XDDC, Adobes XD design camp tour — a review
We at Sitewards work a lot with software like Axure and Adobe Xd for our shop designs and concepts. This is a review about what we learned attending the advanced training of the XDDC tour in Frankfurt am Main, hosted by Matthias Ott.
From a twitter post by Matthias, I learned about the XDDC tour and that it is taking place in Frankfurt am Main, too. I knew that Matthias is a great writer and also does some training, so I was sure it’ll be great. Some minutes later I had my tickets. If you have to chance to attend, do it.
Matthias is a great trainer with tons of knowledge about prototyping and Xd. Even if you know everything about Xd, you have the chance to directly talk with him to gain more knowledge about prototyping.
You also can find him here on Medium (@m_ott) or Twitter (m_ott).
The venue “Design Offices Frankfurt Westendcarree” was quite nice, very modern and beautiful. Also, they served great softdrinks and some vegetables.
But let’s jump to the important topic, the training.
Matthias and the XDDC Team prepared some nice tools to get to know each other and also shared findings across the whole trainees. Also, we were surveyed how people already use Xd or other tools for prototyping. Unsurprisingly pen and paper is still a thing.
After we finished the onboarding, Matthias was picking up the beginners. But wait, beginners? Wasn’t the training supposed to be for advanced users? Well yes. And here is my only negative point about the training or better about the attendees.
Why someone books an advanced course even though there is a beginner session in parallel remains a mystery to me. The XDDC team could have solved this a little bit different. Maybe asking about the knowledge of the trainees right at the start and then split them into an advanced and beginner group, just as an Idea. I know that picking up the trainees is needed somehow, but since the training is only 4 hours, I would prefer to keep the onboarding and pickup phase very very short.
Matthias explained and did hands-on how to build a prototype from scratch. Also, he explained a lot of features you need to get your hands dirty in Xd and craft a fully functional prototype with animations. Actually, he walked the beginners through all of Adobe Xd in just one hour. It would be better to not do live prototype building and directly tell about edge cases or only let the attendees do very crucial stuff like the repeat grid. But even this should be well known to advanced users.
Let’s tell something positive
Matthias gave also a brief introduction into plugins. He picked the super useful plugin “Data Populator” to demonstrate the power of plugins. This was amazing. “Data Populator” is such a great tool, it enables you to populate your design prototype with data from json files or even from an API, for instance. This is like a turbo boost for me since I’m able to fill the prototype with real product data from the online shop now.
Another great advanced topic was about the Auto-Animation feature in Xd. With this, you can build smooth UI animations and also a lot of fun stuff like in simple flash movies. Matthias provided us with some sample files and also walked us through with some advanced examples. Playing around with this was very interesting, though, the feature could have some better control over the animations. On the Adobe help page about Auto-Animate, you can find more examples and information about the feature.
A suprising topic was Voice UI. Adobe Xd is now able to build Voice UI prototypes the same and easy way you also do the click prototypes. You just have to choose the trigger type “voice”. Also, you’re able to test this on Amazon Alexa devices and of course on your personal computer. You can read more about this feature in the Adobe Blog post about Voice UI “Alexa, Open Adobe XD”: Introducing XD’s Integration with Amazon Alexa”.
Shortconclusion
The training is worth the time and money. Matthias as a very good trainer who can bring satisfaction and knowledge to the trainees.
About Sitewards
Sitewards is a passionate driver and creator of digital change. As one of the leading digital service providers, its portfolio includes strategy consulting, user experience design and the conception and implementation of innovative e-commerce platforms.
Founded in 1997, Sitewards has experience from realizing over 500 projects. At its locations in Frankfurt am Main, Leipzig and Karlsruhe, experienced teams of consultants, UX designers and developers pursue the daily goal of accelerating our clients’ digitization activities and building long-term partnerships with them.
As a certified implementation partner of Magento, Spryker and Sylius, Sitewards meets the highest quality standards in implementing future-oriented e-commerce projects.
With the brand DAVE42 Sitewards is first mover and proven specialist in the area of conversational interfaces and leading language technologies such as Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant.
Find more information about Sitewards and DAVE42 as well as reference projects at www.sitewards.com and www.dave42.com.
