Intro to Adobe XD

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These slides are for the seminar: Intro to Adobe XD

We’re Going To Discuss

Adobe XD is an all around digital design tool used to design the UI (user interface) and UX (user experience) of digital products such as websites, apps, voice interfaces, and more.
XD competes with Figma and Sketch.
(We also offer Figma classes and Sketch classes.)

It’s for UX, UI, and digital designers.

XD aims to be the single app you design and prototype in.

In Adobe XD you design the look/feel of websites, apps, etc. and make working prototypes to show clients & developers how the design should work, animate, etc.
Design apps like Adobe XD, Figma, and Sketch do NOT create a final website or app (that must be coded by a developer).
Adobe XD’s prototyping features are good, but it can’t create every type of interaction. We aim to be close enough so clients and developers get the idea of our design.

The XD Starter plan is free but there are limitations (and it’s virtually hidden on the Adobe website if you don’t have the link).
You’re limited to 1 active shared link, 1 shared document with up to 2 co‑editors, 10 days of document history, 2 GB of cloud storage, no linked libraries, etc. A full list of limitations are in the link above.

Photoshop and Illustrator work well as companions to XD, but they were not built for UX and UI design.
We use Photoshop and Illustrator to retouch photos, create complex vector graphics, etc. for use in XD layouts.
Open Photoshop and Illustrator files in XD and they are converted into editable XD files.

Live Demo

XD competes with Figma and Sketch, so let’s see a quick comparison.

For a more in-depth comparison, check out the
Figma vs. Sketch vs. Adobe XD webinar

Sketch is a good app for UX and UI design. It came out first (6 years before XD), so it had a head start.
Lately their development has not kept up with the speed of improvements by XD and Figma.
Has very basic prototyping (compared to XD and Figma).
InVision’s Craft plugin is more powerful than Sketch’s native prototyping, but is not as integrated (and costs extra).
Mac only, which limits its appeal to some companies.

Figma is a great design app and solid competition for XD.
Figma’s free “Starter” plan is very good and gets people using it, although their paid plans are more expensive than XD.
XD may initially be a bit easier to learn/use, but Figma’s feature set is very good.
XD’s Creative Cloud integration has some advantages (opening PS & AI files, export to After Effects, Creative Cloud fonts, etc.).
Figma is the app XD needs to beat for XD to gain more users.

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