By Justin Morales
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athering design review feedback from stakeholders and giving reviews to others can often be an unorganized, chaotic process. You give your input and then, hours or possibly even days later someone else gives theirs. It can become difficult in these cases to keep track of everyone's input and suggestions. Luckily, Adobe XD has one centralized location where you can get design feedback, helping to streamline the entire design review process. Additionally, users can now interact with each other's comments in real time to help expedite iterations in the design cycle. With the power of a single link, users can share out their designs and receive feedback from everyone invested in and working on the design.
All of this is boosted by XD's robust commenting tool, which allows users to bring others along in your iterative design process. Commenting makes it easy for teams to be transparent and stay up to date on the latest version of the design. In this article we will go over how to use these features as well as their benefits during the design review process.
How to generate a shared link
Before you can give and get design feedback, you must first generate a sharable link. Once you have reached a point in your design where you’re ready to share your prototype, navigate to the top left of your screen and next to “Design” and “Prototype” you will see “Share”. Click this option to create your unique sharable link.
On the right hand of your screen you will notice the UI prompting you to set parameters labeled “Title”, “View Settings” and “Who Has Access”. Each dropdown gives you various control options surrounding your shared link.
“View Setting” will prompt you to choose one of five scenario-based viewing options:
Design Review - Great for gathering feedback.
Development - Used to articulate specifications to development.
Presentation - Helpful when testing users.
Custom - Able to customize the experience.
Find a full breakdown of how to share designs and prototypes here.
For the purpose of getting feedback in a design review, make sure and choose the first option conveniently titled, “Design Review”. This will allow you to distribute this link to individuals granting them access to review your designs in real time. This really helps in the review process as you are able to push out updates in real time to key members. Users will be able to comment, view navigation controls, as well as receive hotspot hints as they navigate through your prototype. Not to mention this is completed 100% remotely, cutting out travel time and expense.
Once you have decided on the “View Setting” options, you can then decide “Who Has Access” to your shared link. You may select “Only Invited People” limiting access to those you personally invite. The other option available is “Anyone with the Link”. You may password protect this or leave it open to anyone who has the link. This is a great option when you do not have time to invite every member one by one. When you are done, select “Create Link” to generate your sharable link and let the design review process begin.
Benefits of the commenting feature in Adobe XD
Now that you have your shared link, the real productivity begins. You will be able to quickly share your designs with teammates and stakeholders in real time, no matter where they are in the world. This will speed up your iteration process paving the way for streamlined, efficient follow ups.
When users access your link, they are able to view each individual artboard in detail and interact with any linked hotspots. This feature really helps bring your design to life. Why tell when you can show them? XD makes it easy to do just that.
The beauty of XD’s commenting feature is that everyone is able to leave and view comments in one centralized location. This promotes general organization as a project receives feedback from different individuals. In addition, members can feed off each other as conversations spawn from specific comments and recommendations. XD leaves a digital trail of how you got from one step to another in your design as that journey can get quite complex. This centralized location for comments really is a game changer in terms of organization, structure and efficiency.
Here is what the UI looks like to users. It gives you options on the right hand of the screen as seen below:
Here you can see the field allowing users to leave comments regarding that particular artboard. You are able to click the “@” button and tag team members in the comments and alert them to your comment. This will notify members in real time which helps expedite and streamline the review process. Additionally, you are able to pin comments directly to the artboard so the designer can see specific sections related to a particular comment. This makes for very effective, pinpointed feedback. You can also filter comments by type, status or reviewer to help navigate and locate specific feedback.
Using shared prototypes and commenting to streamline design reviews
Now that we know how to create a shared link and gather feedback and comments, let’s summarize how we can use this to streamline our design review process.
Firstly, when you share a link with a group of people for review, remember that you are able to constantly update the prototype as you iterate on your design. When one round of feedback is in, make your changes to your prototype, and simply update the link to kick off round two. You are able to bring stakeholders along with you each step of the way. This leaves no room for ambiguity or wondering how you spent your time as each milestone is shared with all appropriate parties.
Secondly, using shared links brings web design feedback to one centralized location. Without a centralized location, feedback can become disorganized, scattered, and often lost. With Adobe XD, users are able to store all comments in one location for all to see (and feed off one another). Comments are stored in chronological order to help organize feedback. This centralized location brings a sense of community around the design review process, as it is intimately shared with those who are invested. Users can also reply to each other's comments and designers can mark comments as resolved to keep the process running smoothly.
Lastly, users will now be able to polish off design reviews and make iterations from independent, remote locations since everyone will have access to this shared link. Long gone are the days of needing to be in the same physical location to review designs. Now, you are able to view prototypes and leave/receive targeted feedback from virtually anywhere -- all that's needed is an internet connection. Designers are able to gather feedback in a lean, real time environment helping them make enhancements to their designs faster than if everyone were relying on in-person processes. As our schedules continue to become busier and the pace of design work continues to accelerate, being able to complete more tasks remotely can be a big contributor to efficiency.
Conclusion
At the end of the day, Adobe XD makes it easy to get web design feedback in a real time environment, and this helps you streamline your design review process. On top of this, the ability to gather feedback in one centralized location helps expedite project timelines reliant on your design. In a world of finite time, efficiency is key and Adobe XD has this gathering feedback feature perfected.
