Experience Design CC Experience Edition using detailed evaluation

One, resource template

Opening the software will first pop up a template Selection page, which provides us with the IPhone, IPad, Web and other common design dimensions. It also brings a simple demo file and a common control library for IOS, Google Material, and Win Phone. The right side of the window is the recently used file record.

　　Second, the overall interface

Choose a suitable size, we entered the software's operating interface. Compared with the traditional Adobe software interface, Xd's interface is closer to the Sketch, the style is more refreshing, the information level is clearer.

The entire application can be divided into design and prototyping work mode, which makes the workflow clearer, users do not have to switch back and forth under multiple software. Next I'll start with a couple of modes.

　　Third, design pattern

I'll simply divide the pattern into four areas for navigation bars, toolbars, inspectors, and workspaces.

The user can switch between the design and the prototype by using the buttons on the left side of the navigation bar. The right side of the title bar shows the zoom ratio of the current view, along with buttons for playback and sharing (this feature will be expanded sequentially).

The toolbar on the left provides several commonly used tools: Select tools, rectangular tools, circle tools, line tools, pen tools, text tools, and new artboards. The shortcut keys used are: V R E L P T A use method basically follow the user custom of Adobe other software, so do not start introduction here.

The inspector on the right mainly includes alignment, Boolean operations, object size, position, and rotation angle and appearance properties. The appearance properties currently provide the options for transparency, stroke, padding, and projection.

Xd any shape can be seen as the default picture clipping mask, drag the picture directly onto the corresponding object, the picture will be automatically scaled according to the size of the object. The need to note is, how do you want to edit the shape style of the picture again, you need to create a new Shape object you need, select both, press the command+ "M" key to create a new clipping mask. The new picture object that you create through the latter is that you can edit the location and properties of the picture again by double-clicking it.

In addition, it is worth mentioning that Xd provides a new control mode Repeat gird, which I call the batch control. When you click this button after selecting any object, the bounding box of the object will change from blue to green. At the same time in the horizontal and vertical direction of more than two rounded rectangle of the button, click and drag the button can be in different directions for the bulk copy of the object, while you can click the area between the objects to drag to bulk adjust the spacing between all objects.

The tool area defaults to a light gray background, and editing the background color value is not currently supported.

　　Four, prototype model

Xd's current version of the interactive mode only supports jumps between pages. The process is very simple. When you select any control in prototype mode, an arrow symbol appears on the right side, and the user clicks the arrow symbol and drags, pulling the guide line to any page to complete a simple interactive animation.

At the same time, you can control animation types and parameters by clicking on the control or the arrow symbol that points to the side of the page. The properties currently provided include only the way the page appears, duration, and easing properties.

Users can preview the page by clicking the Preview button on the right side of the navigation bar after selecting the pages that need to be previewed. At the same time, XD provides video recording capabilities in the upper-right corner of the preview window. The user can click the button to start recording, after completing the interactive operation, click the button again to complete the recording and export the video. The video format currently supports only the MOV format.

In addition, users can create links that can be previewed online by clicking the Share button in the upper-right corner of the navigation bar. The files are stored by default in the Adobe Creative Cloud repository. You can also edit and manage the content by clicking the Manage Links button under the Share button.

We can also choose to open the sharing link on the mobile side to do the actual operation and preview. Because Safari Browser retains a portion of the title bar, it won't be able to achieve full screen preview. So the author found a development classmate, wrote a browser can make full screen preview of the small program. In addition, you can choose a Chrome browser to achieve similar results.

　　V. SUMMARY of functions

No ruler function, without dragging the object can not do like PS or Sketch, directly to see the spacing between the object size.

No scaling tool, currently only supports view scaling through Command + + + +, and cannot do focus scaling for a particular object as Sketch.

No pixel preview mode, so the pixel alignment of the edge of the icon cannot be done, and the Chettu of the PNG format will appear when the edge is blurred.

Only solid-color fills are currently supported, no gradients, or other options.

Text attributes currently only support alignment and word spacing adjustment, no line high, paragraph and other options.

Support for editing nodes, but no points, intersections, dashes, closed paths, stroke extensions, and other options.

Rounded rectangles cannot adjust the degree of a rounded corner individually, as with AI.

Supports interactive jumps between pages, and does not support displacement, scaling, and transparency animations between the same page controls.

So the current version of Xd is unable to independently complete the interface and the drawing of the icon. Of course, these problems should not have technical difficulties for Adobe. The problem is that Xd's positioning is a lightweight interactive prototyping tool that needs to collaborate with PS and AI, or more independent. Perhaps Adobe itself is thinking and watching, and the V0.5 version is only an attempt by testing.

In addition to the above introduction, the official website also provides us with 4 basic introductory tutorials, where the address link is attached: https://helpx.adobe.com

In summary, Xd as a new interactive software, in its body we can see a lot of emerging tools. It can also be seen as a new attempt by Adobe to break through its existing software constraints. Although the software itself has a lot of deficiencies, but for product designers, it's some of the features are commendable. As stated on its official website: A new experience in user experience. As a preview of v.0.5, perhaps we should be more tolerant of it and expect Adobe to bring us more new surprises.