Adobe XD 1.0 is here!

Although it's been available for over a year now as a public beta on Macs, the final 1.0 release of Adobe Experience Design (XD) was released today during Adobe's annual MAX conference in Las Vegas - and it now supports both Mac and Windows. I'm just now getting my hands on it and after a few minutes of playing, am really excited to start using it in my upcoming UX projects.

I've got XD news to announce, too- we've also launched a fantastic new course on LinkedIn Learning this morning, Developing a Design System with Adobe XD. It's taught by Adobe's XD Strategic Development Manager Demian Borba, and whether you're new to the XD features and workflow or an old hand, his course is a fantastic walk-through of the features and workflows of Adobe XD 1.0 presented in the context of building out a design system. It's a great way to get into the app for your first time or dig deeper into it's well-crafted feature set.

For XD's 1.0 release, not only has the core app been tightened up and performance improved greatly, but I'm seeing much more flexibility in the collaboration and previewing features overall. A new iOS/Android app has also been launched in the respective app stores to allow previewing of XD prototypes from the Adobe cloud services, but also via tethered USB (on Mac systems). For more on the release, check out Adobe's XD home page and if you're a Creative Cloud customer, go ahead and start downloading it right now from your account.

There's a lot of solutions for UX design to consider today, but what I appreciate the most about XD's workflow aren't the bells and whistles, but the overall package. Whereas when using Sketch, Designer, or Illustrator I've always had to use a separate product for prototyping (usually InVision or Framer) and yet another solution for collaboration (often a mix of Dropbox, Google Docs, email and text messaging, if I'm being really honest). Adobe XD brings all these tools into one app cleanly and neatly. I don't have to switch apps or juggle process.

When it comes to specific design tools, Illustrator has far more features and Sketch plug-ins allow a ton of customization and flexibility, but XD has done a stellar job of choosing the specific design features that are most necessary and critical for the job of UX design. No waste, no fluff. Just what you need.

XD's tools are designed specifically for UX design with features like Repeat Grid, which allows for rapid construction of repetitive design constructs like list views, thumbnail grids, and ecommerce catalogs. The symbols in XD are straightforward but flexible, you can easily duplicate common patterns but also override specific instances of a UI element to customize when and where necessary.

Navigating a complex layer structure in Illustrator can be tedious, but the smart Layers panel in XD only shows layers relevant to the section of the document you're working on- which proves to be a huge boost when working on a large, multi-view project featuring tons of artboards and layers. No more endless scrolling and expanding/collapsing- what a time-saver.

But the collaboration, oh - that's where XD is really starting to shine, and I expect great things in the future given the bulk of this area of the app is driven via Adobe's Creative Cloud service. It's a snap to publish an interactive prototype to the web, share it with your project team and/or testing group, and collect feedback directly within the prototype you can use to refine and improve your work. Comments can be pinned to specific elements of a prototype, but also compiled easily into one place to make revisions a snap.

Need to prototype in context? Just use the XD mobile apps (available on Android and iOS) and you can stream the prototype directly to your device via the Creative Cloud service. If you're on a Mac, you can also use a USB-connected iPad or iPhone as well (hopefully this will be coming to Windows soon as well).

The real benefit here for me - no more jumping from design app to messaging app to prototyping app- XD is a one-stop shop for collaboration. Having used a variety of prototyping solutions alongside Sketch and Illustrator in former projects, I'll be honest, this streamlined prototyping workflow alone is worth the price of admission for me.

However, when I use XD more and more, it's the performance that really keeps me coming back for more. Zooming and panning around artboards is lightning fast and as smooth as butter - there's literally zero lag on my MacBook Pro even when working on monster files. I'm not sure what graphics magic is going on underneath the hood in v1.0, but it's now made working in Adobe XD effortless and responsive.

I'm finding that from a 500' view, Adobe XD's workflow has far less hassle and redundant processes overall. It feels like an extension of my hands, not a bulky tool trying to do everything at once (even though to be fair- it kinda does). And at the end of the day, that's the main reason I've been using XD over other apps and solutions - it's comfortable, uncluttered and self-contained.

I'd love to hear your thoughts, too- download XD 1.0 right now from your CC account, pick up the XD mobile apps from the Android and iOS app stores, check out our new XD course to get an awesome, project-based walkthrough, then come back here and drop a comment below to share your own impressions.

Have fun!