If you want to create a website for yourself or your small business, you have plenty of options available to you. Most people don’t have much, if any, experience with coding in HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and the other languages commonly used with web development.
Fortunately, there are systems like Adobe XD that allows you to create beautiful websites without having to know any type of coding at all.
On this page, you will be provided with a great introduction to what Adobe XD is, and how it works, so you can decide if it’s the right system for your specific needs.
Key Takeaways
- Adobe XD is an advanced option that uses vector-based options to create various platforms from start to finish, even if you don’t have any experience with coding, web design, or other skills.
- A good web hosting provider supports Adobe XD sites, which are virtually all hosting services. Adobe XD is most commonly used to create websites.
- Adobe has several user interface (UI) kits to create a website or custom mobile app ― for both iOS and Android devices.
What Is Adobe XD?
Adobe XD ― which is short for Adobe Experience Design ― is a suite of tools that are used to create websites, web apps, mobile apps, and other things. It’s an advanced option that uses vector-based options to create various platforms from start to finish, even if you don’t have any experience with coding, web design, or other skills.
This platform was first announced in October 2015 under the name Project Comet and first launched in March 2016. It has since been used by millions of people to create many different websites and other tools.
In addition to the main suite of tools, there is also Adobe XD mobile apps for both iOS and Android devices, which allow you to test various projects to see how they run.
Steps to Take When Building Your Website With Adobe XD
Creating websites with Adobe XD is one of the most commonly used functions of this platform. The specific steps that are taken when building a website vary quite a bit based on what type of site you’re making, what features you want to offer, and more. The following is a general outline of some of the most common steps that need to be taken whenever using this tool.
Creating Your First Artboard
Artboards are essentially a draft that help you position all the different content, menus, and other items on your site. The Adobe tool allows you to drag and drop any type of feature or functionality for your website so you can get a good outline of your site in just minutes.
Adjusting Alignments
Once you have everything roughly in place, you need to make more precise alignment adjustments to get everything perfect. This is where you specify the size of images, how much space text should take up, and much more.
Completing Your Layout
Now, you need to complete the overall layout of your website. This is where you add menu items, headers, footers, and other key features.
Creating Interactions
Creating interactions is where you add in things like links for your menus, animations, and other functionalities that create a more interactive experience for your visitors.
Getting Feedback
Once you believe you have everything up and running the way you want it, you can send it off to co-workers or others to review. This collaboration can be done without publishing it publicly so you don’t need to worry about mistakes or other issues.
Your coworkers can browse through the project to ensure everything looks and works the way you expect. If they find problems, they can send them back to be fixed, otherwise, you can publish.
Publishing Your Site
Once you (and your team) are happy with the way your website looks and functions, you’re ready to publish it on the web. To publish your site, you just need a good web hosting provider that supports Adobe XD sites, which are virtually all hosting services.
To complete this, you upload all of the files from Adobe XD to the main directory on your hosting account and you’re ready to go. If you need any help with ensuring the files are in the right place and your site is live, contact the technical support team from your hosting provider.
About Adobe XD’s Key Features
Adobe XD has a lot of great features built right in. These features allow you to ensure your site looks and functions as expected. The following features allow you to create a great website with simple drag and drop or click to adjust functionality:
- Prototype for animation: You can use prototyping to create fun animations on your website. Prototypes work similarly to artboards that can be added and adjusted throughout your page.
- Repeat grids: If you want to add several pictures, lists, or other items to your page, repeat grids make this extremely fast and easy.
- Cross-platform interoperability: You can use a variety of Adobe and other tools within Adobe XD. For example, you can use Photoshop, After Effects, Illustrator, or other tools to create images and styles exactly how you want them, and then incorporate them into your website seamlessly.
- Plug-ins: As with most web design platforms today, you can find and use plug-ins either from Adobe directly, or more commonly, from third-party plug-in developers. This dramatically increases the options you have for building your site.
- Resize responsiveness: You can set up your site to automatically resize pictures, videos, and other objects on your site so that they look perfect no matter what type of device they’re accessed from.
- Other features: As you would expect, there are hundreds of other features available to you.
Adobe XD Templates
One of the many things that people love most when using Adobe XD is the ability to use templates. These templates allow you to use pre-made designs for just about any project. These designs save you a huge amount of time and effort without having to sacrifice quality.
Since the templates are generally created by design experts, you may find that you’re getting even better results than you would if you completed each step on your own.
There are many different options when it comes to the templates on this platform. If you’re creating a website, for example, you can choose a template that sets up your menus, images, written content, and other site features in a way that not only looks great but is also very user-friendly for your visitors.
If you want to make a mobile app or another tool, Adobe has several user interface (UI) kits, which are essentially templates for these other systems, that you can use. This makes it possible for anyone to create a custom mobile app ― for both iOS and Android devices ― faster than most people would believe is possible.
Easy-to-Host Adobe XD Websites
Another added benefit of Adobe XD is that the websites built on this platform run efficiently and operate well on almost any platform. You don’t need any type of specialized hosting server or other features for the page to load smoothly for all of your visitors.
Like other types of website builders, including WordPress, the type of hosting you need is based more on how many visitors you expect to get and what type of content your site contains than anything else.
This makes it somewhat simpler to choose your hosting provider. For most small businesses, you want to find a hosting company with exceptional reviews that can meet your needs.
For example, if you’re a local company that doesn’t expect a huge amount of traffic, you should be happy with a shared hosting package. If you’re targeting a national or global audience, a virtual private server (VPS) or even a dedicated server might be required.
Comparing Adobe XD to Other Website Builders
There’s no doubt that Adobe XD can provide you with excellent templates, tools, and options to build just about any type of website. If you don’t think that this option is right for you, however, you don’t need to give up on creating a website entirely. There are dozens of different website builders available, each offering a different user interface, and different features, and specializing in different types of things.
You can read more about the best website builders available today so that you can make an informed decision about which one works best for your specific site.
