---
title: Simplify Your Process with Adobe Experience Design
teaser: Adobe Experience Design is basic, but great for rapid prototyping.
tags: prototyping,tools,design
author: Mike Borsare
published_on: 2016-09-26
---

![essential duos](https://images.thoughtbot.com/blog-vellum-image-uploads/ATTKnHSZRoqMyCwO31iq_essential-duo-doodle-v2.gif)

## These are essential duos

Batman and Robin, peanut butter and chocolate, best buds in action movies. One
without the other just doesn't work, and the same goes for design and
prototyping. They belong together, and that's where Adobe Experience Design (XD)
comes in. XD is the buddy movie starring design and prototyping. It's "21 Jump
Street" with Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill. It's the app that puts both of these
things together under one roof.

That's a great thing, because jumping from a design app to a prototyping app is
counterproductive. You're losing time that is better spent strengthening the
product. Adobe XD gets back that time.

## A focused beginning

We recently used XD on a client project and, on the whole, it was awesome. I'm
not going to lie: XD isn't there yet. It's basic and stripped down, but there's
beauty in that. Coming from Adobe, one would expect a feature-laden, bloated
product. That is not the case with XD. The interface is clean and lightweight
and its feature set feels just right for quick iteration.

![XD's interface](https://images.thoughtbot.com/blog-vellum-image-uploads/g5vzFEiRQWafPko3rybf_so-fresh-so-clean.gif)

### The beauty of XD

XD is fast. You can design and prototype in one spot and then share it out to
your team for review via the web. Just like that, XD eliminates image exports and
time-sucking trips to Marvel, Invision, or whatever tool you use to "wire"
things up.

XD is delightfully rough around the edges. It's hard to obsess over tiny details
because it simply won't allow it. XD's limited tool set and gestalt help you
avoid time wasters: whether it's tweaking type choices, dialing in that perfect
linear gradient, or establishing an elaborate grid.

XD doesn't have a layers panel because you don't need it. Grabbing objects is
intuitive and organization is easily maintained by grouping objects. The woe of
naming layers is also no more. We've all ended up with layers named "Layer 10
copy copy" at some point. With XD that concern is gone and your file feels
tidier for it.

XD has a magical thing called repeat grid. Repeat grid takes away the monotony
of manually copying and pasting components in your design. With it, you can
create a grid of repeating components with one click. The padding between each
component is easy to adjust. More so, the content within each component is dynamic
but the styles are global. So it's easy to create realistic mockups fast.

![repeat grid in action](https://images.thoughtbot.com/blog-vellum-image-uploads/Lm3D4nYBSKUwMKURPl4Q_card-component-xd-gif.gif)

### The not so beautiful

It's invaluable to finally have the duo of design and prototyping under one
roof. However, the prototyping experience *is* basic. XD is great at linking
complete screens together. The problems arise when you couple that with its lack
of symbols. This leads to a lot of duplication of artboards, design components,
copy, etc. This, in turn, creates hard to maintain files.

Another minor gripe with XD is its lack of a few hotkeys necessary for speedy
work. It's hard to work fast without hotkeys for: a colorpicker, a toggle for
borders, and a toggle for fills.

On the whole though, XD's ugly side isn't *really* ugly at all. There are so
many positives to the app that you'll find yourself not caring about these
nitpicks quickly.

## A bright future

Adobe has delivered a focused product with XD. They are continually iterating
based on an active [member community](//adobexd.uservoice.com/). This is
exemplified with monthly releases whose new features are the result of votes
from the community.

My last project team's experience using the product for real client work was
great. It removed overhead from the process and focused our work on the thing
that matters most: creating an easy to use straightforward product.

If you haven't tried it yet,
[give XD a whirl](//www.adobe.com/products/experience-design.html) on your next
project – for free!