Learning the basics of Adobe XD in one hour

Understanding eXperience Design to carry out your own design projects

Adobe XD is one of the most used free tools for UI/UX design and prototyping in the mobile design world. As a part of the Adobe Creative Cloud, eXperience Design offers many options and an intuitive interface. You can create and test your experiences while previewing the complete interface of your app.

If you are new to mobile apps design, you should read my previous article too:

This article will help you to understand the potential of Adobe XD and how to get started with your own design project for Android or iOS. It will not take you more than one hour! Adobe XD is available for both Windows and Mac OS.

We will be following the official tutorial of Adobe XD, adding some comments, tips and additional steps to clarify the usage of this tool. In the end, we will be able to use almost every aspect of the software. You can just read this article to understand the steps, but it will be even better if you follow the tutorial by using the software at the same time.

STARTING WITH ADOBE XD

You can download the free version of XD from the Adobe website. Once you open the software, you will find different design templates for your new projects.

In the next article, I will create a new project from scratch. In this case, I will use the tutorial of XD to show its characteristics.

Adobe XD initial window. “Begin Tutorial” button highlighted in yellow.

Push the Begin Tutorial button. The main window will open, loading the Tutorial project. The basic navigation in your workspace is as follows:

To pan : use your trackpad, or press spacebar+mouse, or press the mouse wheel.

: use your trackpad, or press spacebar+mouse, or press the mouse wheel. To zoom : two-finger pinch trackpad, or Ctrl(Cmd)+mouse wheel, or Ctrl(Cmd)+(+/-). You can also zoom to a selected item by pressing Ctrl(Cmd)+3.

: two-finger pinch trackpad, or Ctrl(Cmd)+mouse wheel, or Ctrl(Cmd)+(+/-). You can also zoom to a selected item by pressing Ctrl(Cmd)+3. To select: use the left click of the mouse. To select groups inside a rectangular area, click and drag.

Use these simple navigation options to zoom into the project screens, and you will see something like this: