The CEO of Figma recently visited me and gave me a quick tour of their product. I think it holds great promise as a prototyping/design tool and I am giving it a try. The main benefit is real-time concurrent usage. In other words, two designers can collaborate live at the same time the way you might use a Google spreadsheet. I know that Adobe XD has been promising this feature for 6+ months, but the tool doesn’t even have a workable Windows version yet. I ran out of patience and am trying the competition.
My initial usage is slow, I’m learning a new tool. Rather than use it for a few days and then review, I am going to document my first few hours with it.
- Italics. It took me 2 minutes to figure out how to make text italics. I was looking for a button [I] but it was actually a drop down box. I need to get faster at it.
- Zoom. It’s just not very smooth. Slow it down with more intermediate points. Maybe provide a slider?
- Components. I am struggling a little of how best to organize. I am just guessing.
- Sizing. I really don’t need things to be 22.48px wide. 22px is fine. Can there be an option to make 1px the minimum increment?
- Moving things. I have a component with two elements in it. I am trying to move one of them. Not letting me. Grrrr…
- Rulers as guides. Hmm, innovative. I kinda like that.
- Publishing to the library. That works nicely.
- Projects. I think I need one of those, but how do I get to it? Oh, it’s called files? Hmm. A bit confused, but Ok.
- Preferences. Why aren’t there preferences in the desktop UI? Am I just missing where they are?
- Found preferences! Duh, make it available under Edit
I got better at it over the day. I think there are a bunch of little things that would smooth out the experience. Ill keep experimenting.
Plus one of their engineers actually reached out to me to ask about storyboarding and prototyping. The truth is that I can’t fully use the system until I have that.
Anyway, its good so far. More to come…
Whatya think?