General question about XD

[Chris Lenhart]

Bear with me...

I've been brought into a company that has a very robust suite of tools. Although the suite is not design related, you can compare it to the Adobe suite, MS Office, etc. in level of complexity.

They have no UX program to speak of and so as a team of one, I find the task of creating a solution for interoperability a very challenging one. My question is can I realistically use XD in a situation like this. The product is established and complex, but looks and performs poorly, on some level, due to bad UI design. Is XD the right direction to go with an established product?

For example, let's say you were brought in to Adobe as a lone UX presence. They say, "We want all of our tools to work better with one another." Would XD be the right direction to go?

Any help would be deeply appreciated!

[Preran]

Hi Chris,

Thank you for your interest in Adobe XD. Can you provide us with the specifics of the product in question, and the workflow that you are looking at? That would better equip us with replying to your question.

Thanks,

Preran

[Manu Schwendener]

Hi Preran. Is there an email address he can write to? Obviously he doesn't want to write the name of the product for everybody to see.

[Atul_Saini]

Hi Chris,

Thanks for considering Adobe XD as a designing and prototyping app. We are trying to deliver the best possible experience with new and exciting features. Here are some details about Adobe XD Get to know Adobe XD. 

I would also request you to check out some latest features that we have recently added to the app: - Latest features | Adobe XD CC. ​

Please update this discussion in case you are looking for anything specific.

Thanks,

Atul_Saini

[elainecc · Accepted solution]

Hey, Chris-

Thanks for reaching out, and I think I understand the question you're really asking. It sounds like you have a really big, systemic problem to tackle and a number of people to communicate to. Interoperability and consistency of workflows will be key, and you'll probably need to convince a number of people to change the design of each of the point products to align to a consistent, workable model that is intuitive for your users to use.

I think Adobe XD is an excellent product for you to use, and here are some of the reasons why:

1. XD is built to communicate visual workflows. With design, prototyping, and sharing all packed into one product, you'll be able to really easily help your other teams (and executives) understand the basic pain points you're trying to solve as people use each product (and use them all together).
2. XD has tools to encourage design consistency. From colors and character styles that are global to an XD design document to the new ability for symbols to stay linked across documents, XD makes it easy for other designers to stay consistent with each other. You could create a visual design language and describe common patterns of workflow behavior to help other designers across your company adopt not just consistent look and feel, but to learn more about what common patterns you'll want to use and reuse.
   
   As a side note, we're implementing these types of programs within Adobe, and you might want to read more about it here: Introducing Spectrum: How Adobe Is Building a Design System at Scale | Adobe Blog
   
   
3. XD can import most existing design files to help you get started. You can open Sketch, Photoshop, and Illustrator files of your team's existing designs with all of the vectors and layers intact. This means you won't need to do hundreds of hours of work just to switch over into XD to use its prototyping capabilities.

There's a lot more in here to unpack, but I encourage you to watch the brand new video we have on https://xd.adobe.com that talks about how certain large companies are using XD within their walls to solve exactly the problem you're responsible for.

Good luck, and feel free to reach out (Twitter: @elainecchao) if you want to continue the conversation. I'm more than happy to connect you with someone in your region if you want to ask more questions about whether or not XD is the right tool to use.

Hope that helps!

Elaine Chao

Product Manager, Adobe XD