Figma employees are encouraged to get early feedback on their in-progress work. Sharing early work can be daunting - it requires an environment and culture in which individual contributors feel comfortable bringing up unpolished ideas. Leaving technical reviews too late can lead to a lot of wasted time. Figma uses engineering crits to brainstorm novel approaches to technical problems, get feedback on the existing work, and unblock team members. This article talks about how Figma implemented its style of engineering crits and presents a template for other organizations to follow.

Figma has rolled out a transformative feature called multi-edit which significantly reduces the effort needed to edit across multiple designs by enabling simplified multiple-object editing in just a few clicks, aiming to blend seamlessly into the user's workflow. Developed by Sho Kuwamoto and Nikolas Klein, multi-edit diverges from conventional selection norms in design software. It is the result of an extensive process of ideation and refinement.

Figma CEO Dylan Field has observed a shift from the futuristic, neon-lit cyberpunk aesthetic to a more optimistic and natural solarpunk theme, characterized by sustainable energy and architecture integrated with the environment. The trend suggests a movement from dystopian imagery to more human-centric designs and harmonious with nature.

A survey by Figma involving over 1,800 designers, developers, and executives revealed a disparity between the high expectations for generative AI's impact on products and services and the current experimental stage of AI integration, with less than a third of builders proud of their AI features. Companies recognize the need for well-designed user experiences to unlock AI's potential amid concerns about feature fatigue and challenges in enhancing actual product usefulness with AI.

Figma has announced its Config 2024 lineup held in San Francisco on June 26-27. Over 75 speakers from Google, Disney, PayPal, Slack, Uber, Epic Games, and more will discuss their thoughts, work, and what's next. Early bird tickets are currently available at a discounted rate for a chance to connect with a community of builders and the future of product development.

Figma celebrated digital design history by introducing retro cursors themed from iconic eras such as 8-bit, Y2K, Skeuomorphic, and Aero for its April Fun Day. Users can experience nostalgia and personal expression through these cursors in Figma and FigJam, which reflect the evolution and playfulness of interface design over the decades.

Figma is hosting Framework, a global design systems virtual event, on April 16. The event will explore Figma's approach to building tools and features that support today's and tomorrow's design systems challenges. Various sessions will cover new features, insights from industry leaders on their design systems journeys, and expert Q&As. In addition, there will be product sessions about structuring and maintaining your system.

FigJam's team has assembled a collection of hand-picked AI prompts to help you better plan and jam.

Insert dummy logos of famous companies and country flags into your Figma or Figjam file quickly.

Engineering crits at Figma are collaborative sessions designed to foster brainstorming, knowledge sharing, and problem-solving early in the development process. Inspired by design critiques, Figma uses FigJam to facilitate asynchronous feedback, ensuring everyone’s perspectives are included in the conversation. Unlike traditional reviews, engineering crits emphasize suggestions over mandates.

Animations can elevate story-telling in sales decks, emails, and landing pages. Figma uses product hero animations to convey its product value and differentiation faster. Mutiny enhances its case study page with subtle movement upon hover. Mailchimp uses animation to create micro-interactions with users’ product experiences (eg. an animated high-five after users send emails).

Figma's database team had to deal with hypergrowth that was starting to outpace their database's capacity. To address this, they first focused on vertical partitioning, which bought them time but was not a long-term solution. They then embarked on a complex nine-month project to implement horizontal sharding, tailoring their approach to Figma's specific needs. To manage their horizontally sharded databases, they built a service in Golang to support load-shedding, transaction support, database topology management, and more.

Figma had a complex permissions setup, the implementation of which was causing tech debt, bugs, and delays. After not finding any open source answers, its team built a cross-platform DSL (domain specific language) that isolated policies and data while improving performance, accuracy, and developer ergonomics. This is a good case study on problem discovery and building an MVP all the way to a performant and long-lasting solution.

Codegen automatically generates code based on a defined set of rules or specifications. Although Figma's Developer Mode streamlines a considerable portion of design implementation, an entire plugin ecosystem can further speed up your design-to-development workflow. Figma's team recommendations include Anima, Builder, Figma to Code, Locofy.AI, and Replit.

Code Connect is a new Figma tool introduced to enhance the use of design systems by making code snippets more accessible to developers, facilitating better collaboration and consistent use across organizations. The beta release for Figma Organization and Enterprise plans promises a more unified workflow. Figma aims for general availability later in the year, further reducing silos and improving design-code integration.

These small and big Figma design tips will help to make your Figma design workflow smart, fast, and super productive.

Figma announced Code Connect for developers, typography and gradient variables, and the Library Analytics API during its Framework event, which focused on design systems. Code Connect, a Dev Mode tool, imports production-ready code snippets directly into the platform. Typography and gradient variables give designers new levels of control, scalability, and accessibility. The Library Analytics API enables enterprise customers to store and analyze library data outside of Figma.

C++ build times at Figma were getting so long that it was reducing dev productivity. Figma was able to reduce build times by 50% by using libclang's Python bindings to identify and remove unnecessary header file inclusions, reducing the amount of code the compiler needs to process. It also used a tool to track and address build time regressions over time and “fwd.h” files to centralize forward declarations within code directories.

Figma recently migrated its custom Skew programming language to TypeScript, a move made possible by improved browser support for WebAssembly and internal optimizations. This transition allows for seamless integration with Figma's existing codebase and external libraries, easier onboarding for new developers, and access to the TypeScript developer ecosystem. In this article, the Figma engineering team goes over their migration process, which was done gradually and automatically so as to not disrupt developer workflows internally.

Current and former Figma employees will have the chance to sell shares in the company as part of a tender offer that values the company at $12.5 billion. This is up 25% from the valuation the company raised in 2021 but below Adobe's unsuccessful acquisition attempt of $20 billion. a16z, Sequoia, and Kleiner Perkins are among the 25 existing and new investors who support the tender, which is expected to be worth $600 million to $900 million.

Figma improved the load times of large and complex files by dynamically loading content as needed instead of all at once. It used its existing dependency framework, QueryGraph, to track and load read and write dependencies across pages. The Figma team implemented a shadow mode for validating dependencies and making sure data stayed consistent across unloaded pages.

Figma is updating its drafts system, requiring users on Starter and Professional plans to move their drafts into team spaces for better organization and access to paid features. This change addresses unclear ownership issues, inconsistent experiences, and security by ensuring all drafts are associated with teams while remaining private and free to edit. Users will have time to transition their drafts. The update aims to improve future billing and project management for freelancers.

Figma has announced a major UI redesign, new generative AI tools, and a built-in slide show functionality. The UI redesign includes a new toolbar, rounded corners, and 200 new icons. The new generative AI tools allow users to quickly get started with a design. Figma Slides is a Google Slides-like feature that allows users to build and share presentations inside the app. It has interactive features for audience members and allows designers to present app prototypes right from the deck. Figma Slides is free while the feature is still beta - it will eventually become a paid feature once officially launched.

Figma introduced a significant UI redesign, generative AI tools, and slide creation functionalities at its Config conference. The redesign includes a new toolbar, rounded corners, and 200 new icons. It aims to make the platform more approachable for new users and useful for experienced ones. The new AI tools can help users quickly create project drafts, while Figma Slides enables users to build and share presentations within the app.

Figma has launched Figma Slides in beta. Figma Slides integrates with Figma's existing suite. Emphasizing intuitive design features and collaboration, it includes AI functionalities to enhance presentations. Despite the competition from established players like PowerPoint and Google Slides, Figma Slides aims to stand out by focusing on creativity and user participation to combat the dullness often associated with traditional presentation tools.

Figma is launching AI-powered features, from automating tedious tasks to providing advanced search capabilities, to enhance design workflows by aiding creative processes. These Tools will be free to all users during the beta phase. The pricing structure will be clarified before general release in 2024. Figma is committed to data privacy and gives admins control over their team's content usage for AI training, with robust security measures ensuring the protection of user data.

Figma AI is a new suite of AI-powered tools for Figma that helps designers with tasks such as visual search, asset search, text editing, image editing, prototyping, layer renaming, and design generation. These features are powered by third-party AI models and are free to use during the beta period.

Figma CEO Dylan Field announced the temporary disabling of the company's “Make Design” AI feature after it was found to replicate designs from Apple's Weather app, sparking controversy in the design community. The AI tool, intended to generate UI layouts and components from text prompts quickly, faces accusations of being trained on existing apps, which Field denies, attributing the issue to inadequate quality assurance. Figma will suspend the feature until a robust QA process is implemented to ensure the originality and reliability of its outputs.

Figma's "Make Designs" AI feature was temporarily pulled amidst concerns it generated designs too similar to Apple's apps. CEO Dylan Field attributes the similarity to third-party models and a design system the company commissioned, rather than training on Figma's own content. Figma plans to ensure future AI features align with quality standards and user privacy choices.

Figma's new AI features, particularly its 'make' tooling and layer renaming, sparked mixed reactions in the design community. While some functionalities are practical, there needs to be more concern over the impact on creativity and job security. The core issue is the commoditization of design, as AI-generated content risks diluting originality. Exploring how to maintain human uniqueness in design is crucial amidst these changes.