Figjam

98 posts

figmaMar 14, 20232 min readCurated summary

How to get the most out of teams | Figma Blog

Effective people management is about creating conditions where teams can act with autonomy, focus, and purpose. The article recommends a few practical systems: limit goals, protect uninterrupted work, make participation equitable, encourage experimentation, and actively support career development. These practices help employees do better work while making managers accountable for the team’s success. ## Set Fewer, More Meaningful Goals - Ask team members to list their priorities at the start of a quarter or half. - Reduce an initial list of 10–15 goals to just three, forcing clear choices about what can realistically be completed. - Connect individual goals to the company’s most urgent strategic initiatives. - Make goals concrete and measurable by defining the impact they should create. - Share goals with other leaders to improve alignment and accountability. ## Make Meetings Worthwhile - Work & Co. limits teams to one daily check-in, leaving the rest of the day for focused individual work and collaboration. - Managers should distinguish between issues that require meetings and those that can be handled asynchronously in Slack or FigJam. - For unavoidable meetings, use structures that prevent outspoken participants from dominating. - Twitch adapted Amazon’s written-memo format for hybrid work: - Participants read a shared six-page document. - They spend 10–15 minutes adding questions and comments. - The group discusses the annotations afterward. - Written participation gives quieter employees a meaningful voice, especially in large meetings. ## Make Ideas More Valuable Than Turf - Ambiguous responsibilities can cause conflict, while overly rigid job descriptions can prevent innovation. - Oura Ring treats campaigns and projects as experiments built around strong hypotheses. - Teams measure results, then decide whether to scale, repeat, or abandon an idea. - Making experimentation everyone’s responsibility reduces confusion about ownership. - Employees are encouraged to pursue opportunities outside their formal roles, even when that means occasionally crossing boundaries. ## Support Nonlinear Career Conversations - Careers rarely follow a straightforward upward path. - Managers should help employees imagine multiple possible directions rather than presenting advancement as a single ladder. - This guidance is particularly important in remote work, where informal networking and spontaneous conversations happen less often. Managers can unlock their teams’ potential by replacing excessive control with clear priorities, focused collaboration, room for experimentation, and deliberate career support.

Figjam Figma Slack Product Management+2

figmaMar 13, 20233 min readCurated summary

Raising the (table) stakes on tables in FigJam | Figma Blog

FigJam introduced native tables to make roadmapping, planning, and organizing information clearer and easier to edit collaboratively. The team deliberately focused on visual presentation rather than complex data manipulation, prioritizing simplicity for both table creators and viewers. Building the feature required extensive work on multiplayer conflict resolution, responsive editing controls, and visual clarity at different zoom levels. ## Why FigJam Needed Tables - Internal teams were already creating tables with stickies and shapes for: - Feature requirements and prioritization - Project tracking - Product marketing messaging - Design critique feedback - Brainstorming and vote counting - Native tables improve performance and reduce the effort of assembling makeshift grids. - The core requirements were to make tables: - Clear - Easy to create - Editable by everyone - FigJam intentionally avoided becoming a complex spreadsheet or data-manipulation tool. ## Designing for Creators and Users - The team treated table creation and table editing as equally important experiences. - A single toolbar click creates a pre-styled table, similar to other FigJam elements. - Users can choose from a limited style palette, while the entire table remains visually consistent. - Adding rows or columns derives styling from the neighboring row or column. - Changing a table’s color automatically adjusts its text for readability. - Programmatically drawn borders help separate cells without creating excessive visual noise. ## Multiplayer Editing Challenges - Tables may contain many cells edited simultaneously by users at different zoom levels. - Unlike ordinary elements, simultaneous table edits cannot simply use “last update wins” behavior. - Changes often need to be merged so multiple users’ contributions are preserved. - Multiplayer support consumed at least half of the engineering effort. - The team spent months addressing concurrency bugs and edge cases, including collaborative typing in the same cell. - Testing included simulated second users, such as a script that repeatedly typed “FigJam.” ## Interaction Design for Collaborative Tables - Standard FigJam selection-based editing became visually overwhelming when multiple people edited different cells. - The team changed table behavior in two important ways: - Editing controls appear on hover and follow the user’s cursor. - A prominent button lets users add a complete row or column. - Table functionality adapts to zoom level: - At distant zoom levels, users can move and arrange the table. - At closer zoom levels, they can resize it and add rows or columns. - This approach keeps the interface uncluttered while exposing more controls when they are useful. The resulting feature keeps tables intentionally simple and presentation-focused while making them native to FigJam’s collaborative, visual environment. For teams that need lightweight planning, tracking, or structured brainstorming, native tables are preferable to building grids manually from shapes or sticky notes.

Figjam User Experience User Interface Real Time Collaboration+3

figmaFeb 22, 20232 min readCurated summary

Can design make work, work? | Figma Blog

The post argues that people managers should redesign their work rather than accept today’s overloaded, meeting-heavy norms. By reclaiming time, making feedback visible earlier, and creating better asynchronous collaboration practices, managers can help teams work with more focus and flexibility. The central recommendation is to question existing routines and deliberately build a more effective future of work. ## Reclaim Time by Reducing Meetings - Shopify began 2023 by eliminating recurring meetings with more than three participants, later restoring only the most essential ones. - The goal was to protect uninterrupted time for independent work, especially in a fully remote organization spanning multiple time zones. - Asynchronous collaboration through tools such as Figma and FigJam allows people to contribute when they are available. - Managers should examine how they actually spend their days and compare that with what leadership expects them to do. - Collaboration tools, visual planning, and brainstorming can replace some meetings—or make remaining meetings more focused on relationships, shared values, and team culture. ## Make Feedback Cycles More Manageable - Sharing early drafts helps prevent late-stage “swoop and poop” feedback from stakeholders. - Posting screenshots or work-in-progress material in FigJam lets colleagues annotate, add sticky notes, and react with emojis without interrupting the team’s workflow. - Early visibility creates a manageable feedback loop rather than requiring the team to respond to every comment immediately. - Visual brainstorming also documents decisions and makes collaboration easier to revisit. - Teams benefit from repeatable processes, but they also need structured opportunities to identify what is not working. - At Super, anonymous suggestions during monthly retrospectives led to operational improvements, including a new bug-reporting system and short weekly sessions for testing new features. Managers can improve team performance by removing unnecessary meetings, shifting more work asynchronously, and inviting feedback early and continuously. The broader lesson is to treat management practices as redesignable systems rather than fixed workplace traditions.

Figjam Figma Remote Work Brainstorming+2

figmaDec 12, 20222 min readCurated summary

Figma Persona 2022: What’s your creative collaboration style? | Figma Blog

Figma Persona 2022 presents a playful quiz designed to help people reflect on their creative collaboration and working styles. Based on 21 questions across problem-solving, workspace habits, and collaboration, the quiz assigns one of eight Figma-inspired personas. The article encourages teams to use these insights to improve communication, planning, and creative collaboration. ## The Figma Persona Quiz - The quiz is intended as an end-of-year reflection and goal-setting exercise. - It evaluates three areas: - How someone generates ideas and solves problems - How they organize their workspace and use tools - How they collaborate with others - Results fall into eight personas: - Lone Ascender - Canvas Captain - Direct Mobilizer - Artful Detacher - Bounding Boxer - Branch Merger - Vector Networker - Bézier Curve Baller ## Organized Individualists - Organized individualists prefer: - Tidy processes and clear deliverables - Defined milestones and structured workflows - Working independently before regrouping - Async updates and bug bashes - They are most effective when given space to develop ideas and solutions. - Collaborators should provide clear expectations, async pre-work, and precise requests. ## The Lone Ascender - The Lone Ascender is described as an organized, analytical individualist. - This persona excels at: - Solving complex problems - Building tactical, practical, systems-driven solutions - Applying consistent processes - Scaling difficult or complicated work - Lone Ascenders favor pragmatism and systematic thinking over idealism. - They value occasional collaboration but may be protective of file organization and formatting. - Suggested tools and habits include: - Memorizing shortcut keys and quick actions - Using FigJam templates to extend structured workflows - Applying strong organizational systems within Figma Overall, Figma frames the personas as a lighthearted way to recognize different working preferences. The practical recommendation is to use the results as a conversation starter, giving teammates the structure, independence, or collaboration style that helps them do their best work.

Figjam Figma Collaborative Design HTML+2

figmaNov 20, 20222 min readCurated summary

Welcome to the WIP | Figma Blog

Modern digital products are never truly finished, so product development rarely follows the neat sequence of research, brainstorming, design, testing, and launch. Figma argues that teams should embrace this “work in progress” reality, sharing work earlier and designing workflows around continuous collaboration. The challenge is managing changing feedback and uncertainty without waiting for a mythical perfect moment to review or finalize work. ## Digital Products Are Always Works in Progress - Physical product development historically required a linear process because changes were expensive and slow. - Digital products can be updated quickly, making iteration continuous rather than stage-based. - Browser-based tools let collaborators access and modify the same file in real time. - Early sharing lowers the stakes: labels such as “[WIP]” signal that feedback is welcome and the work is not final. ## The Benefits and Confusion of Continuous Collaboration - Real-time collaboration encourages teams to share unfinished work sooner. - Feedback can become outdated as designs change. - Previous approvals may no longer apply when the underlying work evolves. - Teams need better ways to stay informed, including notifications, mobile comments, and integrations with tools such as Google Calendar, Microsoft Teams, and Zoom. - Because work may never have a clearly defined final state, teams can even forget to remove “work in progress” labels after launch. ## Review Work on a Predictable Cadence - In an always-changing workflow, it is difficult to identify the perfect time to involve stakeholders or leadership. - Teams may be tempted to wait until the problem, solution, or product feels sufficiently complete. - Figma recommends predictable, intentional reviews—such as regular weekly critiques—instead of waiting for a supposedly ideal milestone. - Frequent check-ins help teams build confidence progressively while keeping feedback connected to the current state of the work. Teams should treat iteration as a normal operating condition, not a sign of poor planning. Regular reviews, clear communication, and collaboration tools can make continuous work more manageable without forcing it into an unrealistic linear process.

Figjam Figma Product Design Real Time Collaboration+2

figmaNov 2, 20223 min readCurated summary

The Right Jams for Your Jam | Figma Blog

Music in FigJam was designed to help remote teams share momentum without becoming a distraction. Figma drew on the psychological effects of musical “entrainment,” using rhythm and atmosphere to support collaboration, timed work sessions, and periods of focused silence. The resulting challenge was to create music that felt inclusive, varied, and useful across different teams and working styles. ## Music as a Collaborative Tool - Fast-paced sounds can influence people to move and work faster, potentially increasing focus or stress. - In remote collaboration, shared music can create a sense of collective flow and help teams feel “on the same page.” - The wrong music can disrupt concentration or become a blocker, making musical choice especially important in a diverse group. - Figma partnered with Sounds Like These to develop a sound portfolio suited to collaborative work. ## From Jam Sessions to Timed Work - The concept came partly from the familiar practice of playing music while working together. - It also addressed a practical FigJam problem: silent timers create an abrupt contrast between lively discussion and quiet, heads-down work. - During Figma’s Maker Week, engineer Chris Brainerd created an interactive music sequencer that could function as an alternative to a conventional timer. - The prototype revealed a broader opportunity: music could fill awkward pauses and sustain momentum rather than merely signal the end of a timed exercise. ## Designing Music That Stays in the Background - Music in a group setting needed to be: - Inclusive but not bland - Attention-supporting but not attention-grabbing - Diverse while still feeling connected - Suitable for unpredictable design and brainstorming sessions - Because music is personal and emotional, recognizable artists or songs could excite some users while alienating others. - The composers’ goal was the opposite of conventional advertising or entertainment music: create a comfortable “audio area” that supports thought without pulling focus away from the work. ## The Tradition of Functional Background Music - Figma’s approach connects to the older tradition of “functional,” “furniture,” or “elevator” music—sound that is intentional and present but not demanding. - French composer Erik Satie’s early-20th-century “furniture music” provided a historical model for music designed to accompany activities rather than command attention. - Satie’s work, including *Vexations*, later influenced minimalist and conceptual music. - This tradition suggests that effective background music should accommodate different levels of attention and remain easy to ignore when necessary. Ultimately, FigJam’s music was conceived less as entertainment than as a collaborative workspace tool. The best tracks create atmosphere, smooth transitions, and shared energy while allowing teams to decide how much attention the music deserves.

Figjam Remote Collaboration Music Composition Step Sequencer+2

figmaOct 5, 20223 min readCurated summary

Behind the feature: find and replace | Figma Blog

Find and replace in Figma and FigJam proved far more complex than adding a search bar. The team had to design an intuitive experience for navigating a multidimensional canvas, develop reliable result-ordering logic, and adapt the feature across two different products. They combined prototyping, experimentation, internal testing, and lessons from an earlier plugin to create a native tool. ## Building an Intuitive Search Experience - The team began with a brainstorm involving design, engineering, product management, UX writing, and product marketing. - They studied search experiences in other applications and established three principles: - Fast and lightweight - Smooth when navigating across the canvas - Familiar, like search in a browser - Jackie Chui built an early prototype based on her 2019 Find and Replace plugin. - Engineers continuously iterated on working designs, while Figma employees tested the feature in daily work, participated in bug bashes, and provided feedback. ## Establishing the Core Experience in FigJam - The team launched the work in FigJam first to focus on the fundamentals: - Finding text - Highlighting matches - Navigating through results - FigJam provided a simpler starting point before tackling Figma’s broader range of objects and file structures. ## The Challenge of Sorting Search Results - Unlike web pages or documents, Figma and FigJam canvases are multidirectional and multidimensional. - Search results needed a predictable order so navigation would feel coherent rather than jumping randomly across the canvas. - The team had to account for the user-defined spatial structure of each file. ### Reusing Existing Sorting Logic - The first solution reused row-by-row sorting from Figma’s prototyping engine. - This worked for orderly layouts such as presentation slides. - It was less effective for FigJam boards, where stickies, shapes, and other objects may be scattered across the canvas. ### Using Sections and Spatial Grouping - The introduction of FigJam sections gave files clearer structure. - Results could be sorted within each section, producing an order that better matched visual groupings. - The team observed that users commonly clustered stickies around themes, next steps, or threaded discussions. - To handle groups outside sections, an engineer created a spatial-sorting algorithm that groups nearby elements together. ### Developing Heuristics - The team mapped heuristics for determining how section shapes should influence sorting direction. - These rules helped the system infer a natural reading and navigation order from the canvas layout. The broader lesson is that seemingly simple productivity features often require product-specific interaction models. Building prototypes early, testing with real files, and combining existing logic with new spatial heuristics helped Figma create find and replace that felt natural across both structured and free-form canvases.

Figjam Figma User Interface Design Find And Replace+2

figmaSep 27, 20222 min readCurated summary

What’s new in Figma: September 2022 | Figma Blog

September 2022 brought Figma and FigJam updates focused on collaboration and design-system workflows. Component properties became more flexible through an open beta, while Google Calendar integration made it easier to connect files with meetings. Figma also announced Schema events and released more than 300 templates for common design and team activities. ## More Flexible Component Properties The open beta expands component-property capabilities to make design systems easier to manage and customize: - **Preferred values** provide curated component options when swapping instances. - **Exposed nested instances** let users customize nested-instance properties from the parent component. - **Simplified instances** hide unnecessary layers and details, emphasizing only editable elements for people using the component. ## Figma and FigJam in Google Calendar A new Google Chrome extension connects Figma and FigJam directly to Google Calendar: - Users can attach a Figma or FigJam file to a calendar event. - Teams can add meeting materials without leaving Calendar or manually copying links. ## Schema Design Systems Conference Figma opened registration for Schema, its design-systems-focused conference: - Programming is available virtually and in person. - In-person sessions are planned for New York, Tokyo, and London. - The event brings together design-systems leaders and practitioners to share ideas and improve their systems. ## More Than 300 New Templates Figma and FigJam added hundreds of templates organized by role and use case, helping teams start projects more quickly. Examples include: - Brand guidelines for documenting a brand’s visual source of truth - Product development roadmaps for moving features from idea to execution - Team meeting agendas - Roadmap planning, SWOT analysis, and design critique activities These updates make Figma more practical for collaborative meetings while giving design-system teams greater control over reusable components.

Figjam Figma Design Systems Component Properties+3

figmaAug 29, 20222 min readCurated summary

What’s new in Figma: August 2022 | Figma Blog

Figma’s August 2022 update focused on improving collaboration, usability, and education support across Figma and FigJam. The headline release was a Microsoft Teams integration, while more than 20 smaller improvements refined everyday design and diagramming workflows. Figma also expanded its education offerings through new resources, templates, events, and Chromebook support. ## Microsoft Teams Integration - The new Figma app for Microsoft Teams lets users collaborate in Figma and FigJam without leaving Teams. - Users can: - Present files during meetings - Brainstorm and riff together - Add relevant files to Teams channels - Receive real-time feedback notifications - The integration targets the more than 270 million people who use Microsoft Teams for work. ## Usability Improvements Figma introduced more than 20 “Little Big Updates,” designed to make frequent tasks faster and more intuitive. - **Gradient editing:** Double-clicking gradients makes it easier to space gradient stops evenly and add depth to color fills. - **Frame markups:** Users can annotate frames without worrying that markings will be clipped or affected by auto layout. - **FigJam diagrams:** New prompts automatically create shapes, while connector mode remains active to speed up flowchart creation. - The updates cover shortcuts, design tools, collaboration features, and other day-to-day workflows. ## Expanding Figma for Education Figma highlighted new initiatives for educators and students through its Commons education conference. - Hundreds of educators participated in workshops, panels, and talks about collaborative classroom practices. - New education-focused FigJam sticker packs were released. - Figma launched an Education Community collection featuring classroom templates. - A monthly YouTube series, **“Study Hall,”** provides additional educational content. - Updates to the Chromebook beta allow U.S. high school districts to deploy Figma Organization to students and teachers for free. Overall, the update shows Figma investing both in major workplace integrations and in small workflow refinements. Teams, designers, and educators can benefit by adopting the Microsoft Teams app, exploring the usability improvements, and using Figma’s growing education resources.

Figjam Figma Real Time Collaboration Auto Layout+2

figmaAug 17, 20223 min readCurated summary

Collaboration’s next chapter with Microsoft’s Jon Friedman | Figma Blog

Figma’s integration with Microsoft Teams reflects a broader shift toward seamless, hybrid collaboration across design, communication, and productivity tools. Jon Friedman argues that distributed work expands access to global talent, while collaborative platforms give teams more equal participation and reduce duplicated effort. However, in-person interaction remains valuable for rich social connection, and adopting collaborative systems requires significant cultural change. ## Hybrid Work and Global Talent - The pandemic accelerated Microsoft’s existing shift toward a more globally distributed workforce. - Strong talent exists far beyond company headquarters, including locations such as India, China, Atlanta, and Norway. - Remote work makes it possible to promote and support high-impact employees without requiring relocation. - Microsoft’s earlier experiments with remote-work practices helped the company transition more effectively during the pandemic. ## Collaboration Tools and the Role of In-Person Work - Tools such as Microsoft Teams and Figma can sometimes enable more effective collaboration than in-person meetings. - Digital tools are relatively non-hierarchical, allowing people to participate with a stronger and more equal voice. - The next challenge is determining when in-person interaction is genuinely useful rather than assuming it should be the default. - Virtual work can support spontaneous interaction, but face-to-face meetings provide richer social signals, including body language, appearance, and mannerisms. - In-person experiences remain important for building human connection and shared rituals. ## Design Systems as Creative Infrastructure - Moving from individual contribution to collaboration-first work can require a multi-year cultural transformation. - Friedman initially worried that design systems might restrict designers who enjoy controlling every detail. - Instead, designers embraced the idea because shared systems allow them to avoid reinventing established solutions. - A strong design system is not primarily about enforcing rules; it frees creators to focus on more important problems while maintaining coherence. - Reusable tools and patterns provide a foundation for better, more ambitious work. ## Integrated Tool Chains - Using Figma alongside Teams’ chat and video capabilities allows teams to design, discuss, and iterate in the same ecosystem. - Collaboration can happen synchronously or asynchronously, with fewer barriers between creating and communicating. - Teams also benefits from enabling third-party companies to build on its platform. - Combining Microsoft’s communication infrastructure with Figma’s collaborative design environment supports Microsoft’s broader goal of becoming a company that builds together. The practical recommendation is to treat collaboration tools and design systems as cultural infrastructure, not merely software purchases. Organizations should combine flexible remote practices with intentional in-person interaction and use shared systems to give teams more time for meaningful creative work.

Figjam Figma Design Systems Real Time Collaboration+2

figmaAug 1, 20222 min readCurated summary

Little Big Updates: More improvements for design and collaboration | Figma Blog

Figma’s August 2022 “Little Big Updates” release introduced more than 20 incremental improvements across Figma, FigJam, the desktop and mobile apps, and Community. The updates focus on smoother design workflows, faster collaboration, better accessibility, and fewer interruptions. Together, they show Figma’s ongoing effort to address user feedback and refine everyday interactions. ## Figma design improvements - Pencil annotations no longer get clipped or interfere with auto layout. - Gradient stops can be evenly distributed by double-clicking them. - Selecting a top-level frame also selects subsequent registered top-level frames. - Objects can be aligned as a temporary group by holding **Shift** while using alignment controls. - Pasting between text nodes preserves bullets and text styles. - Text-alignment shortcuts work while editing text inside a text box. - Links in comments open directly without an interstitial page. ## FigJam collaboration and diagramming - Auto-create prompts now appear on all four sides of shapes and stickies. - The Connector tool remains active by default, allowing users to continue diagramming without repeatedly reselecting it. - New guidelines help match shapes’ widths and heights. - Hovering over stamps reveals the users who added them. - Right-clicking a sticker provides access to its parent library and more stickers. - Copy and paste can replace image fills quickly. - Connectors automatically straighten when objects appear center-aligned. ## App, browser, and Community updates - The desktop app adds a menu-bar notification bell. - FigJam on iPad gets improved Apple Pencil responsiveness. - iPad users can undo and redo with two- or three-finger taps and swipes. - FigJam’s iPad app now supports Observation mode and Spotlight. - Search previews include recent searches, while list views show file owners. - Keyboard navigation makes it easier to move among collaborators and search by name. - **Tab** and **Shift + Tab** navigation now work within the comments modal. - Figma Community has been redesigned with new categories and search filters. Users can try the improvements directly in Figma and suggest additional changes through the Figma forum.

Figjam Figma Collaborative Design Auto Layout+2

figmaJul 26, 20222 min readCurated summary

What’s new in Figma: July 2022 | Figma Blog

Figma’s July 2022 updates focus on strengthening collaboration, expanding global support, and making community resources easier to discover. The company introduced research on effective teamwork, launched a fully localized Japanese experience, and redesigned Figma Community browsing and search. Together, these changes aim to help teams collaborate more effectively and find useful resources faster. ## Research on Effective Collaboration - Figma studied more than 100 teams composed of designers, product managers, engineers, researchers, and writers. - The resulting report, *What Makes Collaboration Click?*, identifies five behaviors associated with better product outcomes: - Co-creation - Rapport - Role clarity - Feedback - Reflection - Figma also announced a livestream featuring product research leaders Cristen Torrey and Andrew Hogan to discuss the findings. ## Figma Expands in Japan - Figma launched a fully localized Japanese product interface, website, and help center. - The company opened a Tokyo office and hired local leadership to support Japanese users and the regional Figma Community. - The expansion reflects Figma’s international user base, with 80% of users located outside the United States. - Figma also introduced the Japanese-focused social account **@FigmaJapan**. ## Improving Figma Community Discovery - Figma redesigned Community browsing to help users navigate its large collection of shared resources. - Users can now more easily distinguish among: - Figma and FigJam products - Use cases such as design systems - Resource types such as files, templates, widgets, and plugins - Search received expanded filtering and sorting options. - Results can be sorted by trending, most popular, or most recent resources. - The changes are intended to make creators’ contributions more discoverable and help users find relevant assets more quickly. Figma’s July improvements combine better collaboration guidance with practical product changes, particularly stronger international support and more efficient Community search and discovery.

Figjam Figma Design Systems Collaborative Design+2

figmaJun 27, 20222 min readCurated summary

What’s new in Figma: June 2022 | Figma Blog

Figma’s June 2022 updates focus on making the platform more collaborative, extensible, and accessible. The major launch is widgets—interactive canvas objects that teams can use together—alongside easier access to plugins, improved API documentation, and expanded availability for students through Google Chromebooks. Together, these changes position Figma as a broader platform for design, development, education, and teamwork. ## Collaborative Widgets in Figma - Widgets are interactive objects embedded directly on the Figma canvas. - Unlike plugins, which primarily support individual automation, widgets enable real-time team interaction. - Potential uses include: - Voting and polls - Time tracking - Design annotations - Status indicators - Task management - Featured widgets include: - **Asana** for discussing tasks and adding follow-up actions - **Jira** for turning designs into development tasks - **RAG Status** for showing red, yellow, or green project status - **Navigate** for guiding stakeholders through designs ## Easier Access to Extensions - Figma made plugins and widgets more discoverable within the editor. - Users can now search for and install extensions directly from the Figma toolbar. - Updates to the Figma Community also make it easier to try and explore available extensions. ## Redesigned API Documentation - Figma introduced redesigned developer documentation to simplify building on its platform. - Improvements include: - New navigation - Better organization of resources - Copyable code blocks - Additional code samples and practical guides ## Expanding Access Through Chromebooks - Figma partnered with Google for Education to bring Figma and FigJam to Chromebooks. - School districts can deploy and manage Figma Organization licenses through Google Admin Console. - The program is offered free to participating schools, potentially reaching tens of millions of U.S. students. - Schools could apply for the beta beginning in summer 2022. Figma’s update recommends exploring widgets and community extensions for collaborative workflows, while the redesigned developer resources provide a clearer path for building custom tools and integrations.

Figjam Figma API Plugins+4

figmaJun 6, 20223 min readCurated summary

Figma and Chromebook: Empowering the next generation of designers | Figma Blog

Figma’s partnership with Google for Education brings Figma and FigJam to Chromebooks, making professional design and collaboration tools available to millions of students at no cost to participating schools. The initiative aims to remove financial, hardware, and geographic barriers to design education while preparing students for a digital-first workforce. Figma argues that design skills—especially visual communication, collaboration, problem-solving, and creativity—should be accessible to everyone, not only students with specialized degrees or expensive equipment. ## Bringing Design Tools to Chromebooks - School districts can deploy and manage free Figma Organization licenses through the Google Admin Console. - Figma and FigJam will be available on Chromebooks, the most common personal computing devices for students. - Students can design, brainstorm, and collaborate from their own school devices rather than relying on limited computer-lab sessions. - Schools can apply for the beta program beginning in summer 2022. ## Removing Barriers to Design Education - Specialized degrees, costly hardware, and expensive creative software can prevent students from gaining design experience. - Cloud-based Chromebooks make design tools more affordable and accessible. - Figma’s founders designed the product to be free because they had seen how expensive creative tools could be for college students. - The broader goal is to give students access to opportunities in design and software regardless of their financial background. ## Why Design Skills Matter - The shift from physical to digital work, accelerated by the pandemic, has increased the importance of digital design and visual communication. - Design education develops: - Complex problem-solving - Collaboration - Creative expression - Communication and critical thinking - These skills are valuable across disciplines, not only in traditional design careers. - Figma cites research suggesting that design-focused companies outperform their peers by a factor of two. ## Teachers’ and Students’ Experiences - Teachers report higher student engagement and enthusiasm in class. - Students with no previous exposure to design have become interested in pursuing it after graduation. - Some students use Figma at home for personal projects simply because they enjoy creating. - Teachers use FigJam for icebreakers, collaborative exercises, and classroom activities. ## Learning Through Play and Projects - Dylan Field emphasizes play, hands-on work, and project-based learning as important ways to develop design skills. - He describes his own project-based high school, where science concepts were reinforced through engineering projects. - That curriculum reflected a design process: - Explore broadly and generate possibilities - Narrow the options and choose a direction - Execute the selected idea - This approach helps students learn by making, experimenting, and solving concrete problems rather than relying solely on instruction. Figma’s Chromebook initiative is intended to make design education a normal part of students’ everyday learning. Providing free, accessible tools—combined with hands-on, collaborative projects—can help more students build the creative and technical skills needed for the future.

Figjam Figma Cloud Computing Digital Design+3

figmaMay 10, 20222 min readCurated summary

Config 2022: Thinking big and acting with urgency | Figma Blog

Figma’s Config 2022 centered on the idea that designers and builders can influence major global and local challenges by thinking bigger and acting urgently. The 24-hour event brought together 100 speakers for 68 talks, while Figma introduced a broad set of product updates aimed at improving responsive design, collaboration, prototyping, and workflow integration. ## Config’s Broader Mission - Config connected a global design community spanning nearly every country. - Dylan Field argued that creatives are not powerless in the face of issues such as economic inequality and climate change. - The event encouraged attendees to use design and technology to create meaningful change, locally and globally. ## Expanded Design and Prototyping Capabilities - **Dark mode** became available on Figma’s desktop and web applications. - **Redesigned auto layout** added more intuitive responsive-design controls, including absolute positioning and negative spacing. - **Variable font support** enabled more expressive and optimized typography. - **Spring animations** allowed designers to create more natural transitions in prototypes. - **Individual strokes** made it possible to customize borders on specific sides of four-sided shapes. - **Updated outlines** exposed hidden objects and bounding boxes across the canvas. ## More Flexible Design Systems - **Component properties** reduced the need for excessive variants. - The feature also improved alignment between design systems and implementation code, supporting smoother developer handoff. - **Review states** enabled teams to approve changes, request revisions, and provide contextual feedback through branching. ## Collaboration and Workflow Integrations - **Spotlight** allowed participants in multiplayer sessions to direct everyone’s attention to a specific collaborator. - New **FigJam widgets** connected collaborative ideas with execution tools: - Jira - Asana - GitHub - Additional FigJam widgets included greeting cards and voice memos for team celebrations. - **International keyboard shortcuts**, initially in beta, improved shortcut support for German, Japanese, and French keyboards. ## Sharing and File Management - **Password protection** gave file owners more control over who could access shared files. - **Favoriting files** made frequently used documents easier to find and access. Figma positioned these updates as tools for making design work more responsive, collaborative, inclusive, and connected to broader product-development workflows. Teams can benefit most by adopting the features that strengthen their design systems, review processes, and collaboration practices.

Figjam Figma Design Systems Prototyping+4