Presenting & Sharing Designs with Clients Using Adobe XD

W
hether working with them at an agency or as a freelancer, it’s important to think about the best way to present or share documents with your clients to get the most valuable feedback from them. In the past, you may have used options such as sharing static images or PDFs for review, but this never gives clients the ability to really experience the look and feel of the design as intended. You may have also considered sharing the project with clients for review (for example, via Adobe XD's live Coediting feature) but this often causes issues (more to come on that further down).

Your goal in presenting your designs should be to share only the designs and prototypes that you have reviewed and deemed ready for feedback. Having control over what your clients see will keep the review process efficient and valuable; in short, present your ideas only when necessary and when they are ready.

Adobe XD has a few great features to help you present or share your designs. Below, we’ll take a look at how to share a design review link and how to share a recorded video of your prototype.

Sharing a link for Design Review

Generating and sharing a link to your XD design/prototype lets your clients view and interact with it on the web and, thanks to the commenting feature, they can provide instant feedback. One great benefit of using these links is that they link to the version of your project as it was when you created the link in the first place. This means, if you're still working on your design, your clients will not see any changes made after you created the link; they'll never end up accidentally commenting on a design still in progress.

Let’s go over the steps needed to share your designs in XD:

Navigate to the Share tab and choose Design Review

When you’re ready to share your design, click the Share tab next to Design and Prototype. Then, in the Share panel, give your link a title and choose Design Review in the View Setting panel. This option will allow your clients to click through the prototype, receive hotspot hints and provide comments on any piece of the design.

Pro Tip: Learn about how each of these presets work.

Choose who has access

In this same panel, you can choose who has access by either choosing Anyone with the link or Only invited people.

Note: If you do choose to share with only the people you invite, you will have to create the link before you can choose who is invited to it. When this link is passed around, each member will have to log into their associated account before the design can be viewed. You can also control whether or not someone you invite to view your link can invite additional reviewers to your shared link.

Create a link and share it

Now that you have set the proper settings, all that’s left is to click Create Link and in a few seconds, you’ll have a fresh new link to share with your clients.

Your clients will now have quick access and be able to experience the prototype as you intended or browse the artboards individually. They can also provide quick feedback that is immediately sent to you. Clients can add general comments or use the pinned comments feature to provide more specific feedback on a particular part of the design.

Recording a prototype and sharing a video

An additional option for sharing your prototypes is to use the record setting found in the prototype preview (Mac only). This method of sharing is very helpful when you want to guide your clients through the experience and showcase the latest updates you’ve made to the design.

To record your prototype, simply click the preview button in the top right of the preview window. You can also choose to enable the microphone to record audio, allowing you to talk through the prototype during a demonstration. That option can be found by clicking the down arrow next to the recording icon in the preview window.

I love using this method with clients after we discuss new ideas to implement; it allows me to explain how I propose to execute the new changes we talked about.

Why inviting your client to be a co-editor might not be the best idea

Adobe XD is a great tool for collaborating with designers and other stakeholders, thanks to its robust live Coediting feature. With Coediting, you can invite multiple designers to work together on the same designs in real time. There are a few big reasons, however, why you would not want to invite your client to be a co-editor on your prototype. Aside from them not fully understanding XD (and possibly going in and breaking pieces of your design), this would also give them a real-time window into your work. This causes you to lose control over what your client sees and when you receive feedback from them; they may spend unnecessary time critiquing unfinished concepts.

In conclusion, XD gives you many options for sharing work with clients in ways that give them the full experience while keeping you in control, all to ensure an efficient review process. We covered shared links as a great option for them to experience the design/prototype and offer feedback and recording prototypes to share video demonstrations walking them through the prototype.