of designers, developers, and product managers in various web or mobile app building projects. To achieve results that mirror your specifications and expectations utilizing a popular tool as RapidUI leads to a better design experience.

What is RapidUI?

RapidUI is a design-to-web tool that enables users to transform design files into live websites. The tool relies on automated front-end development which allows designers to convert their work into fully-functional websites minus even a single line of code. RapidUI utilizes artificial intelligence and machine learning to turn Photoshop designs and Sketch files to highly interactive web interfaces. It means from your designs you can create websites that look, feel and performs exactly to your specifications.

Features

Interactive design

The platform provides limitless options as far as making your designs interactive, animated, and responsive is concerned. RapidUI makes every element in your creations appear and feel exactly as you want. For instance, your map designs get converted into interactive maps, squares to buttons, background images to parallax and more.

Animations and interactive elements

RapidUI allows users to give life to static elements thanks to the predefined set of interactions and plug-and-play animations. This enables designers to experience their design components in action and see how they will look for the end user. You can transform buttons, links, maps or forms fully interactive in a few clicks. The animation and interactive features ensure a delightful user experience in the end product which is important for websites.

Collaboration

The tool is tailored to enable teams to focus on wide-scale iteration and frictionless feedback management. This ensures solutions and problems can be solved before embarking on building designs. RapidUI’s collaborative features eliminate time wastage by enabling prompt feedback gathering. Instead of sharing and waiting for reviews, team members utilize more efficient feedback sessions where contentious design aspects are drawn on the whiteboard.

Hosting

To enhance efficiency, RapidUI comes with a content management system and in platform hosting options. RapidUI sites are hosted Amazon’s CloudFront which ensures access via a worldwide network of data centres. On the other hand, the CMS allows team members working on a project and their clients to edit assets such as text, images, and videos without any complications. This implies you can work on a product from start to finish on the platform exclusively.

Generate code automatically

The platform works harmoniously with Sketch and Photoshop files. When you upload your designs they will be translated into semantic HTML/CSS and JS automatically.

Adapt to every screen

RapidUI’s responsive toolkit makes it easy to tailor designs that fit every desired screen size. You can achieve responsive experiences by defining breakpoints on the original design or uploading design files with specific resolutions.

Publish

Take your design online by publishing the resulting website with a custom RapidUI domain name.

Pros:

• Compatible with both Mac and Windows
• Requires no coding knowledge
• Impressive collaboration features
• Easy to learn and use
• Independent with hosting and content management capability
• Reasonable overhead

Pricing plans 

RapidUI allows users to build designs into websites for free. However for you to enjoy functions such as export or publishing you have to shift to a paid plan. The packages are as follows:-

Starter

• Free
• Enables you to create website prototypes and lets you see and feel it when it goes live.
• 1 user
• Allows up to 3 projects
• Publish to rapidui.io

Pro plan

• Costs $35 when billed annually or $39 per month
• Permits team collaboration on live projects and prototypes
• Allows code export for further development
• 1 user
• Unlimited projects
• Publish to rapidui.io
• Collaboration enabled
• Code export
• Unlimited projects
• Add or edit anything, anytime via the CMS even after going live

Hosting Plan

• $12 per site per month
• Publish websites without coding
• Enjoy anytime access and simple project editing
• Inline CMS
• Publish to a custom domain
• Secure hosting on Amazon CloudFront
• Built-in HTTPS

Note: Hosting plans are sold as an add-on per project.

Conclusion

RapidUI extends typical design potential with its wide array of functions. Any designer should be in a position to build a highly interactive and user-friendly website on the platform without any serious limitations.