{"id":107458,"date":"2018-11-01T10:07:13","date_gmt":"2018-11-01T14:07:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/techvibes.com\/?p=107458"},"modified":"2018-11-01T10:11:43","modified_gmt":"2018-11-01T14:11:43","slug":"adobe-xds-trajectory-paints-a-picture-of-enterprise-innovation","status":"publish","type":"magazine","link":"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/magazine\/adobe-xds-trajectory-paints-a-picture-of-enterprise-innovation","title":{"rendered":"Adobe XD’s Trajectory Paints a Picture of Enterprise Innovation"},"content":{"rendered":"

When it comes to ubiquity within the software world, there are a few names that top the list: Microsoft, Google, Adobe and others. But what happens when one of those companies releases a new product\u00a0and tries to corner a market they have never entered before? It becomes a test of resource allocation, industry knowledge, and, above all, the ability to drive innovation in a field already guided by top-tier innovators.<\/p>\n

Adobe put themselves to that test with\u00a02017’s release of Adobe XD, which is user experience (UX) design software that sought to compete with the likes of Sketch and Zeplin, which are the current industry-leading UX software offerings. Adobe\u00a0sets the pace the on almost all of the other types of software fields they dabble in; think of Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Premiere Pro and more. But with XD, the California company had to build something from the ground up with the goal of competing in an already\u00a0crowded field.<\/p>\n

The company’s annual conference, Adobe MAX, took place\u00a0last\u00a0month and featured several updates to XD. But unlike users of Adobe’s other programs, XD users\u00a0have become accustomed to regular upgrades. XD\u00a0adheres to a very rigorous\u00a0update period, releasing patches, features and small tweaks on a monthly basis, something Adobe very rarely does with their other products. October’s releases were, of course, a bit bulkier, considering they coincided with the MAX conference: new features involving voice prototyping, animation support, and third-party plug-ins headlined the update.<\/p>\n

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Presenting Adobe XD updates at MAX 2018.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Even though the upgrades are plentiful and the software is powerful, the\u00a0journey of\u00a0Adobe XD is fascinating. The software giant is trying to enter a new market and not only build a competitor but become a leader in the space. This\u00a0results in some really interesting discussions around decision-making and resourcefulness as the XD team looks to not only build a product that works but also one that fixes the problems they see within the industry on a daily basis.<\/p>\n

When XD first released, a common thought from UX designers was, “this is interesting, but it’s not there quite yet.” Cisco Guzman, the director of product management for XD, recognized this as less of a problem and more of an inspiration.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe general consensus was that, XD is promising, and that XD seems really great, and I wish I could use it,” he\u00a0explains. “Customers\u00a0were saying, ‘this could be something.’ But the thing we\u2019re excited\u00a0about is that we\u2019re not just trying to fill the product with stuff. We\u2019re trying to give people a different way of doing their work. We\u2019ve come a long way in this last year.”<\/p>\n

The goal for Guzman and the XD team was simple. Designers are\u00a0used to working in a specific pattern, so XD had to offer a space where they can design, prototype, and share, all in one piece of software. Beyond that, the team\u00a0had to innovate and see what\u00a0kinds of features they could add\u00a0to elevate XD beyond a normal UX solution.<\/p>\n

It is that kind of ambition that\u00a0defines Adobe’s endeavour to enter a new industry. The company is massive and\u00a0boasts a firm hold on their other projects’ fields, so when it comes to product development, the teams behind the\u00a0new software can afford to be ambitious\u2014and when ambition mixes with a strong depth of talent and a seemingly unlimited pool of resources, good things happen. At least that was the plan for Guzman and the XD team, considering they were able to let the culture of design guide them, rather than strict usage quotas or arbitrary financial goals.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn order to stay focused on delivering product that is elegant and that does the job, I have to not be overly focused on competition, the market, and what we have<\/em> to do,” says Guzman. “I just think about how soon we can stop designers from wasting their time. I think of it like, this is a couple more designers we got to keep in the trade for a year.”<\/p>\n

\u201cCulture is our most important resource,” Guzman continues. “We love designers, so we act in ways that show that, and the number one way to do that is solving their problems.\u201d<\/p>\n

Solving problems is great, but a goal for Adobe has always been to solve problems people never knew they really had. This means bringing in new concepts or innovations and familiarizing users with them before they hit the mainstream. One of XD’s core updates\u00a0shown at MAX does precisely that. Voice prototyping means UX designers can create triggers launched by a particular word or phrase (more in the video below). XD allows designers to access a powerful text-to-speech engine so they can incorporate the quickly growing medium into whatever app or platform they are creating, something relatively unheard of in the industry.<\/p>\n