Looking for the alternative tools than may replace Sketch? The UX design industry is now full of many good tools that give us ability to work efficiently. We live in the golden age of software applications for designers.
New features, new possibilities are being released every month. I have already compared Adobe XD with Sketch, but from this time a lot has changed. New, fresh tools appeared in the Market. This is why we should continue the investigation. Let’s try to figure out which one — Adobe XD or InVision Studio, maybe the real Sketch killer.
🎨Beginning the Design Work
First, let’s compare what happens when we launch the apps. It is surprising that both tools have got a similar welcome screen. It nice to see the previous projects on XD and Studio. Beginning the work on the particular platform is really fast because of platform artboard templates included in both solutions.
There is one more interesting thing about welcome screen of XD… I do not know why folks from Adobe decided to display iPhone 6/7/8 as default artboard size for iOS devices. iPhone X and its successors are already present on the market. We can see that designers already start their work with bigger screens. For me, it seems to be a bit weird choice, but maybe XD creators have got some additional data that help them make this decision? What do you think? If you have your own opinion feel free to leave a comment.
🚲 Standard Design Workflow
Both apps look very modern. The overall structure is following: on the left you will find area to manipulate layers, pages or symbols. The central pane is reserved for canvas where artboards are created. On the right you will find the pane where you can manipulate the parameters of layer, symbol or dartboard.
InVision Studio has got a dark UI by default. This mode helps to focus on the work to be done during the late hours after sunset. With macOS Mojave, every app can look like this quite easily. It is a big disappointment that Adobe did not add yet dark theme to its solutions. However, I have seen on my eyes that this feature is in the XD backlog!
If you will play with vector manipulation possibilities of the Studio and XD, you will notice that they are very similar. Actually, the differences are in the toolbar placement. It is sure that they were inspired by the other design tool… of course the Sketch app.
What is worth mentioning, the corner radius manipulation is much more convenient in XD. Dragging the handle directly on the layer is really cool.
🔬 What about Design Handoff?
Thankfully, preparing guidelines and graphic resources for developers is now mostly automated process. I always love to focus on time-saving solutions. I think that no one likes the dull routine. Let’s check out how these two apps make design handoff!
XD and Studio exports specification to the cloud. The one from Adobe is hosted in the Adobe XD Creative Cloud. I am not sure about the capacity of the storage, but I suppose that the free plan has got some additional limitations.
Studio exports specs to the InVision’s comprehensive design collaboration services. You can preview your work just like the other projects made earlier with Sketch and uploaded via Craft.
The most significant advantage of InVision is that the Specs mode includes not only the guidelines. It also includes all needed assets available to download. This feature is not present in XD yet.
🤖 Making Prototypes…
InVision is experienced when it comes to simple prototypes, but with Studio they moved the abilities to the next level. Making animated transitions with their tool is a real pleasure. We can also manipulate easing, delays and the duration of transitioned elements which results in a very professional animation. Motion Design in Studio is a real pleasure (if you are working on new Macs — older ones have got some performance issues).
Adobe XD includes simple prototyping mode from its first releases. With the recent update, it was enhanced the motion possibilities with “Auto-animate” feature. This animates naturally layers between dartboards based on their names (like in the Studio). We cannot manipulate any other parameters of the animation. It is done automatically.
🔌 The Power is in the Plugins!
The power of the design tools are now extended by the community made plugins. Sketch is famous for its adding that completely rethink the way we work — in a positive way. Thanks to plugins our work is even more convenient and efficient.
Adobe XD introduced Add-ons repository inside the app. It includes lots of useful plugins. You can download popular ones like Angle from Meng To Design+Code, RenameIt, Trello, Google Sheets or many other valuable Add-ons.
InVision Studio also has got plans to introduce its ecosystem. Their “App Store” is still coming soon, for now.
It is quite interesting that the design tool creators invest in their in-app stores. You can also check Framer X, that also have some UI Kits and add-ons included in the internal repository.
💸 Pricing
At first, Adobe XD was available as the other Adobe CC apps — in the subscription plan. Fortunately, you can now download XD for free, which is a nice introduction to other Creative Cloud apps. If you would like to discover the full potential of XD combined with Creative Cloud platform (XD can now import files nicely to After Effects), it will cost you about $52.99/month.
Studio is available with your InVision account. It may be used for free because InVision has got free plans. However, the plan for the single professional costs $25/month.
What is worth to mention — with Adobe plans you got industry standard tools for various purposes from photo through video into audio editing. If you do a lot of this creative tasks this may be an offer that interests you.
💻 Platforms
The first important thing to discover is to reveal how many platforms support each of the solutions. Is the multi-platform strategy key to success?
Adobe XD started with only macOS support, but now it is available also on Windows. InVision Studio promises that it will become the multi-platform tool, but currently, it is available only for macOS.
On the other hand, many of the designers are already working on a Macs. Sketch is running exclusively on macOS and it was enough to become an industry standard tool for UI design.
💎 Import from Sketch
Software design tools that would like to replace Sketch paradoxically has to cooperate with its files. This is very good for us designers, but how it works in practice?
From my experience Studio is opening simple files quite well, but has troubles with more complex ones. It does not import several features — does not display Gaussian blur shapes and it loses some shadows or masks. Sometimes the opened Sketch file is a real mess.
XD promises that it also opens sketch files. But, my first impression was not so good. It translated Sketch Pages into the Sections, lots of vector boolean compositions were displayed inappropriately, text layers were misaligned and shadows got a different look.
The fact is that both tools do not work well with real-life files with dozens of artboards, symbols etc. The import is becoming very slow in this cases.
💡 Two more features…
I was amazed when reading about a single feature of Adobe XD. The app allows creating voice triggers. This means that you can create prototypes that can be manipulated not only by clicking but also by voice commands. Looks promising if you would like to create a virtual assistant.
Voice triggers seems to be a unique feature of XD, and I think that other apps do not have anything similar.
Other impressive feature of Adobe XD is the repeating grid. You can create a list or a grid and fill it with customizable content within a seconds. Even Sketch’s famous plugin - Craft is not able to do this in a such convenient and quick way.
👉 Would you like to test tools on your own?
Before the final word, I have got advice for you. Always try to test and validate on your own. Every comparison is subjective, and this is why you should try these tools to discover their advantages.
You can download them from following links:
You can learn all the features on your by yourself. However, there is a nice shortcut. LearnUX.io is the platform with high-quality courses for all major design tools — also InVision Studio and Adobe XD. Thanks to the useful lessons you will be able to get started design in these apps quickly!
To conclude
Every critical aspect of XD and Studio was analyzed, now. I have to say that the Sketch killer is… nobody! Both XD and Studio are great tools and designers will use them in their work with ease, but Sketch is the real standard that gives most flexibility when it comes to the UI design. Sketch can do much more, I wrote before… I think that Adobe XD is a bit more stable especially on the older Macs, but folks from InVision work hard on improvements and Studio is evolving quickly. It is hard to say which tool is better right now. Personally, I if the InVision Studio performance will be close to XD, I think that the workflow of the InVisions tool will be a bit more natural for me.
Now with freshly introduced features of Adobe XD, I suppose that is also possible to make quite convenient User Flows there. Would you like to see SQUID one of the most popular user flow kit for Sketch made for especially for XD? Please let me know here!
By voting in the survey, you will get extra 20% discount on SQUID.
You are looking for multiple design tools, but using Sketch in your daily work?
Designing digital solutions in Sketch is very effective, but no one wants to make boring and repeatable work. Time is a very precious asset for us — Designers. This is why beside writing UX articles I build time-saving design tools to make you a better and more efficient Designer.
If you plan to start a new project soon or to organize your UI Library — do not waste your time creating everything from scratch. Feel free to use the Prime — Design System Kit. See Prime in action.
To make it easier there is a gift 🎁 Use MEDIUM10 offer code to get 10% Off.
You can also Create User Flows faster in Sketch — With SQUID you can create User Flows directly in Sketch the sketch file with your artboards. Everything may be done within a couple of clicks. See how it works.
Subscribe UXMisfit.com (and get some discounts)
Follow me on Medium
Follow me on Twitter
👉 You can also follow me on Dribbble!
What is your opinion on XD or InVision Studio? Will they become Sketch-killers? I am really curious. Please let me know in comments!
Originally published at uxmisfit.com on October 21, 2018.
