How does Indesign compare to current UX/UI design aps?

InDesign may be capable of doing those things but Sketch and Invision are more capable. I’m not sure where or why PowerPoint and keynote come into the conversation so I might question that.

The thing is you can use whichever tool you want until you have to pick up where someone left off, work with a team, work within an existing workflow, or hand-off to someone, etc.

Something that Invision does is what they call inspect mode, it allows developers to see precise measurements, color codes, fonts, etc and also writes some css. InDesign doesn’t do that, so there is either guesswork or a lot of back and forth from designer to developer.

It seems like you are just opposed to learning a new software and that is a quick way to get sunk in this field.

Working in the field, I don’t use InDesign for UX/UI design. I would also question the validity of the school if they are touting PowerPoint or keynote as UX/UI design tools.

I work with a few agencies who use Sketch. I haven’t used it though and until someone tells me I need to allocate some time to learn it, I’m gonna leave it for now. Following this thread for interest though.

If design schools are teaching Sketch, then it will be used more in the next few years. Once it reaches tipping point, then us oldies will have to figure it out too.

By no means is Sketch a replacement for anything out there, at least not right now. Vector files and PDFs are a dog’s breakfast coming out of it.

Schools should be teaching software features independent of software packages so that students learn how to be versatile.

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This is where i problem is with my school. You see, i don’t mind if the professor what’s to teach new softwares, but the problem is that most of the students didn’t know how to use Photoshop. Even zooming in short cut wasn’t muscle memory for most of them. IMO, for beginner students the right softwares that should be learned before any thing is Photoshop, Illustrator, and Indesign.

These softwares not only integrate with every form/discipline in Multimedia Arts and Design but it gives the person a better understanding of digital designing. I just don’t understand why a prof would shelf those softwares to students who need the experience on it.

Software comes and goes, the skill to learn is how to be software savvy and be able to learn new software quickly and efficiently. Learning the tools the industry is using in school is better than trying to find a job in that industry with no formal training in those tools.

If he said that as definitely as you phrased it, he’s wrong. Sketch is just another one of many tools in a designer’s toolbox. It’s growing in popularity, but it won’t replace the Adobe applications, but it does make a nice auxiliary tool to use in addition to them.

InDesign is great for a number of reasons, but they’re all related to print. I wouldn’t use it for anything else. I’ve used InDesign since it was first release by Adobe, and I’d never consider using it for anything but print or ebooks. I can’t think of a more inappropriate tool for electronic interface design unless, maybe, it’s Keynote or PowerPoint.

No, unless you like pounding in screws with a hammer instead of using a screwdriver.

I agree, but I don’t know the other side of the story from your professor. If the class is about UI/UX, both Photoshop and, even, Illustrator are more appropriate tools than InDesign, which in my opinion, has no relevance at all to UI/UX.

One of the most important and underappreciated benefits of a higher education is the exposure to a variety of opinions from a variety of professors. If you don’t agree with a professor, you owe it to yourself to try to understand his or her reasoning from an open-minded point of view since you have to assume he or she probably knows more than you do.

If five years from now you still disagree with what you were taught, that’s absolutely fine. It means you soaked it all in, looked at it from all angles, used your critical thinking skills and arrived at a conclusion supported by solid arguments and experience instead of uninformed biases.

I was taught a good many things from opinionated professors who forced me to re-examine my own points of view. Sometimes I changed my mind. Sometimes I didn’t. What it always did, however, was provide me with a sense of self-confidence that came from fully understanding both sides of the arguments.

What you shouldn’t do at this stage in your education is make up your mind about things that you’re still being taught.

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This shows a pervasive fundamental misunderstanding of what’s important about those tools. To borrow from Mr-B’s analogy, that’s like saying every carpenter should learn “Craftsman” screwdrivers and “Vaughan” hammers, and “DeWALT” drills. It’s not your fault for this misunderstanding. It’s the fault of schools for not knowing what’s important about what’s important. As a student, you’re being sold TO the software companies more than you’re being sold ON their software benefits.

This is what I think is most important to teach in order of importance:

  1. How to think beyond the limits of any software tool you might encounter.
  2. Graphic processing methods (Vector, Raster, Footage, Animating, Textorizing, Compression, etc.)
  3. Typefaces and Font handling methods
  4. Types of programs (Image development, Multimedia, Layout, Software development)
  5. Types of features typically used in the type of programs (tools, filters, style sheets, linking, etc.)
  6. Most popular brands and why they are popular

If they were to take this approach, they wouldn’t be teaching “Photoshop.” Instead they would be teaching “Raster graphic processing (with Photoshop),” or “Page Layout (with InDesign).”

You don’t automatically start using a software because it’s popular unless your goal is to be most compatible for file sharing. If your goal is something like image development, you won’t care if a software is popular as much as you will care about the features of the software, how easy it is to bring your imagination to life with that software. If you are sharing content more than you are sharing layouts, you want a program that lets you import and export a wider variety of file formats, not just the most popular formats. If you are sharing layouts, you are more interested in what your clients and output providers use than what’s popular. And if you aren’t sharing any of your files at all, you use whatever works for you for whatever you want to display.

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That’s really a good perspective. You’re right.

First of all, i understand that the quality of the layout means more then the tech side. You can know the ins and outs of any software but if you can’t design then it means nothing.

Also, MR-B. Your views would be valid if we were thinking about freelancing. If you look on any job search site, no matter what design role you will see the adobe CC’s as part of the required qualifications. Sure there will be Sketch or invision in some cases but in majority it is PS, AI, and ID that dominate the number of needed technical qualifications.

If a student graduates college (whether bachelors or graduate) and doesn’t not have any knowledge of PS or ID, how easy would it be for him/her to get a job? Even if the portfolio is great (which i know is the most important call out) how well can this person survive in team settings with out knowing how to use it?

If you understood it as well as you need to, you wouldn’t be so hung up on which software they are teaching you. Instead you’d be grateful that you were learning yet another way to do things besides the way you think is most important. It would be yet another tool to add to your toolbox.

I learned raster graphics on a program called MacPaint and vector graphics on a program called MacDraw. I learned page layout on a program called PageMaker, and eventually QuarkXpress. None of this knowledge kept me from learning Photoshop, Illustrator, or InDesign when I needed to. Instead, it made it easier to learn Adobe programs without being distracted and overwhelmed by all the proprietary features.

No one has suggested that you not also learn the Adobe CC applications. Of course you should; that’s a given.

Throughout your career, you’ll need to learn dozens of new software applications. And you’ll need to make doing so a routine part of that career because it never stops.

Your classes aren’t really so much about mastering this or that application. Whatever technical skills you learn this year will be obsolete within the next four or five years. What you’re really supposed to be learning, in addition to today’s technical skills, are the insights and understandings that transcend the always-changing tools that eventually leave so many designers in the dust.

Your school exposure to Sketch or whatever is really just a lesson in how to learn new software skills and developing the interests to continue doing so long after you’ve graduated from school.

I’m the CD where I work, and you’re right, I wouldn’t hire a designer who didn’t have a thorough grasp of Illustrator, Photoshop and InDesign. I also wouldn’t hire a designer who couldn’t name at least a half dozen other applications that he or she had mastered or was learning. Those extra skills might be pertinent to the job and they might not be. What is pertinent is that the designer was curious and motivated enough to learn them.

Maybe you need to read my post a bit more carefully, because you missed the point.

This seems relevant:

I watched the entire video. Even though I agree with what Mike Locke says, I’m afraid that what he says might be erroneously interpreted by some as rationalization for not needing to keep up with change.

In making a comparison, he says the fundamentals of basketball are the path to success in the NBA — not fancy moves. I have zero interest in basketball, but I suspect he’s right. An important incongruency in his apples-to-oranges comparison, though, is that, unlike design, the rules of basketball stay mostly the same year after year.

The basics of design stay the same too, but everything beyond the basics is in a constant state of flux. And beneath this surface instability, fundamental shifts in the business occur every few years that make unemployed anachronisms out of significant percentages of those who failed to keep up.

The web didn’t exist when I started in this business. For that matter, I predate desktop publishing by nearly a decade. App design didn’t exist before the iPhone. The shift from traditional printing to digital still baffles half the designers I talk to.

I could mention a half dozen other revolutionary changes in this field, and every one of them left thousands of people unemployed who couldn’t make the transition to new ways of thinking and the new tools required for the job.

So yes, the fundamental and immutable principles of design always stay the same. And within each of these huge shifts I’ve mentioned, there is also basic consistency specific to the technologies used. For example, from MacDraw to Adobe XD or InVision, the basic, most important tools are similar, but anyone not having moved past MacDraw would be unemployable today.

A beginning designer needs to master the basic principles of design and use those principles as the foundation of everything that comes after. Built on top of that foundation, however, is the need for an innate curiosity and fascination with those things that lie just around the corner. Lose that desire to explore what’s new — if only for the simple sake of curiosity — and a designer is a dead man walking.

…or a design zombie that won’t stay put in his grave. :crazy_face:

But seriously, my problem wasn’t a loss of curiosity. My problem was futile rebelliousness against the gravity of less than zero-sum competition between graphic designers and from programmers. I died trying to change the culture. I envy the kind of cooperation I see between programmers and all their open-source collaboration. I just opened a thread on the subject in the Software section of the forum.

So, moving over there to continue…

Designzombie. The topic is on education towards those who are still students in the whole multimedia designing industry.

No one such as myself denies that the output means more than whatever you use. Someone can be a technical expert in PS, AI, ID or whatever software but if he can’t design then it’s a useless skill.

My argument is about students who do not know any software at all. Regardless of someone being capable of using any tool, the fact of the matter is all job applications require knowledge of the adobe cc’s (PS, AI and ID) in their qualifications. It’s rather unheard of for an employee to hire a designer who has no skill/knowledge of using PS and AI, the majority use this which means that the person who doesn’t can’t work in their team.

I think it is highly important that students learn graphic designing through these 3 because these 3 do teach students to sync in any design branch: whether it be UX/UI, Compositing, animation, environmental graphic design, fashion…

What happens if the student tries to apply for a UX/UI job but doesn’t get it? if he doesn’t know PS, AI, ID, how much options will this person have in order to get job? If the person has even just basic knowledge of 2/3 (PS and AI most importantly) then he has a good chance of getting in whatever design role.

I understand you started different, which means you are probably from a different generation but now it is highly important unless the designer plans to freelance his/her whole life.

Is there an official Adobe software certification that you get awarded when you graduate art school that’s required by employers? Last I checked there wasn’t. But it’s been awhile since I applied for a job.

There’s nothing stopping you from learning these software apps on your own time. When I was in school, they weren’t teaching Photoshop at the school. I bought a Mac and I learned it at home.

When you apply for a job, sometimes they test you on your knowledge of the software, and sometimes they don’t. Either way, if you learn how to use them (working knowledge) you can put it on your resume that you know them. You don’t have to be an expert at them.

There isn’t but if you look around job search engines like Linkedin, Indeed, etc… you’ll see the 3 adobe softwares in the qualifications list.

No one denies that design means more than the tech knowledge. Someone with mediocre skills in PS can beat someone who knows the in’s and outs of PS and AI just based on the portfolio alone. Nevertheless it is important to know.

You being able to apply for jobs with out learning PS, AI, or ID just shows you are from a different generation, but for the last couple of years it has been a requirement. If you speak to anyone here, how would they perceive someone who is applying for a design role (whether it be graphics, ux/ui, animation, video…) yet have no experience with PS? That’s like a doctor who never took biology during his/her studies.

PS, AI, and ID give the student a wide range of knowledge and versatility in the job market… we have to be honest that in this career, it is hard to land a job in some parts of the world which is why it is important to have a wide skillset in Multimedia. With how the cost of living rises by the year and the amount of people applying to a design field such as UX/UI; should students be limited to be introduced to softwares that only teach one role or that can give them a foundation to all the disciplines in multimedia design?