I know what you are thinking, ‘not another creative application to get your head around,’ but if you are in any way involved in web design or development you should take time out to have a look into Adobe XD.
Adobe XD is a Creative Cloud app for UX designers, it helps to take your creative ideas from concept to a pretty professional looking layout in just minutes. The whole app has been designed with ease of use in mind, we have had everyone from our developers and designers to our Account handlers and MD pick this app up fast and use it successfully in the web design progress. It has a minimal and intuitive interface that is very easy to use and very similar looking to all the current Adobe apps, I’d say it’s almost like a mix of Illustrator and InDesign. Ok, so why do you need this app in your life?
One: Adobe XD lets you involve your client or account handler with ease in the design process
This is a great way of getting together clear feedback and changes for the designers and developers, as opposed to a feedback list or markings on a pdf. You can mark clearly on the layout where your feedback needs to go, leave a comment and answer questions from the client, account handler or designers.
Two: A fully integrated process which cuts production time and cost
Let’s be honest, it takes a lot of time creating a great UX experience and sometimes clients aren’t aware of this. Adobe XD is so easy and seamless to you it will definitely help cut down the time of this part of the process and hopefully exceed your client’s expectations.
Three: Show your client how the user interacts with the design before it goes into development
This is actually a pretty amazing feature which is ridiculously easy to use. Adobe XD lets you prototype your designs into an actual working interface that brings your UX to life before your client’s eyes. You can even save out mp4 videos of how your design works which you can send in an email to your client in case they can’t come in for a meeting. This means you can get the full UX section of your web build signed off by the client with ease.
Four: You don’t actually need the other Adobe apps in this process at all
When creating UX wireframes, some people don’t usually brand up or make the design look considered when showing the client. It isn’t really required and can waste time, however, we’ve noticed that sometimes the client can get blinded by how dull the design looks and not focus entirely on the UX. Adobe UX makes it so easy to create a pretty decent looking web/app design by letting you create elements that would usually be done in say Illustrator, speeding up time spent jumping from app to app. Using XD is actually quite a smooth and painless process and even though the app doesn’t have the design depth of say Photoshop or Illustrator I think the other apps could learn a thing or two from it
Five: You can learn it for free!
Say no more! Get these YouTube tutorials loaded up and get started!
Since posting this, we have received some feedback on Adobe Xd from local designers.
1- It’s missing a site map feature – fine for small prototypes but annoying when clients need to see specific things…
— Dan Clarke (@danclarke) October 24, 2017
Yes – we’ve mentioned it to their feedback team a few times but it hasn’t come up yet – I’m not convinced they know what they want it to be
— Dan Clarke (@danclarke) October 24, 2017
2 – Sticky / static elements on pages (eg – header / search bars) would be useful when previewing – other UX apps have this
— Dan Clarke (@danclarke) October 24, 2017
