Adobe InDesign supports creating digital and print documents such as flyers, stationary, posters, and other types of media, with rich graphics, images, and more. Adobe InDesign is available standalone or as part of the Adobe Creative Suite collection of media management and creation products.
$31.49
per month
Figma
Score 9.1 out of 10
N/A
Figma, headquartered in San Francisco, offers their collaborative design and prototyping application to support digital product and UI development.
In theory it can do the all the things these other apps offer. And it does to a certain extend. if your prototypes are not too complex it can completely remove the need for other prototyping software. Through Figjam presentation and collaboration, alternatives provide no extra …
Figma is a lot cleaner, easier to navigate and organize. Maybe you can't do as much visually but you can move faster in Figma. I'm trying to remember more but honestly I've been using Figma for so long now.
Figma supports and is supported by other design apps, but it really shines in prototyping for web and app development. It's easy to share with colleagues and collaborate in one space, the open space allows for a ton of iteration, and the organization of layers functions better …
Figma is inherently "smarter" than these other apps for its ability to create design tokens, generate code and is just better suited all around for screen-based design.
Figma provides a much better collaborating experience. For example, Adobe XD does not support simultaneous editing, and this is such a pain when teams are working together.
Adobe InDesign is very well suited to image-heavy publications, such as children's books, cookbooks and coffee table books. It gives you almost complete control how to arrange these elements, and to be able to tweak them with precision. The software is an absolute necessity if one is developing interactive eBooks, especially for the Apple iTunes store. Unless coded by hand, I am not aware of any other tools to handle this. It is a powerful toolset, and can take on most anything publishing related that you throw at it. I personally have found that it doesn't do too well with reflowable eBooks (like for Kindle Amazon), but it retains that capability.
Figma is now the de facto design tool. It elevated designers away from the Adobe mindset of grouping and layering into a more developer-aligned mindset of auto layout and padding, which is how your design will eventually be coded, so this is a good thing. To be honest, I'd be skeptical of any design company not using Figma in some capacity! I was also nervous about using Figma instead of Miro, but it's held up well, and the app store helps. I've purchased a few add-ons.
Customization - With Adobe InDesign, as well as many other applications in the Adobe Creative Suite, I can fully customize my workspaces and save different workspaces. This makes it easy to navigate through my project and have the panels and tools I need easily accessible and configured based on my project needs.
Styles - Adobe InDesign has character styles, object styles, and tables styles. This speeds up my workflows and allows me to easily apply the same format across multiple elements. This is super helpful, especially when working with length documents.
File compatibility - I can easily export my files into so many different file types.
The Book feature - This feature is really helpful when creating books or very long documents with multiple sections.
Ordering the pages with dragging is a bit counter-intuitive
The "Links" section needs improvement - it might be very beneficial to have the links displayed (and saved) in the "links" sections for dragging and reusing without having to re-insert
I think the relinking option works well - Would it be possible to the automatic relink to work even if file was renamed? A prompt will be [shown] to the user to help them approve or disapprove of this action.
Sometimes, I have to break components - if there was an easier way to customize on the spot without breaking them.
If I change the naming convention in the library, it would be nice to replace the old version. Because it will just remove the style altogether, I have to go back and apply it again.
I've had great experiences with the product and plan to continue to use it. It has been my go-to product for designing and creating materials. I have had great luck with it and have been able to create all of the needed marketing materials that have been requested for our company.
Figma is a pretty cool tool in many areas. My team almost uses it on daily basis, such as, brainstorming on product/design topics, discussing prototypes created by designers. We even use it for retrospectives, which is super convenient and naturally keeps records of what the team discusses every month. Furthermore, I do see the potential of the product - currently we mainly use it for design topics, but it seems it is also a good fit for tech diagrams, which we probably will explore further in the future.
If you know what you are doing it is an amazingly granular and powerful application. You can control pretty much any aspect of the design and layout of your documents and make changes globally and rapidly. But, if you don't know what you are doing...you will be staring at your screen in bewilderment for a long time. You can learn it, but be ready for a hefty time investment.
It's so simple to use! I have no background in UI design but basic designing and I was able to learn this software Figma within 3-5 days. There are tons of tutorials available on Youtube from so many popular YouTubers in the space, you can just go through them and start designing.
Adobe support is ok but not great. Chat support often doesn't initially understand the question at-hand and it takes awhile to get to the right agent. Phone support has long wait times, and though I've had more luck there, it does take quite a time investment if you are looking for help. However, Adobe does have some online learning solutions available as well as a knowledgebase for frequently asked questions. If you're looking to learn how to use the platform, there are lots of resources which can typically be found in a few Google searches. If you have a technical issue with the system, that's going to be a bit more of a time investment as far as getting a tech's assistance to resolve the problem.
I haven't used their support lately but in the past, they had a chat that I used often. They often responded in a few hours and were able to give a satisfactory solution. I would imagine it's less personal now but the community has expanded drastically so there are more resources out there to self serve with a bit of Google magic.
In-person training has its own benefits - 1. It helps in resolving queries then and there during the training. 2. I find classroom or in-person training more interactive. 3. Classroom or in-person training could be more practical in nature where participants can have an hands on experience with tools and clarify their doubts with the trainer.
Online training has its own merits and demerits - 1. Sometimes we may face issues with connectivity or the training content 2. The way training is being delivered becomes very important because not everyone is comfortable taking online training and learning by themselves. 3. With the advancement of technology online training has become popular but there is a segment of people who still prefer class-room training over online one.
Microsoft products do not match the aesthetic tools that [Adobe] InDesign offers, cannot support the customizable options available for export, and do not produce documents with as high a degree of accessibility. That said, they do have their place in collaboration in a team- I'd consider Office to be the first step and [Adobe] InDesign to be the final product.
Honestly, Figma is so much better than its competitors, if you even want to call them that. You get accurate, high-fidelity work that you can quickly get into development for launch. The Figma community of plugins and templates is also AMAZING! There are so many passionate users out there looking to help create efficiencies for others.
Adobe InDesign has allowed us to tackle more projects in the same amount of time because of how well it integrates into our group's workflow.
For awhile, we struggled only with a slowdown in digital guides. Because, as I mentioned earlier, there is not a clear way to combine individual documents into one document quickly, some editors were forced to spend a long time transferring each page into the final document that would be used with Publish Online. We have since found a workaround that does not include using Publish Online.
Seamless integration of designs into Jira have helped double the level of accuracy during development. Interactive access to preview prototypes, flows and mockups has made a huge difference for us.
When components are updated in ways that changes the copy or architecture, it breaks all of its instances creating a massive source of anxiety for everyone on the team. The fact that we are uncertain whether our updates will retain text overrides forces us to triple check each time, decreasing our operational efficiency.
When high-fidelity prototypes are built to showcase new concepts, their ability to appear almost identical to our production site makes it much easier for stakeholders to get involved in decision making therefore allowing us to make more well rounded decisions.
