Is Adobe XD a Potential Sketch Killer?
Adobe’s making a new product called Experience Design, and it’s supposed to make life much easier for UI and UX designers. It’s currently in Beta and you can get it on Adobe Creative Cloud.
So far, Adobe’s made 12 updates for XD, and the full version is getting closer.
However, the hype about the product is still present and it’s getting more intense. Whether it’s a praise of a convinced fan or a critique from a faithful Sketch-devotee, it looks as though XD is going to reform the way UX and UI design is perceived. It’s definitely getting more and more attention.
That’s why I decided to check it out and see what’s that fuss all about. Here’s my pros and cons list!
Pros
1. (Both) Platform friendly
Adobe is finally making a product for UI/UX designers who aren’t exclusively using Mac, thus who can’t use Sketch. If it wasn’t for these guys, designers would still be experimenting with Photoshop or Illustrator which are time-consuming and sloppy when used for this area of design.
And now, when we’re finally getting a tool specialized for UI/UX design, the rivalry between Adobe and Sketch can begin! Their attempts to overthrow one another will only benefit us — the users — and make us more efficient with updates.
2. Fresh interface
Every designer is frustrated when using a program for the first time.
First you foolishly start to explore the product by yourself because, well, you’re an experienced designer and mastering the program is your thing. After few bumps and uncertainties, you decide that it’s however better to have a guidance from a Youtube tutorial. Finally with lots of attempts you conquer it and you find your way around it.
With XD you can easily become a pro — the interface is simple and intuitive. It looks nice, it feels right and everything is where you’d like it to be.
You even get a quick visual tutorial when you open the app which guides you through the most relevant features. Unlike Sketch, XD makes it in a form of a mobile app whose design needs to be finished. It’s informative and useful (because that’s the way you’re gonna use this product anyway), and you’ll actually have fun using it.
There is a certain resemblance to Sketch, but that only makes it easier for Sketch users to eventually adapt to XD.
3. Brand-new Tools
Although Sketch has some amazing tools which will help you speed up your performance (smart resizing, symbols, plugins…), Adobe really hit the spot with a few of them that were introduced most recently. Repeating grid and scrollable revision are the ones that amazed everyone working in UI/UX field.
Repeating grid
Say goodbye to hours and hours of adjusting columns and rows, their margins, padding and Lorem ipsum content. Repeating grid will save you from all the dull, repetitive jobs and give you more time for developing creative concepts and style preferences for your project. And isn’t that something every designer is looking for?
Simply put, this feature is ideal when you’re making a product which consists of lists or modules. Once you define the design of the module, it stays the same in other variations. This means that you don’t have to copy and paste like cavemen, just expand and resize the design of the elements to fit your UI.
Scrollable Revision
While designing, you come across various requirements and challenges. For example, thinking about all the platforms and screen resolutions, and how the same creative concept will adapt to each one of them.
With scrollable revision you can test your design on any resolution in no time.
You just have to specify the dimensions and press play — it’s that easy.
What’s even greater about this tool is that you can define your design more accurate before sending it to developers. With that option, Adobe’s adding an extra value to both design and development processes.
4. Speeding it up
Adobe XD has a loving relationship with other Adobe products like Photoshop or Illustrator. What a shocker — it would be pretty disappointing if it weren’t like that, right?
The great thing about integration with other applications is masking images. When you want to make an image fit the shape you’ve designed, Adobe XD reshapes it itself. This feature allows you to skip a few steps when making any type of visuals suitable for your design.
You simply drag and drop, everything else is XD’s job. Even the scaling is done good, and you don’t have to worry about losing any proportions.
But, it’s truly brilliant when masking images is combined with repeating grid. If you have a list of visuals, and each visual has to be different, you can select multiple photos and drop them into the grid. A perfect time-saver.
Interface kit is another useful feature you get with XD. It includes thorough interface options for iOS, Google Material Design, and Microsoft Windows devices. They can come in handy when designing an app from scratch.
5. Prototyping and sharing
This feature is what makes Adobe XD revolutionary.
So far, prototyping was made in applications specialized in prototyping, like InVision. With XD you just have to switch tabs and it filters all unnecessary tools, sidebars and menus — showing you only the UI you want to look at.
In XD you can define three things — type, duration and style of transition between screens. They lack features you can find in InVision like hotspots or the possibility to fix the header and footer. Although that may be a problem, it doesn’t stop you from making your visualizations accurate. Oddly enough, these are the essential features for developing a prototype, and everything else is redundant.
After you’re done with editing the prototype, you can share it with the client. It can be presented interactively in a browser (either desktop or mobile), or it can be exported as a movie file.
For the first time ever there is a product which unites every aspect of a design process in a single application — from wireframes and mockups, to the final previews of your work. No wonder some call it the Sketch killer.
6. Vector Based
Go nuts and zoom as much as you want, XD is all about the vector.
Although Sketch is also a vector based product, Windows users who use Photoshop for UI/UX design don’t have that possibility. Sure, Illustrator is also based on vectors, although many designers prefer Photoshop.
But, nobody’s perfect, and that applies to XD too.
Cons
1. Missing Tools
Even though modern Adobe products are well-known for their various features (I’m looking at you After Effects), this is not the case with XD.
When I opened it for the first time, I was startled. You can see they offer only eight tools (including select tool and zoom tool)! My first thought was — there’s no way in hell anything can be done with such limited options.
Some well-known tools suck as well. XD even lacks the possibility to customize them in a way you’re used to. For example: type tool. There’s no option to bold just one word from your text, you must change the whole type box. And you can’t underline anything.
Same goes for layer effects. Except for Drop Shadow and Blur, everything else has to be done in some other program like Photoshop or Illustrator. Of course, you can import files directly from them, but that’s not the point. You should be able to make these minor changes inside XD. It’s probably because it’s still in Beta, yet it’s supposed to be one of the core features.
2. No Layers
This is so weird.
I’ve been looking for the layer/artboard panel in XD for a while, and when I Googled it, I found out they’re available just for Mac users. There are still no updates for Windows, so we’ll just have to be patient for some time. I guess.
They’ve also launched the symbol gallery in the Mac OS update, probably because Sketch was way ahead of them with that feature. If you’re not familiar with symbols, be ready to be amazed.
It’s a feature which gives you the opportunity to reuse components. After you’ve created a symbol and defined it as a master, you can spread it across artboards. All other components will have the same characteristics as a master symbol. If you, at some point, want to redesign the symbol, you just have to do it in a master and everything will be changed! Pretty neat, ain’t it?
But, I’m still a Windows user and anything more complex can hardly be done without layers or symbols. Until they decide to make these updates for Windows too, this is a major con.
Conclusion
There’s a lot of never-seen-before goods that Adobe’s offering us. However, Windows Beta version is missing some crucial features and options. They’ve updated some for Mac OS, so it’s very likely it’s just a matter of time when they’ll change it for Windows too.
Still, the absence of all the tools and features isn’t as bad as it looks like at first. Working with such clean and uncluttered interface is extremely satisfying, especially when you come to realize it’s sufficient for making most of your work.
Since this is an unfinished product, anything is possible. I guess we’ll be seeing more powerful stuff from Adobe XD.
What do you think about Adobe XD? Type a response if you’ve already tested the product and recommend this Story if you’ve liked it!
