The 2011 version of this article recommended Photoshop, Fireworks, jQuery 1.x, Firebug, Adobe Dreamweaver, and a long-defunct browser-testing service. Adobe killed Fireworks in 2013. Firebug was absorbed into Chrome DevTools. Dreamweaver hasn't been a serious tool since the early 2010s. Even jQuery has been replaced by native browser APIs in modern frontends. Here's what's actually on a working Irish web designer's machine in 2026.
Visual design
- Figma — the de facto standard for UI and brand design. Collaborative, web-based, ubiquitous. Replaced Photoshop and Sketch for almost all UI work.
- Adobe Photoshop — still the right tool for image editing, photo retouching, and texture work. No longer used for UI design.
- Adobe Illustrator — vector logo and illustration work. Still the gold standard for printable identity.
- Affinity Designer / Affinity Photo — the credible Adobe alternative; one-time purchase rather than subscription. Increasingly common in small Irish studios for budget reasons.
Prototyping and handoff
- Figma's built-in prototyping covers 90% of cases.
- ProtoPie for richer interaction prototypes.
- Storybook for component-library documentation in front-end builds.
Code editors
- VS Code — the default. Free, fast, vast plugin ecosystem.
- Cursor / Zed — VS Code alternatives with deeper AI integration. Increasingly common in 2025-2026.
- JetBrains WebStorm — heavyweight but excellent for serious JavaScript/TypeScript projects.
Browser dev tools
- Chrome DevTools. Includes everything the old Firebug did, plus a Lighthouse audit panel that's the easiest performance / accessibility / SEO test for any page.
- Firefox DevTools. Often better at CSS Grid and Flexbox debugging than Chrome.
- Safari Web Inspector. The only way to properly debug a site on iOS — connect a physical iPhone via USB.
Image and asset tools
- Squoosh (squoosh.app) — Google's free in-browser image compressor. WebP, AVIF, MozJPEG.
- SVGO / SVGOMG — strip the unnecessary clutter out of vector files.
- Cloudinary / ImageKit — managed image CDNs that auto-optimise on the fly.
Performance, SEO, accessibility
- PageSpeed Insights (pagespeed.web.dev) — official Google performance test.
- Lighthouse — built into Chrome DevTools.
- WebAIM Contrast Checker — accessibility colour-contrast verification, free.
- WAVE — accessibility audit, browser extension.
- Search Console — Google's free SEO insights tool. Mandatory.
The AI-augmented additions (2023-2026)
- Claude / ChatGPT — for code review, copy edits, explanation of unfamiliar libraries, and rapid prototyping.
- GitHub Copilot — inline code completion. Good at boilerplate; needs supervision on security-sensitive code.
- v0 / Lovable / Bolt — AI-driven UI scaffolding tools. Fast for first drafts; brittle for production unless heavily edited.
What 2011 had that's now dead
- Adobe Fireworks (discontinued 2013).
- Firebug (absorbed into Chrome DevTools).
- Adobe Dreamweaver as a primary tool.
- jQuery as a default include.
- Adobe Flash (deprecated 2017, removed 2020).