Adobe Posts Preview Release of New Experience Design Tool

Adobe XD Empowers Designers To Deliver High-Impact Mobile Apps and Web Sites

In our fast-moving, connected culture, poorly designed app or web experiences suffer a painful and short shelf-life. Considering this fact, Adobe today announced the immediate availability of Adobe Experience Design CC (Preview), an early release of its much anticipated user experience (UX) design and prototyping solution. As mobile app development skyrockets at enterprises and organisations around the globe, this breakthrough tool empowers UX designers to help deliver mobile apps and web sites, quickly and easily.

Adobe XD integrates design and prototyping in a lightning-fast, fluid desktop application. The solution helps designers move seamlessly from wire-framing and design to prototyping and preview, in order to iterate quickly and craft the apps and websites that keep users coming back. This first Preview release includes focused and intuitive design and layout tools; a dedicated prototype mode for defining interactive hotspots and transitions; desktop preview mode for testing prototypes and seeing changes in real-time; and built-in sharing that enables stakeholders and teams to access prototypes in their browser, on the desktop, or from mobile devices. Designers are able to bring in existing assets from Adobe Illustrator CC and Adobe Photoshop CC, key desktop apps essential to UX design workflows and once designs are finalized, assets can be easily exported to developers for production work.

Adobe plans regular updates for XD, with upcoming releases adding support for multiple devices as well as deep integration with additional Creative Cloud tools and services, such as Creative Cloud Libraries and Adobe Stock, the company’s fast-growing stock asset marketplace. A Windows Preview of Adobe XD is expected later this year.

Adobe XD Roadmap

Today, Adobe XD is available for Mac OS and in the future will add mobile companion apps for iOS and Android, in addition to bringing the desktop app to Windows 10. Increasing platform support over time allows Adobe to focus on the core product features and then bring tailored experiences to each platform. Further integration with Photoshop CC and Illustrator CC is planned, as well as support for essential Creative Cloud features, such as CC Libraries and Adobe Stock. This roadmap will be heavily influenced by the feedback Adobe receives from designers.

As the demand for experience-led mobile apps and websites continues to grow, colleges and universities must ensure their design curriculum reflects industry emphasis on user experience and user interface design. Institutions at the forefront of this movement are incorporating usability into design teaching, kick-starting the next generation of UX designers.

“Prototyping and usability testing are key skills we are instilling into our students, as they take their first steps in user and experience design” said Tom Green, Professor Interactive Multimedia, The School of Media Studies at Humber Institute of Technology and Advanced Learning, based in Toronto. “Adobe XD is a not only great tool for giving students the opportunity to create interactive prototypes from their designs but to also iterate those prototypes as they move through the User Testing process.”