By Dani Beaumont
It's now possible to enable the microphone when recording a desktop preview interaction in the latest update of Adobe XD. Let me show you what I mean. I'm here in Adobe XD with a prototype that I'd like to show to my client now. Ideally I'd sit right next to them and talk them through the complex animations any time transitions that I have any voice interactions, but my client is in a
totally different location so that's unrealistic. The next best solution will be to quickly record the application flow while I narrate it with my voice to do what I want it to do.
Here in Prototype mode make sure that I have the home screen where the start of the flow set and then I'll click on the desktop preview icon here in the upper right hand corner. Now this is a feature that comes for free on Windows using an OS level control in Game Center with the latest version of Adobe XD. You can apply this same powerful capability on the Mac as well to enable that voice narration. There's a subtle little icon here on the right hand side that, when you click on it, allows you to enable the microphone. I've already checked that box, so I'll go ahead and dismiss that dialog and I'm ready to record.
I can tell that the recording is happening because this icon will be flashing during the time that it's capturing both my screen and my voice. Hi there - here's the latest version of the prototype with the changes we discussed on Tuesday. I've gone in and added a hamburger menu for navigation when you click it that menu now drops down from the top, If I close out that navigation by clicking the X here on the left hand corner, it will close out.
I've also added the voice recognition and speech playback feature we talked about. You can still click through the navigation of the site by clicking on individual hotspots but if you want to use your voice to transfer to the next screen, what you want to do is hit the spacebar and then say your command: Find tickets for tonight's show. From there, I can continue the narration as I mentioned or click an individual hotspots. I'll go ahead and click the next hotspot.
Notice that I get that time transition I've got a fading between seats and I get that speech playback on the last screen. Okay from there I can now save out this MP4 recording. I'll go ahead and leave the default name and save it as a file. If I then navigate to that directory I can see the file here I can bring it up for quick preview just to check my work.
Now that I have this done I can send it off to my client along with a link to the prototype or post it to social media, for example, to show my work off to other designers. That's about
it! I encourage you to give this new feature a try.
Communicating design intent is easier than ever with Adobe XD screen recording. When in Preview mode, the prototype and all interactions can be recorded using the built in recording option in Adobe XD. Enable a microphone and include a voice over narration while interacting with the prototype - great for communicating design decisions and intent. This tutorial shows you how to record in XD.
