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

Graphic Design
#41

I can’t speak for DesignZombie, and he can correct me if I’m wrong, but as I mentioned, I don’t think anyone here is suggesting that the three core Adobe design applications are not necessary for design students to learn for today’s marketplace. Of course they are — they’re as fundamental to the job as knowing how to drive an automobile is to a taxi driver.

So far, it’s mostly been working professionals who have responded to you. For us, the obviousness of having to be proficient with the core Adobe apps is a given that hardly needs to be mentioned, so perhaps you’ve inferred that some of us are suggesting through omission that they’re not all that important.

What I’m mostly getting at is that what you need to learn in school, and on the job afterwards, extends far beyond just that, which is why you should be embracing the chance to learn other software applications as well.

The field of graphic design is completely saturated. Only a small fraction of design students succeed professionally. Schools would be doing a favor to those students “who do not know any software at all” by turning them away before they hit the hard realities of the professional workplace. If they need to take remedial classes to catch up on the basics, it’s up to them to have the initiative to do so. I’m unsure why you’re concerning yourself with them.

In some ways, I suspect you might be thinking this is easier than it really is. Becoming proficient with the core Adobe apps is just the bare minimum. You disagreed with your instructor’s insistence on his students using alternative applications to the main Adobe apps for UI/UX exercises. I’m unsure of his reasoning or the specifics, so I can’t comment on it.

I don’t know the prerequisites to this class, but If I were him, I just might be doing the same thing (to a slightly different and lesser extent) for the simple reason that I’d want my students to push beyond the basics, which I’d already expect them to know. Depending on prerequisite requirements, they should have already had (and will have) plenty of other opportunities to learn basic software. In a UI/UX class, I’d want them to become comfortable with pushing boundaries specific to the course subject matter.

Besides, UX is more of a conceptual process involving competitor and audience analysis, strategy, content development, wireframing, prototyping, testing, execution, analytic analysis, subsequent iterations, etc… UX doesn’t involve the three main Adobe apps much at all; it’s much more focused on critical thinking and problem analysis.

For the UI part, I mostly just rely on Photoshop and a code editor. What I wouldn’t do as an instructor in a UI/UX course is turn it into a series of exercises focused on learning basic design software or confining methods and procedures to matching my personal preferences or dumbing things down in an attempt to cater to the limitations of students who didn’t already know the basics.

1 Like
#42

This professor is not on this forum.

Exactly.

I’m saying it wouldn’t hurt to learn Sketch in addition to the Adobe products, and that you can learn to use Adobe products on your own time. You don’t need an Adobe software certification to get a job. Even if your school doesn’t use Adobe products, you can learn Adobe products anywhere.

You appear to be treating the software as if the software itself is identified by employers as a skill, not a tool that’s used in the skill. The most sought after employers aren’t doing this. Like Mr-B says, the tools are a given.

#43

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.

100% agree!

#45

Do you also believe that Sketch should be learned (and is better) over Indesign, Photoshop and Illustrator?

Is like you ask someone : “A bird is really need feathers over the wing bone?”

The obvious answer will be that bird needs all of these in order to be able to fly.

Some thing is with a designer. I’m not saying that some specific applications are “better” to know over the others. All of these applications are useful and mandatory to know how to use them. Each application has its own use and purpose.

If you want to create mobile app, you can do it with Photoshop, of course, but Sketch or Invision, Figma, etc, are better tools for this.
The same thing is if you want to create a logo design. Adobe Illustrator is the best tool, because it is a vector based application.
If you want to prepare a Book cover or any other print material, for example, Indesign is the best tool for this (although you can prepare it with Photoshop too, or even Illustrator).

And so on… each application is useful and important to know how to use them.

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#47

I think InDesign can be a viable UX tool if you know how to use it. I have gathered some tips on into a single page. I can’t post a link here, but if you Google “indesign ux resources” you’ll find it.

#48

This thread is around three years old, but if you’d like to post a link to more information, that’s fine. I’ve bumped up your permission level to allow you to do that. If you’re attempting to advertise something, though, that’s not cool and violates the forum rules.