Figjam

98 posts

figmaDec 6, 20232 min readCurated summary

Come together: A multiplayer guide to great meetings | Figma Blog

Great meetings are intentionally designed collaborative experiences, not merely calendar events or “glorified emails.” The article argues that successful meetings depend on four pillars: purpose, preparation, participation, and follow-up. Both facilitators and participants share responsibility for creating focused sessions that use everyone’s time and strengths effectively. ## Meetings as Designed Experiences - Meetings often fail because they lack a clear purpose, adequate preparation, active participation, or follow-up. - Effective facilitators design an experience that helps the team collaborate and accomplish concrete goals. - Participants also play an important role in making meetings purposeful and engaging. ## Before the Meeting: Plan for Success Preparation creates the conditions for inclusive and productive collaboration. ### Define the Meeting’s Goal - Clarify whether the meeting is intended to: - Track progress - Make a decision - Share information or insights - Build context across a team - Choose the meeting format based on its purpose. - Shishir Mehrotra’s framework groups meetings into: - **Cadence:** recurring staff meetings, standups, and project syncs - **Catalyst:** decision forums, product reviews, and design critiques - **Context:** all-hands meetings, off-sites, orientations, and one-on-ones - The right category helps determine the questions, participants, and structure required. ### Prepare and Share an Agenda - Circulate an agenda before the meeting, ideally a day in advance. - Include pre-read materials such as: - Project briefs - Documentation - Sketches - Other background information - Use an existing template rather than starting from a blank page. - FigJam templates can structure the discussion, collect participants’ ideas and questions ahead of time, and organize meetings around prompts or “provocations.” - Successful formats can be saved as reusable shared templates, while AI can help generate customized meeting structures. A practical meeting recommendation is to define the intended outcome first, then choose the appropriate format and share enough context for participants to contribute before the meeting begins.

Figjam Figma AI Coda+2

figmaNov 8, 20232 min readCurated summary

Little Big Updates: When going big means thinking small | Figma Blog

Figma argues that meaningful product progress often comes from small, frequent improvements rather than headline features. Because designers may spend 40 or more hours a week in Figma, reducing friction in everyday workflows can have a greater cumulative impact than adding rarely used capabilities. Its annual “Little Big Updates” initiative formalizes this focus on quality, usability, and user joy. ## Why Small Improvements Matter - Subtle changes can save users clicks, eliminate recurring frustrations, and fix long-standing bugs. - Figma users invest heavily in learning the tool, creating a responsibility for Figma to continually improve it. - Quality-of-life updates are difficult to market, but often affect the actions users perform most frequently. - A small improvement repeated hundreds of times a day can matter more than a flashy feature used occasionally. ## The Origin of Little Big Updates - Figma originally released product updates weekly. - After accumulating four updates, the team released one per day from Monday through Thursday. - Users compared the experience to opening a new present each day. - This response inspired the “Little Big Updates” format, which gives individual improvements their own attention. ## Examples of High-Impact Details - Figma fixed paste behavior that previously placed content in seemingly random locations. - Although the change was not headline-worthy, it removed a frustration users encountered hundreds of times daily. - Text selection when switching between frames was also improved, eliminating unnecessary double-clicking. - These examples show how workflow friction can be more important than feature novelty. ## Prioritizing Big and Small Features - Major initiatives, such as AI features for FigJam, require deliberate planning and coordination. - Large features may need to be sequenced carefully so related capabilities work together. - Small improvements should be prioritized differently: teams should avoid over-planning and allow decisions to remain decentralized. - Individual teams are often best positioned to identify which usability improvements will have the greatest effect. - Every team should treat product quality as an ongoing responsibility, not as a secondary concern. Figma’s recommendation is to balance ambitious new capabilities with sustained attention to everyday details. Product teams can create substantial user value by identifying frequent sources of friction and steadily removing them.

Figjam Figma AI Product Design+2

figmaNov 6, 20232 min readCurated summary

Introducing AI to FigJam | Figma Blog

FigJam’s new AI features are designed to solve practical collaboration problems rather than serve as a novelty. Users can generate meeting templates and diagrams from plain-language prompts, summarize brainstorms, and automatically organize sticky notes. Figma argues that this lowers the barrier to visual collaboration while helping experienced users move more quickly from ideas to action. ## AI-Powered FigJam Features - Generate templates for weekly syncs, brainstorms, reviews, and other meetings. - Create visual timelines and organizational charts from a simple prompt. - Summarize the contents of a brainstorm or meeting. - Sort and group sticky notes by theme automatically. - Customize generated outputs based on common workflows and best practices. ## Lowering the Barrier to Visual Collaboration - FigJam AI lets users describe their goals in everyday language instead of learning specialized design software. - A prompt such as “I need a meeting with four people” can produce an initial meeting template. - This approach makes visual collaboration more accessible to people without design backgrounds. - It supports Figma’s goal of “lowering the floor and raising the ceiling”: making the product easier to use while expanding what users can accomplish. ## Solving the Blank Canvas Problem - Starting with an empty FigJam file can make users unsure how to begin. - AI acts as an initial brainstorming partner, helping users move toward actionable next steps. - Tasks such as summarizing complex discussions or synthesizing ideas into categories can take significant manual effort. - Automating this work allows teams to focus on discussion, decision-making, and higher-level collaboration. ## Building AI Around Real User Problems - Figma says its product team drew on its own experience using FigJam to identify useful applications. - The features focus on everyday collaboration needs rather than adding AI for its own sake. - Templates and prompts are based on established practices and common use cases. - The article presents generative AI as a way to make visual tools more useful and approachable across disciplines. FigJam AI is positioned as a practical assistant for getting started, organizing information, and reducing repetitive work. Its main value is helping more people participate in visual collaboration without requiring them to master design tools first.

Figjam AI Generative AI Prompt Engineering+2

figmaOct 24, 20232 min readCurated summary

How Figma’s data science and user research teams weave together insights that count | Figma Blog

Figma’s data science and user research teams combined quantitative and qualitative methods to understand why notifications were not driving enough collaboration. Data revealed where users dropped out of the notification funnel, while user research explored the reasons behind those behaviors. Their synthesis showed that the biggest issue was not interaction with notifications, but that many users were never receiving them, leading to new alert types and changes to notification recipients and timing. ## Building a Cross-Functional Process - Data Scientist Caitlin Hudon and Researcher Jennifer Sanders began with a teamwide FigJam brainstorm. - They reviewed notification funnel metrics, including the percentages of users who: - Were eligible for notifications - Received them - Viewed them - Interacted with them - The team identified strategic questions, potential notification types, and data gaps. - Questions were divided according to whether data science or user research was best suited to answer them. - Caitlin and Jennifer maintained close communication while conducting their separate investigations, treating quantitative and qualitative work as complementary rather than independent. ## Understanding the Notification Funnel - Figma notifications can arrive through email, Slack, mobile devices, the file browser, the system tray, or the desktop app. - Notification events include comments, replies, reactions, invitations, editing access, and @mentions. - Users must move through several stages before engaging: - All Figma users - Users eligible for notifications - Users who receive notifications - Users who view them - Users who interact with them - Quantitative analysis showed what users were doing at scale. - User research was needed to understand why users behaved that way, since people may not always accurately explain their own motivations. ## Finding the Biggest Opportunity - The activity team initially needed to determine which stage of the funnel deserved attention. - Cross-functional analysis revealed that most users were not receiving notifications at all. - This shifted the focus away from simply improving notification engagement. - The main opportunities were to create new alert types and reconsider who should receive notifications and when. ## From Insights to Impact - Figma’s activity team began running notification experiments based on the combined findings. - A new notification type was released to address major user pain points. - The broader goal is to help teams stay connected and collaborate effectively across Figma and FigJam. The case demonstrates that product teams get stronger, more actionable conclusions when behavioral data is paired with direct user research.

Figjam Slack User Research Data Science+2

figmaSep 27, 20232 min readCurated summary

Figma and Google: Transforming education for Japan’s K-12 students | Figma Blog

Figma and Google for Education are expanding their partnership to give Japan’s K–12 schools free access to Figma and FigJam through Chromebooks and Google Workspace for Education. The initiative aims to address students’ limited access to digital design tools and build skills in collaboration, visual communication, problem-solving, and creative expression. Districts can apply to deploy and manage Figma Enterprise licenses through Google’s admin console. ## Bringing Industry-Standard Design Tools to Japanese Schools - Japan has high household internet access, but digital design software is often restricted to computer labs or specific classrooms. - The partnership enables schools to provide Figma on students’ personal Chromebooks. - Schools can centrally manage Figma Enterprise licenses for free using Google’s administration tools. - Students can brainstorm, collaborate, prototype, and design with tools used in professional environments. ## Building Future-Ready Skills - Figma’s earlier US Chromebook partnership attracted applications from educators in all 50 states. - Students used Figma to: - Develop design concepts - Support nonprofit initiatives - Prototype apps for local government services - Teachers used FigJam for lesson plans, group projects, study guides, and interactive classroom activities. - Figma argues that design education strengthens complex problem-solving, collaboration, visual communication, and creative expression. - The company cites research linking strong design practices with faster revenue and shareholder-return growth. ## Supporting Japan’s Next Generation of Designers - Japan has a strong record of technological innovation, educational equity, and high graduation rates. - Despite these strengths, Japanese schools historically adopted computers more slowly than many other countries. - The government launched the GIGA School Program in 2019 to provide every student with a device and high-speed school connectivity. - Figma’s browser-based tools build on that infrastructure by adding accessible, collaborative design software to students’ devices. - Google describes the partnership as a way to expand creativity, collaboration, and opportunity for a new generation. Schools and districts in Japan can apply to bring Figma and FigJam into their classrooms, helping ensure that design and digital collaboration skills are available beyond specialized programs or computer labs.

Figjam Figma Collaboration Design Thinking+3

figmaSep 24, 20232 min readCurated summary

EU Hosting for Figma and FigJam Files | Figma Blog

Figma announced EU hosting for Figma and FigJam file data, giving European organizations more control over data location while retaining the benefits of its cloud platform. The service is intended to address regional privacy and regulatory concerns and is available exclusively to Enterprise customers. File contents are hosted primarily in Frankfurt, with backups in Dublin, though some metadata, login information, and temporary in-transit data remain outside the EU. ## EU Data Hosting Availability - Customers can host the document contents of Figma and FigJam files within the EU. - The option is available only on Figma’s Enterprise plan. - Existing customers can migrate files from the US after upgrading to Enterprise. - Account managers coordinate migration dates, and eligible customers can join a migration waitlist. ## Hosting Locations and Infrastructure - Primary file storage is located in Frankfurt, Germany. - Backup data is stored in Dublin, Republic of Ireland. - Figma uses AWS as its cloud infrastructure provider. ## Data Included and Excluded - EU hosting initially covers the contents of supported Figma and FigJam files. - User metadata and login data are not hosted within the EU. - Some data moving through Figma’s systems may be temporarily stored outside the EU. - Customers should consult Figma’s file-type breakdown to determine which data is covered. ## Security and Compliance Figma positions EU hosting as an addition to its existing security and privacy measures, including: - SOC 2 Type II reporting - ISO 27018 and ISO 27001 certifications - Level 2 adherence to the EU Cloud Code of Conduct The feature is particularly relevant to organizations such as Volkswagen Group, which require stronger control over data residency for regulatory and data-protection reasons. Organizations with strict EU residency requirements should evaluate which data types are covered and consider Figma Enterprise for localized file hosting.

Figjam Figma AWS Data Residency+3

figmaAug 22, 20232 min readCurated summary

Give ideas more space with Jambot | Figma Blog

Jambot is a FigJam widget that brings ChatGPT’s generative capabilities into a collaborative, visual canvas. Figma created it to move beyond the limitations of linear chat, allowing people to ideate, branch into related topics, summarize discussions, and explore ideas together. The project reflects Figma’s broader view that AI interfaces should become more spatial, tangible, and multiplayer. ## From Chatbots to Creative Collaboration - Large language models can simulate spontaneous brainstorming and provide a broad base of knowledge. - ChatGPT’s conversational format is useful but can feel one-sided and restrictive during creative work. - Jambot was designed to make AI interaction more collaborative and adaptable to group ideation. ## Limitations of Linear Chat - Chat conversations present ideas in a one-dimensional sequence. - When ChatGPT offers multiple possibilities, exploring one path makes it difficult to return to another without scrolling and repeating questions. - Linear chat makes it unnatural to branch into related topics, compare alternatives, or see how ideas connect. ## A Visual Alternative - Jambot began as an internal Figma AI hackathon project described as “a visual version of ChatGPT.” - Its concept draws on networked-thinking tools such as Roam Research and Logseq, which link and organize ideas across pages. - The team was also inspired by Albus, which gives AI interaction a more visual structure. - LangChain influenced the idea of making sophisticated AI workflows visually tangible rather than requiring users to write code. ## Rethinking AI Interfaces - The team argues that users are currently “stuck in chat boxes,” much as they became dependent on video-call interfaces like Zoom. - Existing AI interfaces can feel primitive and command-line-like, despite decades of progress in graphical user interfaces. - Designers have an opportunity to develop new interaction patterns that provide more context, identity, and flexibility than simple conversational prompts. - A visual canvas can make AI more approachable while supporting branching ideas and shared participation. ## What Jambot Enables - Ideation and brainstorming directly inside FigJam. - Summarizing conversations or collections of ideas. - Riffing on concepts and extending them in multiple directions. - Collaborative exploration of AI-generated output within a multiplayer workspace. Jambot’s central recommendation is to treat AI as something that can inhabit richer environments than a chat window. By placing generative AI on a shared visual canvas, Figma aims to give teams more space to explore, connect, and develop ideas together.

Figjam Large Language Models Generative AI Chatgpt+2

figmaAug 3, 20232 min readCurated summary

Is your work style written in the stars? | Figma Blog

Astrology’s renewed popularity reflects people’s desire for recognition, guidance, and connection. Figma’s FigStrology widget brings those qualities into collaborative work by using machine learning to generate astrological personas and horoscopes from activity in FigJam files. The creators present it less as a serious predictive tool than as a playful way to encourage reflection and team interaction. ## Astrology as a Source of Connection - Astrology has existed for more than 4,000 years but was traditionally experienced privately. - Interest has increasingly shifted toward shared, collective experiences through apps such as CHANI and Co–Star. - Jacky Huang became interested during COVID after watching tarot readings on YouTube. - Huang says horoscopes appeal because they can make people feel recognized, understood, and seen. - Willy Wu views astrology as a source of belonging and reassurance in an uncertain world, even when its advice is humorous or not taken literally. ## Divination and Collaborative Design - Figma users are adapting divination practices for social and collaborative settings. - Danielle Baskin created Moonlight, a Figma-designed space for social tarot and reflection. - Figma’s persona quiz attracted more than 26,000 participants. - These projects position astrology and tarot as tools for conversation, self-reflection, and shared rituals rather than solely private practices. ## How FigStrology Was Created - Huang and Wu developed FigStrology as a FigJam widget. - The idea grew from Figma’s Photo Booth widget, which connects user behavior and activity with playful output. - FigStrology analyzes stickies and activity in a FigJam file, along with current “cosmic conditions.” - Machine learning then generates a unique persona and horoscope for the collaborative group or workspace. - The widget is intended as a lighthearted way to wind down a work session and make collaboration more engaging. ## Emphasizing Diversity and Team Strengths - The creators wanted FigStrology’s signs to highlight people and diversity. - Its premise is that individual strengths can complement other people’s weaknesses. - By turning team behavior into an imaginative horoscope, the widget encourages coworkers to notice different working styles and perspectives. Ultimately, FigStrology uses astrology as a playful collaboration device: not a replacement for genuine team communication, but a low-pressure way to spark reflection, humor, and connection at work.

Figjam Figma Machine Learning Collaborative Design+1

figmaJul 25, 20232 min readCurated summary

Shopify’s secret for staying ahead of the game | Figma Blog

Shopify encourages teams to pursue bold, unconventional ideas instead of settling for incremental improvements. The company challenges standard practices in product discovery, planning, and decision-making, using visual collaboration tools to create more creative and inclusive discussions. Its approach suggests that deliberately disrupting familiar workflows can produce stronger, more original outcomes. ## Challenge Documentation-First Product Work - Traditional roadmapping often begins with a written document outlining the problem and proposed direction. - Shopify’s Katarina Batina argues that this method can reinforce habits rather than clarify the real problem or uncover broader opportunities. - Starting in a collaborative visual workspace such as FigJam helps teams “break their brains” out of linear thinking. - Roadmap templates make metrics, key problems, proposed solutions, principles, assumptions, and dependencies explicit. - This structure allows teams to explore possibilities more freely instead of simply reacting to a finished document. ## Plan How You Plan - Shopify adapted a FigJam template for an annual in-person planning session among largely remote colleagues. - Team members completed the template beforehand, creating a shared baseline for discussion. - During the meeting, they updated the plan in real time as strategic decisions were made. - The shared workspace preserved the outcomes digitally, avoiding the need to photograph scattered sticky notes. - The team considered this approach its most effective planning session to date. ## Democratize Strategic Discussions - Shopify treats design tools as the primary setting for discussing strategic product decisions. - Visual collaboration gives people more ways to express ideas than written documents alone. - This is especially important for employees who may have strong ideas but do not excel at articulating them in prose. - In large meetings, participants can communicate through links, images, project snapshots, and sketches rather than relying entirely on text. - The approach makes decision-making more inclusive and helps teams develop a forward-looking vision. ## Sketch Ideas Instead of Overexplaining Them - The article begins a further section arguing that sketching can help teams develop ideas that are difficult to express verbally. - The provided text ends before this section is completed. Shopify’s broader recommendation is to intentionally disrupt familiar processes: replace rigid documents with visual exploration, make planning collaborative and continuous, and give teams multiple ways to communicate ideas.

Figjam Figma User Experience Brainstorming+2

figmaJun 20, 20233 min readCurated summary

Figma & Chromebook expand to K12 and Japan | Figma Blog

Figma and Google for Education are expanding their Chromebook partnership to make Figma and FigJam freely available to all K–12 districts in the US, with Japan as the first international expansion. The initiative aims to give students industry-standard design and collaboration tools while helping educators create more visual, interactive learning experiences. Figma argues that the tools can improve technical skills, classroom engagement, confidence, inclusion, and students’ ability to express ideas. ## Expanding Figma access in schools - A beta program previously gave Figma and FigJam access to students in 50 US school districts. - The program included large urban districts and smaller rural districts. - Figma is now offering free access to all K–12 districts across the US. - Students of every age can use Figma on Chromebooks, including younger learners. - Districts can receive free Figma Enterprise access, giving administrators: - Greater control over school environments - Visibility into usage - Class-management features - Support for student safety - The Chromebook partnership is expanding globally, beginning with Google schools in Japan. ## Design tools as a foundation for future skills - Figma is intended to help students develop: - Problem-solving skills - Iterative thinking - Collaboration - Empathy - Its infinite canvas lets students combine diagrams, images, mind maps, videos, and other media. - Students can demonstrate understanding visually rather than relying only on traditional written assessments. - Beta participants created projects such as nonprofit design concepts and app prototypes for improving local government services. ## Reimagining classroom collaboration - Teachers used FigJam for lesson plans, group projects, study guides, and interactive curricula. - The tools created a shared space where students and educators could build learning experiences together. - Projects included prototypes, visual explanations, and other forms of digital storytelling. - Figma describes the impact as extending beyond academic work to classroom culture and students’ sense of belonging. ## Supporting student voices and inclusion - Teachers reported that quieter students became more confident expressing ideas in digital spaces. - Features such as sticky notes, comments, reactions, and other collaborative interactions gave introverted students more ways to participate. - Digital collaboration helped some students build connections after years of remote learning. - The visual and flexible format was especially valuable for neurodiverse students who may find traditional tools difficult. - One special education teacher reported improvements among autistic students in: - Social skills - Executive functioning - Self-regulation - Collaboration ## Encouraging engagement and creative learning - Teachers said students were more excited to attend class and engage with coursework. - Some students continued working on Figma projects at home. - Figma enabled alternative forms of assessment, including: - Infographics - Storyboards - Prototypes - The platform functions as a creative sandbox where students can construct and communicate their own understanding. - In some classrooms, previously disengaged students rediscovered interest in learning through design. Figma’s recommendation is to make collaborative, visual design tools a normal part of K–12 education. By combining broad Chromebook access, administrative controls, and flexible creative workflows, the company aims to help every student participate more actively and become better prepared for a digital future.

Figjam Figma Design Thinking Digital Design+2

figmaJun 19, 20233 min readCurated summary

Why Roles Are Not Rules | Figma Blog

Figma CTO Kris Rasmussen argues that engineering roles should guide collaboration, not restrict who participates in product decisions. As products become more collaborative and nonlinear, engineers must contribute not only to implementation but also to deciding what to build. However, collaboration works best when teams balance broad input with clear ownership, milestones, and momentum. ## Collaboration Beyond Traditional Roles - Modern product development is increasingly multiplayer, shaped by: - Web technologies such as WebGL and WebAssembly - Collaboration tools like Google Docs - Hybrid and remote work - Engineers are no longer simply responsible for executing plans created by product managers and designers. - At Figma, engineers help determine both: - **How** to build products - **What** to build - Cross-functional collaboration includes working closely with product peers and incorporating customer feedback. ## Early, Open Design Work - Teams are encouraged to gather diverse perspectives at the beginning of a project. - Engineers write down early ideas in concept documents rather than waiting until proposals are polished. - Feedback is collected during the drafting process, allowing designs to evolve collaboratively. - This approach helps expose problems earlier, though it can be difficult to obtain timely feedback from teams focused on their own work. ## Engineering Crits as Feedback Forums - Figma holds regular engineering “crits” across design and engineering organizations. - Crits provide: - Early and frequent feedback - Expert input on technical designs - A dedicated forum for cross-team participation - They are explicitly **not approval meetings**: - No decisions need to be finalized during the session. - Participants identify problems and improve designs without immediately choosing a solution. - Figma uses FigJam so participants can collaborate in real time. - The goal is to improve a proposal until it no longer requires formal approval. ## Balancing Input with Direction - Collaboration can become counterproductive when teams receive too many conflicting ideas. - Excessive feedback may cause projects to: - Lose focus - Get stuck in endless exploration - Struggle with ambiguous tradeoffs, such as defining an initial pricing model - Teams need a balance between: - Diverging to explore possibilities - Converging to make progress - The right balance depends on the organization, culture, product, and desired outcomes. ## Milestones and Momentum - Figma breaks projects into clearly defined milestones. - Milestones help: - Set expectations with stakeholders - Signal when exploration should give way to decisions - Preserve forward momentum - Momentum makes goals feel attainable, while losing momentum can cause teams to question their direction and spin in circles. The practical lesson is to treat roles as areas of responsibility rather than rigid boundaries. Invite collaboration early, use structured forums for feedback, and establish milestones that make it clear when the team must stop exploring and move forward.

Figjam Real Time Collaboration Product Development Webassembly+2

figmaMay 15, 20232 min readCurated summary

Announcing FigJam screen reader support | Figma Blog

FigJam now supports screen readers and keyboard-only navigation, enabling users to read and create much of a file’s content. The release focuses on making canvas-based collaboration more inclusive while acknowledging that some features remain inaccessible. Figma’s approach relied heavily on user testing, careful iteration, and reusable accessibility patterns. ## What the Update Enables - Users can move focus around the FigJam canvas and through menus and screens. - Screen readers can interpret: - File structure and canvas hierarchy - Shapes containing text - Stickies and tables - Image alt text - Users can create, edit, and read content without relying on a mouse. ## Expanding Accessibility to Collaborative Work - FigJam was prioritized because it brings entire teams together for brainstorming, alignment, and decision-making. - Its relatively surface-level interface provided an opportunity to address accessibility before tackling Figma Design’s more complex menu and interaction structure. - The goal is to make collaboration inclusive for as many team members as possible. ## Designing Without Established Canvas Patterns - Unlike conventional websites and widgets, canvas-based tools have relatively few established ARIA patterns or accessibility best practices. - Figma first had to determine which capabilities were essential for effectively using FigJam with assistive technology. - The team worked with Fable and users of assistive technologies to test designs and gather feedback. - User journeys helped define a practical set of core features for the initial release. ## Learning Across Keyboard and Screen Reader Setups - Different screen readers, settings, and keyboard layouts create thousands of possible interaction combinations. - Beta interviews revealed new usage patterns and accessibility issues that informed the product. - Improvements also benefited Figma’s broader codebase, including reusable ARIA labels and tags for React components. - Remaining unsupported features include cursor chat, stamp adjustments, voting, the emote wheel, widgets, and editing freeform vector elements such as lines, highlights, washi tape, and marker drawings. Figma’s release is a meaningful foundation for accessible FigJam collaboration, but users should expect continued gaps as the team expands support to more interactive and multiplayer features.

Figjam React Keyboard Navigation Screen Readers+2

figmaApr 12, 20232 min readCurated summary

How to build ground-breaking products: A manager’s guide | Figma Blog

Great products come from clarity: teams need to understand the customer problem, the reason it matters, and what can realistically be built. Managers help create that clarity by focusing on customer value rather than internal goals, involving customers directly, filtering ideas, and keeping teams aligned. The article argues that practical, collaborative decision-making produces stronger products than pursuing organizational priorities or exciting ideas in isolation. ## Design for Customers, Not OKRs - Avoid “shipping the org chart”—building products around company hierarchy instead of customer needs. - Localized goals and narrowly defined OKRs can cause teams to solve the wrong problems. - Roadmaps and planning should make the product’s value proposition visible to the wider organization. - Prototypes help teams: - Identify whether they are addressing the right problem. - Build leadership support. - Let decision-makers explore a solution before committing to it. - Make product decisions faster and more transparently. ## Put Customers to Work - Ironclad used a customer round table of 10–15 participants to understand how customer needs changed during the pandemic. - Insights from these conversations shaped a major portion of the company’s 18-month product roadmap. - Customers contributed throughout the process by reviewing concepts and beta-testing features. - Co-creation improves product quality while also making customers more invested in the final outcome. ## Filter Ideas Through Three Questions - Collaboration can generate too many ideas to pursue effectively; Work & Co. produced nearly 50 concepts for an IBM Research platform within weeks. - Managers should evaluate ideas by asking: - Why does this product or platform need to exist? - What does it need to do? - How will we build it? - The goal is not to choose the most exciting idea, but the most valuable and shippable one. - Strong product management connects creativity with feasibility. ## Keep Teams Focused - After selecting a direction, managers must help teams remain focused on executing it. - The article introduces the Eisenhower Matrix as a strategy for prioritizing work according to urgency and importance. - This kind of prioritization helps teams concentrate on meaningful product work rather than being distracted by less consequential tasks. Managers should ground product decisions in customer value, use prototypes and customer collaboration to reduce uncertainty, and apply practical prioritization to turn promising ideas into products that can actually ship.

Figjam Figma User Experience Prototyping+4

figmaMar 27, 20233 min readCurated summary

Little Big Outtakes | Figma Blog

Figma’s “Little Big Outtakes” shares the behind-the-scenes decisions that shaped 30+ small product updates. The stories show how difficult edge cases, team feedback, and disciplined scoping often produced better outcomes than simply adding more functionality. Across search, prototyping, and previews, the teams improved features by making complexity visible, validating ideas collaboratively, and prioritizing achievable impact. ## Multi-select Search: Designing for Edge Cases - Multi-select search extended Figma’s find-and-replace feature, allowing users to select specific results with `Shift + Click` or `Cmd/Ctrl + Click`. - The team discovered a major complication: users cannot independently select a parent layer and one of its children. - Selecting multiple search results could therefore include unexpected descendants, especially in deeply nested files. - To clarify the behavior, the designers added: - A visual hierarchy in the search sidebar showing parent-child relationships. - Hover-selection previews when users hold `Command` or `Shift`. - Highlights for indirectly selected items and outlines for directly selected children. - The team concluded that edge cases were not peripheral to the feature—they fundamentally defined how multi-selection needed to work. ## Overlay Blur: Turning Ideas into a Concrete Fix - Figma’s prototyping viewer previously struggled to render background blur on overlays because overlays do not have ordinary content directly beneath them. - Engineer Brandon Lin documented his proposed approaches, potential problems, and solution before implementing the fix. - Teammates suggested passing the overlay’s position into the rendering code so it could identify the correct area to blur. - The final changes associated overlays with their respective frames and ensured that multiple overlays were drawn and layered in the correct positions. - Team feedback gave Brandon confidence that his initial reasoning was sound while helping make the implementation more precise. ## On-Canvas Previews: The Value of Scoping Down - On-canvas previews let users hover over design-panel options—such as blend modes, effects, and color blend modes—to preview changes before applying them. - The original concept considered a much broader scope, including boolean operations, component properties, and font selection. - Rather than attempting to support everything, the team audited dropdown-based editor properties and assessed each option for feasibility and performance risk. - They prioritized features that would not require major geometry changes or substantial canvas modifications. - The smaller release proved powerful enough to be useful while allowing the team to deliver and refine it more quickly. Figma’s examples suggest that strong product work often comes from embracing complexity selectively: expose confusing relationships, seek feedback early, and narrow ambitious ideas to the highest-value implementation.

Figjam Figma Prototyping User Interface+2

figmaMar 22, 20233 min readCurated summary

How the Figma design team level set on career leveling | Figma Blog

Figma revamped its product design and writing career levels after realizing its old one-page ladder no longer scaled with a growing, multi-product organization. The project began as an effort to define “craft” more clearly but expanded into a comprehensive framework for hiring, coaching, performance evaluation, and skill development. The resulting career levels emphasize concrete expectations, specialization at senior levels, and a visual, easier-to-use format in FigJam. ## Why Figma Revisited Its Career Framework - When Sara Culver joined Figma as a design manager in 2021, “craft” was widely considered essential to success, but teams disagreed on what it included. - Craft might mean: - Visual design - Prototyping - Motion or other specialized skills - Broader product design capabilities - The existing ladder had been created when Figma was smaller and covered areas such as: - Product strategy - Craft and quality - Mentorship and developing others - As the organization expanded, the document became too vague to support consistent coaching, evaluation, and hiring decisions. ## Research and Team Feedback - Culver surveyed designers about how they used the existing ladder and what they wanted from an updated version. - Designers asked for: - More detailed and concrete expectations - Clearer guidance for senior-level hiring and promotion - A stronger definition of craft at each level - The team questioned whether senior designers should be expected to excel equally in every skill or whether the framework should recognize “T-shaped” designers with broad abilities and deep expertise in one area. - Figma also reviewed career frameworks from companies including Slack, BuzzFeed, Meta, and Basecamp. - Designer Shana Hu provided extensive feedback and proposed a more visual FigJam-based format. ## Principles for the First Draft - The team created an inspiration board containing examples of career ladders and skills frameworks. - The proposed framework aimed to: - Group skills into clear areas - Replace rigid “ladder” language with “stages” or “levels” - Reflect the nonlinear nature of career growth - Use visual design to make expectations easier to scan and understand - Culver organized the framework around four core skill areas, with specific skills assigned to each area. ## Resulting Career Levels - Figma ultimately published new Product Design & Writing Career Levels alongside a Skills Widget. - The FigJam resource describes: - Expected performance at each level - Core competencies for product design and writing roles - Skills designers can develop over time - The framework is intended to help managers make better hiring and performance decisions while helping employees understand where to focus their growth. Figma’s approach suggests that career frameworks are most useful when they are specific, collaboratively developed, visually accessible, and flexible enough to recognize both broad capability and senior-level specialization.

Figjam Figma Product Design Career Leveling+2