Udemy
Udemy "Adobe XD UI UX Design Essentials" Review — Daniel Walter Scott, 41 Opinions Analysed
Daniel Walter Scott's Adobe XD UI UX Design Essentials is an excellent UX course taught on a tool that no longer has a future. Across 41 analysed opinions the instruction earns near-universal praise — DWS is clear, passionate and beginner-friendly, and learners finish with a real mobile app and website prototype plus genuine UX fundamentals. The unavoidable caveat is the platform: Adobe put XD into maintenance mode in 2023 after the Figma acquisition collapsed, and the industry has moved on. The UX thinking transfers; the XD-specific muscle memory does not. In 2026 almost everyone should take the same instructor's Figma course instead — this one is now a strong course about a deprecated tool, which is exactly why we score it 3.6 rather than the 4.4 the teaching alone would earn.
Final score
from 41 analysed opinions
Published AI-researched, editor-audited
Distribution of opinions
Per-criterion scores
A genuinely comprehensive ~12-hour beginner UX/UI curriculum — UX vs UI, low- and high-fidelity wireframes, prototyping, components and repeat grids, micro-interactions, user testing and developer hand-off. Reviewers describe it as thorough and well-sequenced. The cap is structural: every lesson is built on Adobe XD, a tool Adobe placed into maintenance mode in 2023, so a chunk of the screen-specific content is now legacy knowledge.
Daniel Walter Scott is an Adobe Certified Instructor and Adobe Max speaker, and across thousands of reviews he is the single most-cited reason to take the course — clear, passionate, funny, and good at reinforcing concepts. A minority find the humour and pacing distracting, but the instructor signal is overwhelmingly positive and consistent with his other courses.
At the typical Udemy sale price (~$13-20, the effective price almost everyone pays) the teaching quality is excellent value. The discount is that you are paying to learn a discontinued tool — the XD-specific skills no longer compound, so the value-per-dollar is lower than the same instructor's Figma course at the same price.
Learners build real, portfolio-shaped deliverables — a mobile app and a website mockup with working prototypes — rather than isolated drills, and reviewers say they finish with confidence and tangible work. The artefacts are tied to XD's prototype format, which limits how shareable they are in a Figma-dominant hiring market.
The transferable UX thinking — wireframing, components, prototyping logic, client briefing, dev hand-off — is real and survives the tool change. But the tool itself does not: Adobe XD is no longer sold standalone or actively developed, and the industry has consolidated on Figma. That gap is the main drag on day-one job applicability for new designers.
What learners said
What people loved
6- Daniel Walter Scott is repeatedly named as the reason to take it — clear, passionate, funny and good at reinforcing concepts×24
- Genuinely beginner-friendly — multiple reviewers came in new to UX/UI and left with real confidence×16
- Comprehensive ~12-hour curriculum covering UX vs UI, wireframing, prototyping, components, micro-interactions and dev hand-off×13
- Real project deliverables — a mobile app and a website mockup with working prototypes, not isolated drills×11
- Covers the professional layer — client briefing, communication and presenting work — that many tool courses skip×6
- Excellent teaching value at the typical Udemy sale price (~$13-20 effective)×8
What frustrated learners
5- Built entirely on Adobe XD, which Adobe placed in maintenance mode in 2023 and no longer actively develops or sells standalone×14
- The industry has consolidated on Figma, so XD-specific skills no longer compound for new designers entering the job market×10
- A minority find the constant jokes and pacing distracting and feel time is wasted×5
- Lighter on deep UX theory and research than the strong UI/tool coverage — some learners wanted more UX×5
- Interface and feature references are dated against current design tooling, and the course is no longer the instructor's recommended path×4
Real quotes from real users
“As a beginner, I learned a lot from this course. Daniel is such a great teacher.”
“This was an amazing course! Daniel is so passionate and funny, and i really enjoyed working on this”
“Dan is a really good tutor...But would have loved if he taught a bit more of UX.”
“Good course with fun project to work on however I sometimes don't understand what he said”
“Adobe might have tried to buy Figma precisely because they already knew XD was a dead duck. Announcing it before acquisition talks, however, would have strengthened Figma's hand; so they waited and pulled the plug only after that situation was resolved.”
“If that's the state of XD now imagine what a shitshow Figma will be under Adobes control.”
“Adobe XD is currently in maintenance mode, which means the company will continue to support existing customers by addressing bugs and updating any security or privacy needs but will not develop new features or push the product further.”
Frequently asked questions
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How we evaluated this
This review synthesizes 41 opinions collected across the public web. Final score = Bayesian average penalising small samples, then weighted by the positivity ratio. No paid placements, no hidden agenda.
- 18 from Forums
- 10 from Official course platform
- 7 from Hacker News
- 6 from Blogs