Earlier this week, Adobe announced its new platform, Adobe Experience Design CC, also known as Adobe XD. The company has realized that designers think beyond just the appearance of a site or app, but focus on overall user experience and optimization.
Adobe XD allows for easy development of wireframe, visual design, prototypes, previews as well as sharing. With input from over 5,000 designers, Adobe pinpointed the exact set of features and tools needed for the ultimate design experience.
As of now, the public preview has a basic set of design features and tools that they plan to extend in the near future. Here’s what the preview consists of so far:
Focused Design Tools: Create wireframes, screen layouts and production-ready artwork.
Prototyping Tools: Define flows, triggers and transitions as part of design.
Built In Sharing: Create a video recording of a prototype or share links to interactive prototypes.
The preview also includes support for bringing in existing assets from other platforms such as PhotoShop, Illustrater and Sketch. They describe the performance as “blisteringly fast,” allowing users to create projects using complex designs for any device without slow down.
What does the future hold for Adobe XD? The Adobe team says that the current preview is showing a work in progress, so they plan to add to the program based on the feedback they receive. Here’s what’s in the works:
- Improved design features, including support for gradients, richer text, effects and blend modes
- An upgraded color picker and support for working with layers
- More control over sharing prototype links
- Scrollable content
- Micro-interactions for prototyping
- Real-time design preview and prototype testing on devices
- Reusability and sharing of design assets
- An extensibility/API layer for plug-ins
Adobe promises to deliver updates to Adobe XD every month, including new features, improvements to existing features and bug fixes.
The first available preview release is for Mac OS, but they will offer a Windows version later this year. The preview period allows everyone to use Adobe XD for free as of now, which you can download from Adobe’s website or through the Creative Cloud desktop app.
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Chelsea Broughton
Content Strategist, Liqui-Site
Chelsea joined the team in 2014 and was promoted to Content Strategist in 2015. She is responsible for research, developing compelling content to engage audiences, drafting press releases as well as curating content and discovering potential new business relationships via social media.
