Marvel Keyboard Shortcuts
Marvel deliberately keeps its feature set smaller than Figma or Sketch, targeting quick click-through prototypes and simple wireframes rather than deep, feature-complete design work, and its shortcut set is correspondingly modest — there's simply less to bind keys to compared to a full-featured design tool. Hotspot creation (defining a clickable, tappable region that links one screen to another) is the closest thing Marvel has to a signature interaction, since building a click-through prototype by connecting screens with hotspots is the core of what most people use Marvel for rather than detailed visual design work itself. Because Marvel positions itself partly as an easy on-ramp for non-designers — product managers or stakeholders sketching out a flow quickly — its shortcuts lean toward the bare minimum needed to move between screens and link them together rather than the deep tool-switching and layer-management vocabulary found in more design-focused competitors. Because the tool intentionally avoids the deep layer-and-vector editing capability of Figma or Sketch, teams sometimes use Marvel specifically for the earliest, roughest stage of a design process — sketching a flow before any real visual design work begins — then move to a more capable tool once the flow is validated and actual pixel-level design needs to happen, which is a healthy and fairly common two-tool workflow rather than a sign either tool is inadequate on its own. Transition animations and gesture-based hotspots matter more than they might initially seem for stakeholder buy-in specifically, since a prototype that at least feels like it's animating between screens the way a real app would tends to land better in a review meeting than one that abruptly swaps static images, even though Marvel deliberately doesn't attempt the deeper interactive-state complexity a tool like Axure RP offers.
Screen Management
| Action | Windows | Mac | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Add new screen | + Add Screen button (no dedicated key) | — | Adds a new blank screen to the current project, the basic building block of a Marvel prototype since a project is fundamentally a collection of linked screens. |
| Duplicate selected screen | Screen menu > Duplicate | — | Creates a copy of the selected screen, useful for building similar screens (like several variations of the same layout) without recreating each from scratch. |
| Reorder screens | Drag screen thumbnail (no keyboard equivalent) | — | Reorders screens within the project by dragging their thumbnails, a mouse-driven interaction without a documented pure-keyboard alternative. |
| Delete selected screen | Screen menu > Delete (no keyboard shortcut) | — | Removes the selected screen from the project entirely, along with any hotspots pointing to or from it, which then need to be reconnected if the flow relied on that screen as a link target. |
Hotspots Linking
| Action | Windows | Mac | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Add hotspot (clickable link area) | Draw hotspot on canvas (no dedicated key) | — | Draws a clickable region on a screen and links it to another screen, the core interaction underlying Marvel's click-through prototyping — the primary reason most people choose Marvel over a purely static design tool. |
| Change hotspot's link target | Click hotspot > select new target screen | — | Changes which screen a hotspot links to, letting you restructure a prototype's flow after the initial hotspots have already been placed. |
| Configure a gesture-based hotspot (swipe/scroll) | Hotspot settings > Gesture type | — | Configures a hotspot to trigger on a swipe or scroll gesture rather than a simple tap, useful for prototyping mobile-style navigation patterns like a card carousel or a pull-to-refresh interaction. |
| Set screen transition animation | Hotspot settings > Transition style | — | Chooses which animation (slide, fade, instant) plays when a hotspot navigates to its target screen, giving the click-through prototype a more polished, native-feeling transition rather than an abrupt instant screen swap. |
| Link a hotspot to an external URL | Hotspot target > External Link | — | Points a hotspot at an external web address instead of another screen within the project, useful for a prototype step that genuinely needs to hand off to a real website, like a payment processor's checkout page. |
Preview
| Action | Windows | Mac | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Preview interactive prototype | Preview button (no dedicated key) | — | Opens a live, clickable preview of the prototype as an end user would experience it, letting you test the hotspot-linked flow before sharing it with stakeholders. |
| Add a note/comment to a screen | Comment icon on screen (no keyboard shortcut) | — | Attaches a comment to a specific point on a screen, useful for stakeholder feedback or design notes visible to collaborators reviewing the prototype. |
| Share prototype link | Share button (no keyboard shortcut) | — | Generates a shareable link to the interactive prototype, letting stakeholders click through it in a browser without needing a Marvel account of their own in many sharing configurations. |
Frequently Asked Questions
How is Marvel different from Figma's prototyping mode if both let you link screens together?
Marvel's whole product is scoped around this simpler screen-linking workflow with a shallower overall feature set and gentler learning curve, aimed at quick mockups and stakeholder communication. Figma includes similarly capable click-through prototyping but as one part of a much deeper, full-featured design tool, meaning Figma has considerably more design capability but also more complexity for someone who just needs a fast, simple prototype.
Can Marvel prototypes include real interactive states, or only simple screen-to-screen navigation?
Marvel supports basic interactive elements like hotspot-triggered screen transitions and some simple gesture-based interactions (swipe, scroll), but it doesn't offer the deeper conditional logic or variable-driven interactivity found in tools like Axure RP, consistent with its positioning as a simpler, faster tool rather than a full-featured interactive prototyping platform.
Is Marvel a good fit for someone who isn't a professional designer?
Yes, this is explicitly part of its target positioning — Marvel is commonly used by product managers, stakeholders, and non-designers who need to sketch out and communicate a basic flow or concept quickly without learning a more complex professional design tool's full interface and shortcut vocabulary.
Can multiple people work on the same Marvel project simultaneously?
Yes — Marvel supports collaborative editing where team members with access to a project can work on it together, though its real-time collaboration depth is generally simpler than what Figma offers, consistent with Marvel's overall positioning as a lighter-weight tool rather than a full collaborative design platform.
Does Marvel support importing designs directly from Sketch or Figma files?
Yes, Marvel supports importing designs from Sketch and, to some degree, other common design file formats, letting you bring in visual assets created elsewhere and then add Marvel's hotspot-linking layer on top to turn static screens into a clickable prototype.
Does Marvel offer any keyboard shortcut for undoing an accidental hotspot deletion?
Standard Ctrl+Z / Cmd+Z undo applies within the Marvel editor for most recent actions including hotspot changes, following the same universal undo convention shared across virtually all creative and productivity software rather than requiring a Marvel-specific recovery step.
Is Marvel a paid product, or does it offer a free tier for simple prototypes?
Marvel offers a free tier with limitations on project count and collaboration features, with paid plans unlocking more projects, team members, and advanced features — a fairly standard freemium structure for this category of tool that lets an individual or very small team try it without upfront cost before committing to a paid plan.
Does Marvel support responsive prototypes that adapt to different device sizes?
Marvel supports creating separate screen sets sized for different devices (desktop, tablet, mobile) within one project, though true fluid responsive behavior within a single screen is more limited than what a code-based prototyping approach would offer.
Can a hotspot trigger something other than a simple tap-to-navigate action?
Yes, hotspots can be configured to respond to gestures like swipe or scroll rather than only a tap, and can be given a specific transition animation on navigation, both of which help a click-through prototype feel closer to a real native mobile app's interaction patterns rather than a flat set of instantly-swapping static screens.