Adobe XD is a relatively new program that is being updated frequently. Similar to Figma, but integrated into Adobe suite like Photoshop and Illustrator.
Web and app designers rely on Adobe Experience Design (AE) as a powerful design tool, but many teams also rely on it for prototyping interaction for full experience designs. With features like Repeat Grid and Stacks making information architecture straightforward, while drag and drop prototyping tools allow teams to easily articulate navigation patterns and layout balance.
Website Design
Adobe XD is one of the premier programs for web designing. Its capabilities include vector graphics, an enhanced user experience and wireframing; in addition to features that make collaborating with teams easy and efficient. Adobe XD’s responsive designs have already made waves within the design industry despite being relatively new.
Adobe XD stands out as an ideal program for web designing due to its wireframing abilities, or “wireframes.” Wireframes serve as the blueprints of websites, helping designers map out its structure before filling it with content or showing designs to clients prior to construction. Adobe XD recognizes these blueprints quickly and effortlessly.
Adobe XD’s ability to automatically align elements in an aesthetically pleasing manner is a fantastic feature, saving both time and effort otherwise spent calibrating objects to appear uniform with each other. This feature is especially helpful when creating websites featuring many images and text content.
XD’s responsive design capabilities enable designers to easily adapt their designs for any screen size, supporting both @1x and retina resolutions common on new devices. Scroll groups also make navigation between pages easy.
One great feature is the ability to easily gather feedback on projects. Simply share a link with your team members that allows them to review the project and leave their own comments, login-free access being available from any browser.
App Design
Adobe XD provides designers with an impressive set of app design capabilities, enabling them to efficiently craft and test user experiences before moving to development. Adobe’s built-in sharing modes make it simple for designers to prepare a file for full screen user testing, design review or handoff to development teams by sharing specifications and assets.
XD’s responsive resize and content aware layout features make working with existing designs created using other programs like Illustrator or Photoshop much simpler, saving both time and energy while assuring that the end product reflects your brand identity and stays cohesive with it.
The tool also features other features to ease the creation process of apps, including components and component states which simplify reusing elements like buttons and navigation. By creating one main component and then multiple instances of it, changes made to it automatically reflect in their copies; additional instances can also contain “states” for hover, click, or loading interactions within their instances.
Document assets provide designers with an effective tool for quickly and efficiently storing colors and character styles to be applied across designs quickly and effortlessly. Components and states also enable designers to accelerate the design process while eliminating redundancies that might otherwise exist in designs.
Adobe XD provides many tutorials online to provide more insight into its capabilities. One such 14-minute video from Adobe gives users a thorough introduction into its basic functions and demonstrates how they can be utilized to quickly prototype products or processes. This tutorial covers an assortment of essential Adobe XD features such as repeat grids, artboards and even its new scroll & blur feature.
Prototyping
Adobe XD provides you with an array of prototyping styles for Web, mobile and desktop apps. Use templates and assets provided as starting points or create your own using Adobe’s built-in assets and guides to get going quickly. Furthermore, interactive prototypes make testing user experience simple as well as gathering feedback easily.
Adobe XD supports multiple screen types and resolutions, providing peace of mind that your designs will work in real life. Making interactive prototypes with Adobe XD is as straightforward as adding click, tap, voice triggers to any element or group of elements; plus you can set animations or transition effects to make the design move.
XD also makes it easy to add interactions between components for more dynamic flows and design changes, including component states that enable you to easily make variations to a single component by changing one state and applying that change across all instances of that component. With this feature you can add hover, click, loading or toggling interaction states for buttons or toggle effects for radio buttons or switches.
With XD, it is easy to share prototype links so clients and stakeholders can access your design in any browser, making XD ideal for sharing designs in this manner. Furthermore, you can set permissions for viewing, editing and commenting on designs across teams, projects and documents.
Adobe XD is a powerful prototyping tool, offering precise interface details and the ideal layout balance. This versatile program boasts an expansive library of ready-made assets and works seamlessly with Adobe apps such as Photoshop and Illustrator; third-party developers offer plugins that enhance functionality and streamline workflows for greater convenience.
Plugins
Adobe XD is an incredible platform for web and app design, but its potential can be further extended with third-party plugins. These add-ons can help speed up design efforts while increasing productivity – and Adobe’s list of plugins for XD includes numerous useful tools that further augment its usefulness – these may include:
UI Faces is a fantastic tool that makes creating avatars for use in designs easy. Choose from hundreds of thousands of avatars to find one that best matches your design, or filter and select specific attributes to customize further. A must have!
Mimic is another great plugin for XD that allows you to import existing designs into XD, which can be especially helpful if you are working on projects with many existing assets and must comply with specific brand standards. Furthermore, this timesaving technique eliminates the necessity of manually creating assets using Photoshop or Sketch and reduces wasteful processing of files for maintenance.
If your design requires maps, the Maps Generator plugin makes adding maps easier than ever! With its intuitive user interface and customizable options like zoom levels, map types and styles; it is an essential must-have for any designer!
Rename It is another wonderful plugin, which allows you to quickly rename design layers and artboards. Renaming options include sequence, layer name, width and height among others – this tool is especially handy for large projects with many layers; its time-saving nature will enhance workflow!
Integrations
Adobe XD integrates seamlessly with Adobe ecosystem to provide you with powerful tools that smooth over any speed bumps or create frictionless experiences. Most designers already familiar with Adobe applications will find using XD easy; its learning curve is minimal when dealing with complex design systems or symbol overrides.
Adobe XD was designed with user experience in mind and its intelligent tools make creating high-fidelity prototypes straightforward and user friendly. From basic layouts to interactive prototypes, this software has everything you need to present ideas to users with realistic visuals that can be tested and refined later.
Adobe XD makes it simple and fast to design responsive layouts that look fantastic across devices with its Content Aware Layout features. By adjusting objects within designs using Stacks and Padding, Stacks and Padding align your objects without changing their overall look; while Auto-animate helps automate microinteractions on artboards.
Adobe XD now integrates with Project Catalyst for easier collaboration between designers and developers, streamlining designer-developer workflow by keeping everyone informed on the most up-to-date version of a design. Furthermore, JIRA integration shows all comments and changes made in a shared document, making it simple to track changes over time.
As important as it is to create high-fidelity mockups and interactive prototypes, getting feedback is also paramount. Adobe XD and Miro can provide a single source of truth for all design content on Miro boards — from wireframes to prototypes — so that you can collect and manage feedback efficiently in one central place.
