How to Design UI-Beginners Guide to Adobe XD – Techbytes

Want to start designing mobile applications, web designs, thumbnails, or more? Adobe is the right tool for you to make designs in a fast way. Adobe XD is a part of the Adobe Creative Suite and is a powerful tool that helps design a prototype to look like a real one. It is available on Windows, Mac, IOS, and Android operating systems.

Adobe XD Designers use a coherent design framework, prototyping complex interfaces for user testing, designing flows for the next device, and many more since it offers a wide range of UX tools. If you are a beginner at Adobe XD, this is the best place to learn more about designing better UI with this powerful tool.

Adobe XD Outlook

Adobe XD has a user interface that is both simple and powerful. When you first open the app, the welcome page offers a range of standard screen size templates and the file size you specify. Additionally, the welcome page includes a range of tools that can be used as a starting point for learning this application and UI interface elements for smartphones such as iOS and Android. Other online tools, such as tutorials, are also available.

There are two divisions placed on the left top corner of the Adobe XD program; Design and Prototype. The design section is where design tools such as artboards and other resources are there. On the other hand, a prototype is where users build links between artboards (pages) and establish interactions between them.

When you finish the project, navigate to the top right corner, where there is a preview or share button. Adobe XD also allows designers to save pages in a bitmap or vector-based format.

How to Begin Designing in Adobe XD

Let's show you the first best tutorial in creating a UI prototype in Adobe XD for a beginner. We are going to use iPhone 6 Plus to create a simple design. Here below are the ten steps you can follow in creating a good UI design on Adobe XD.

1. To Create Adobe XD prototype

The project starts by opening the app. On the welcome page, select the project you want and click the phone type, for this case, iPhone 6 Plus (414 x 736 pixels). Import the UI prototyping elements from the IOS store. Double-click the artboard name after creating the artboard and go back to the home section.

2. To Build a background for your prototype.

Go to the artboard and click to see the properties of the prototype. On the color selection, open and fill in the color you want and close the dialog box.

3. To Choose the prototype header.

Go to the "Open File" and the opened file explorer, go to the header image, and proceed to import. The controls provided will help you resize the image so it fits the page header. To trim the picture, double click and in the text panel open the text tool, proceed to the header area, and enter the text you want. To change the font, double click the written text and browse the available font, and you can change text options such as bold, among others. You can also change the font size, and when you double click, you are allowed to choose the color.

4. To create a background for the content area.

Navigate to the left on the text panel, choose the Rectangle tool, and make a rectangle below the header. On the right in the properties panel, change the fill color of your choice and to remove the stroke, deselect the stroke options.

5. To create a content and content grid.

To add content:

1. Start by adding text as explained in procedure (3) and importing the catalog.
2. Set the small image to match the area's context, and type the text.
3. Suppose you want to fit the picture in a particular area, double-click on the image and trim it as provided.

To proceed and create a content grid, select the image you want to grid, content backdrop, and text while holding Shift on your keyboard. Then, in the properties window, press the Repeat Grid button. The selected content will be copied to the grid as a result of this action. If you want to make a vertical grid of images, drag the bottom green icon. Double-clicking will change the duplicate look, and finally, pick the content and click Cancel Grid to break the link.

6. To Create an artboard

To make a new page, navigate to the left, and on the tool panel, select the Artboard tool. Then, on the right, choose the template you want and start a new tab. If you would like to create more pages, repeat the same procedure and add page content. When you finish the layout, a link for the produced page is established via a prototype view.

7. To create a homepage for your project.

Before you connect the pages created, do specify the project homepage, which can be from any page created. Go to the artboard on the top left, click the home icon, and make it the homepage.

8. To create pages' connection and page interaction

When you want to connect to pages you have created, choose the home page and right-hand click on the blurred arrow. The floating object menu will appear; make the following page selection and select your preferred transition animation type. Do the same for the other pages.

First, to make an effective interaction, select the content group and press on to the blurred arrow, and note that should follow the order in creating the content group. For example, the 1st content group is supposed to be linked with the 1st canvas on the home page and the other content groups.

9. To preview your work.

In the top right corner of the window, there is a preview button. Click the button, and it will display your design output. Also, there is a record icon that allows you to record between the created pages and the saving format is MOV (QuickTime).

10. To share your work

After a seemingly long procedure, it's clear we've made it. Now we need to share our work with others. In the top right corner, click the Share button. There will be a floating menu, which provides a URL that can be copied and exchanged with others who want to see the work.