I can get all the same info here: https://www.webdesignernews.com/

Only when they need to. A workflow involves both divergence and convergence to be successful. You can't be truly innovative constantly setting limits and rules on yourself without exploring ideas that may not be feasible or scale well or be terribly performant.

But that is only during times of divergence. Once you have your concepts and ideas, you need to mold them, edit them, tweak them and start to converge with the dev team to find ways to make it work. Sometimes it's not feasible, and sometimes you discover it may not be has hard as you initially thought.

Or, you come up with something brand new to accommodate the new design. It really comes down to the business goals and what your are trying to achieve.

Start by familiarizing yourself with industry standards from the top players in the game. Google, Apple, Microsoft

Apple https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guidelines/

Google https://material.io/design/

Microsoft https://www.microsoft.com/design/fluent/#/

UX shouldn't come after UI....It should be done in tandem with all your UI studies. They are very closely related. The sooner you learn about UX, the better your designs will be.

For UX research, check out NNG (Norman Nielsen Group) https://www.nngroup.com/articles/

Also there is a UX Stackoverflow for questions/education https://ux.stackexchange.com/

Here is a process checklist to help you get acclimated with the entire design flow from research to execution http://uxchecklist.github.io/

20 Laws of UX https://lawsofux.com/

UX Myths https://uxmyths.com/

Learn the vocabulary! A glossary of terms https://www.invisionapp.com/design-defined/

Design System Checklist https://medium.com/ramblings-of-a-designer/design-system-checklist-7a97e2475265

Use Twitter! And follow popular designers that you admire that work for design studios/apps/companies that you really like. They constantly post about new tools, frameworks, concepts, etc

Good luck!

I second the rollover effect on the h2 tags. It was confusing and made me think they were hyperlinks... (which they are not)

Agreed

I'm 36. Been an in-house designer for 13 years. I'm good. No push to go into management. I am better served as a Senior UI designer, building our design system, and mentoring people. And unless I leave my company (or change the culture here) there is no design management where I work so I couldn't go any higher if I wanted unless I wanted to leave design entirely.

Is this a free upgrade from the last version?

I wish that when you tapped on the search field that it brought up the search screen in a card UI similar to Apple maps....It's way more intuitive that you can swipe it down to dismiss it. Their solution to the poor UX is to onboard the user about how to do it. (by telling them on the screen) The problem with that is the user (depending how skilled they are) might easily forget.

Well, doesn't change the fact that it's still free.

Sketch isn't multiplatform. Not all designers have Macs. Sketch is a non-starter for many people that don't have Macs.

Photoshop has a completely different workflow that isn't focused on UI design at all. And I dunno about you, but once you get a ton of artboards with tons of elements, the file slows down dramatically. Launch times are painfully slow, and quickly zooming and panning can be excruciating.

XD has its perks. Just because you don't see them doesn't mean they aren't there.

But the reason why we have 100's of tools on the market is because everyone's needs are different. XD is a great tool that works for a ton of people and in many areas is better than PS and Sketch. Especially when it comes to specs, collaboration, dev handoff, performance, and prototyping.

That thing did not work well for XD documents....Maybe I'll try it again in a year...But keep developing it! I think it's a great tool in general!