Adobe packs Experience Design CC with new features

This week Adobe announced the first update for Experience Design CC since its public preview. The update is a response to the feedback Adobe received from the design community.

In a blog post, the company made clear that some of these updates are still works in progress, but Adobe’s confident that users can create even richer designs more effectively thanks to new additions like grids.

Here’s a quick rundown of all the new features:

Grid support

The biggie in this update is definitely grid support, as this release allows designers to set a customized grid on any artboard. This is one of the features that garnered a lot of votes from the design community, which is why Adobe prioritized it in this update.

Now, users will be able to set up standard spacing on their designs, which will let them create more exact drawings and layouts.

Text enhancements

Users are able to change the line spacing for their area text component by utilizing a control within the properties inspector. Again, Adobe is responding to feedback from the design community that told them that this was very essential to proper design. More updates will follow in the future.

Enhancements to design

Experience Design CC’s preview allowed users to edit the radius of the four corners of a rectangle. Individual corners were also editable via the “alt” modifier. Now, users can alter the corners in the property inspector.

To help with designers’ productivity, this update lets users quickly choose anchor points for any path by utilizing marquee selection.

Drag and drop assets

Dragging and dropping is made easier in this update, thanks to the capacity to drag and drop your images from your browser right into your XD designs. This ought to allow users to also get assets onto their canvas more efficiently than ever.

It’s also possible for designers to drag plain text files right into XD designs. This will establish an area text or populate a Repeat Grid’s text controls.

Embedded images support

When users now copy or paste from Adobe Illustrator or if they import from SVG, Adobe will bring in embedded images. This will likely raise the fidelity of artwork that’s brought into XD from outside sources.

Improved sharing

The update allows designers to share various versions of their prototypes with stakeholders. Simply follow these steps:

1. Click on the “Share online” button
2. Click on the “Create link” button to create a link
3. Complete modifications to the design for a second iteration
4. Once more, click on the “Share online” button
5. Create a new, public URL, by selecting “New URL”

Following these steps should result in you having two, public URLs for each iteration of your design.

These new updates and functionality are just the beginning. Adobe is already currently working on other highly requested updates from its design community, so stay tuned for more news on this release.

Marc Schenker

Marc’s a copywriter who covers design news for Web Designer Depot. Find out more about him at thegloriouscompanyltd.com.