Appeal to Adobe: Don't Discontinue XD
Dear Adobe,
I don't know if you actually read this, or if this message will be seen by anyone who has a stake in the decision making process around what software you actively develop.
Your decision to discontinue Adobe XD is leaving your customers who work in web design without a tool that we've come to depend upon. While I do appreciate you keeping it around in "Maintenance Mode", you are forcing us (yet again) to look for another tool to use in our workflows. Another tool that we'll need to pay for separately from the CC subscriptions we're already using. Another tool that we'll need to spend time learning and which may not integrate into our existing workflows as well as XD has. Another tool which may or may not be around in another few years.
Yes, change is inevitable and I've faced similar situations many times in the 28 years I've been working in web design and development. I've seen many great tools come and go over the years. In web design specifically, we've had promising front-end design tools like Macaw, Muse, and others come into being only to be discontinued or killed as part of an acquisition. During my career, I've used Adobe software as my primary tools for my graphic design work and have been happy with that choice, and happy to pay for a CC subscription when that model wass adopted. I also teach in a Graphic Design degree program and we still teach Adobe software because it is still considered the industry standard.
However, the decision to discontinue XD feels like a punch in the gut to web designers and honestly it makes me start to reconsider how long I want to continue paying for a CC subscription. This is not the first tool of yours that I've integrated into my workflow only to have it pulled away. The XD situation is hitting me in a way that feels extra painful this time.
I know that I'm not alone. I know also that I don't have the user metrics that you have available, though I would guess that there are still a sufficient number of XD users who would rather see XD continue to be actively developed, refined, and become an even better tool that we can continue to rely on for years to come.
Please, on behalf of those of us in the web design community who rely on XD and have embraced it as part of our workflow, I ask that you commit to providing us with a long-term quality tool. Invest in the web design community at the level you have with Illustrator, Photoshop, and InDesign. Those tools have been available for decades and have grown with the needs of the graphic design industry. We in web design haven't had a solid front-end design and prototyping tool that we can fully rely on long-term. Every time we have a new tool with promise it is abandoned or killed before it can reach its full potential. That ride is getting old.
Sure, we could learn Figma, or InVision, or Balsamiq, or any of the other similar wireframing/prototyping tools currenlty on the market. But choosing any of those means investing time and money into another software ecosystem that may not fit into our workflow (which means our workflow needs to change as well). Having a tool like XD as part of our Creative Cloud-based workflow is extremely valuable in many ways.
I doubt this post will make a difference. I doubt it will even be seen by anyone above your low support teir. But, if by chance it does reach the eyes of those who have a part in the decision making at Adobe, I hope that it makes a difference. I hope that you finally give web designers the respect of committing to continually developing a solid, long-term toolset that we can depend on.
If not, well, then I hope you understand how this feels to those of us you're abandoning.
Sincerely,
Tom Burton
Adobe customer since 1994
P.S. Anyone else in the community here who agrees with me, please show your support on this post.
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