Adobe announced that Adobe XD is opening its platform to enable users to customise their tools with an ecosystem of community and partner-built plugins.
Leveraging Adobe XD APIs, developers can now build on top of Adobe XD, adding new features, automating workflows and connecting XD to the tools and services designers use every day.
In addition, Adobe XD now tightly integrates with designers' existing workflows via other popular collaboration tools such as Microsoft Teams (Adobe's preferred collaboration service), Slack and Jira Software Cloud, making it easy for designers to collaborate with stakeholders across their organisations.
Adobe CC EVP Scott Belsky says, "We are committed to developing a rich ecosystem around Adobe XD to fit the modern designer's needs.
"Delivering seamless, engaging user experiences is imperative for brands, companies and all digital products, and Adobe is focused on serving designers with powerful collaboration capabilities.
The open platform will be made publicly available later this year, but Adobe is already working with early developer partners to build plugins for XD, including Microsoft, Trello, UserTesting, Airtable, Dribbble, Silicon Publishing, Slope, inMotionNow, Astute Graphics, Anima and Google Cloud, along with its own Behance and Stock services.
To streamline and reduce friction in collaboration, Adobe announced add-ins for Microsoft Teams, Slack and Jira.
These solutions complement a series of integrations Adobe announced earlier this year, offering friction-free workflows with popular third-party tools and services such as Dropbox, Sketch, Zeplin, Avocode, ProtoPie and Sympli.
Adobe also revealed the first recipients of the Adobe Fund for Design. Created in May, the $10 million fund, distributed in the form of grants and equity investments, provides support to empower designers and developers to innovate in the world of experience design and create plugins and integrations for Adobe XD.
In addition to financial support, Adobe provides recipients of the fund's investments with access to industry experts, early access to technology, partnership and go-to-market opportunities and exposure to Adobe's network of passionate customers.
Initial grants and investments include individuals and companies building tools and services on top of Adobe XD to empower designers around the globe with several expected to be available in the product later this year.
