A Journey Through Time: DPDK Combines Experience with Adobe XD for Continuous Innovation

Image courtesy of DPDK.

Do you remember the days before social media, high-speed internet, or carrying a phone wherever you go? Often, it’s only upon reflection that we realize we’ve had front-row seats to history in the making. Over the last few decades digital has transformed the way we live, work, and play—and our expectations have adjusted accordingly.

Global digital agency DPDK has witnessed this firsthand. Founded 20 years ago, the company has evolved and adapted alongside its clients, and remains at the forefront of digital innovation.

“In the past few years, we’ve seen a shift from building brands through advertising and campaigns to experiences, where companies invite customers into their own environments so that they can offer more curated, unique journeys,” explains Michael Vromans, partner & creative director at DPDK. “That means more focus and emphasis on higher-impact websites, portals, and content.”

A member of SoDA, The Digital Society, DPDK focuses on five main areas: client portals and B2B websites, corporate websites, brand experiences and content, tailored web applications, and product innovation and design—which can range from a VR application to AI to voice. To help explore and deliver these exceptional digital experiences at scale, DPDK recently adopted Adobe XD into its creative workflows.

Image courtesy of DPDK.

“Most of the corporate websites and portals we work on have a lot of states and provide many possible customer journeys,” says Michael. “We rely on Adobe XD to design responsive, interactive sites that deliver information quickly and with maximum impact.”

Making more time for creativity

The collaborative nature of XD helps DPDK work more efficiently with design and developer teams that span multiple time zones, whether they’re in Rotterdam, New York, or San Francisco. And the ability to create design systems that leverage a set of reusable assets means that the team can scale effectively.

“We spend less time setting up files and getting software to work and more time creating by using features such as the repeat grid,” says Michael. “We can replicate items as many times as we need to, and any updates we make to an asset are reflected across the board. We can now deliver the same, high-quality projects we are known for but much more efficiently.”

Because XD works seamlessly with other Adobe Creative Cloud apps, DPDK can access design assets created in Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator with ease. The agency is also increasingly turning to XD for motion design work and is already reaping the benefits.

Rather than having one person creating the visual user interface and another person responsible for the motion design itself, DPDK can use one designer for both, which leads to a more unified vision. “We eliminated the time needed for another person to get up to speed on a project and potentially interpret a vision differently than it was intended,” says Michael. “That extra time can be dedicated to other projects and more creative work.”

Putting XD through its paces

Recently, DPDK had a rare opportunity to be its own client when it refreshed the agency’s website using XD for both the experience design and motion design work. And while acting as both vendor and client came with its own challenges, the team was thrilled with the outcome—and with the streamlined process along the way.

Redesigning the DPDK website with Adobe XD. Image courtesy of DPDK.

“From a design perspective, if we wanted to change a component that was used on 20 different pages, we would change it once and it would be replaced in all 20 instances automatically,” says Michael. “The intuitiveness of the tool eliminates many of the tedious, repetitive processes that can really slow down creative workflows.”

The review process was also streamlined significantly. The leadership team viewed the interactive prototypes via a link, shared their feedback directly in XD, and could see the different screens next to one another without having to toggle between different groups and layers. In the future, DPDK plans to take advantage of the XD app integration with Jira to capture all stakeholder feedback.

Creating impactful experiences for everyone

DPDK is confident that clients will appreciate all that XD has to offer, even if they don’t see most of the work that goes on behind the screen. But what they will see are amazing experiences created in a collaborative and interactive environment.

“I’m excited to expand our use of Adobe XD into other projects, including more motion design work, and experimenting with the product design systems in XD,” says Michael. “I can’t wait to see what the future has in store for us.”