figmaDec 9, 2024

Updates to our pricing, seats, and billing experience | Figma Blog (opens in new tab)

Figma announced changes to pricing, seat types, and billing workflows taking effect March 11, 2025. The company is raising prices for Figma Design, consolidating seat management, and giving administrators advance approval over paid seat upgrades. The changes are intended to improve billing visibility while allowing users temporary access during approval. ## New Pricing and Seat Structure - Figma Design prices will increase, with changes applying to Full seats. - Existing plans will transition to four seat types: - Full - Dev - Collab - View - Paid seats will include access to FigJam and Figma Slides. - The free Starter plan will remain available. ## Admin Approval for Seat Upgrades - Previously, users could trigger seat upgrades and admins reviewed them afterward. - Under the new model, paid seat upgrades will require admin approval by default. - Admins will manage one seat per user rather than separate seats for each product. - Users can temporarily access the requested seat for up to three days while approval is pending. - During this period, they can create files and edit files where collaborators have granted edit access. - Approved seats will appear on the next invoice, prorated from the approval date through the end of the subscription period. ## Migration and Timing - Existing plans will migrate to the new seat structure and approval workflows beginning March 11, 2025. - Full-seat price increases and updated proration rules will apply at the first renewal on or after that date. - Figma says existing customers will receive additional details by email. ## Connected Projects for Freelancers and Agencies - The billing changes prepare the way for Connected Projects, planned for later in 2025. - Freelancers and agencies will be able to collaborate with clients using their existing seats. - This is intended to eliminate the need to purchase licenses across multiple plans for client collaboration. Organizations should review their seat assignments and establish an approval process before the March 2025 migration.

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figmaJun 25, 2024

Stack the deck with Figma Slides | Figma Blog (opens in new tab)

Figma Slides is introduced as an open-beta presentation tool combining Figma’s high-fidelity design capabilities with FigJam’s collaborative feedback features. It aims to help designers and non-designers create more engaging presentations without exporting work into separate tools. Figma positions it as a way to turn product reviews, sales decks, and pitches into clearer visual stories and collaborative conversations. ## Why Figma Built Slides - Presenters commonly struggle with: - Designing creative layouts - Finding effective visuals - Spending more than eight hours creating a deck - Figma users created approximately 3.5 million presentations in the previous year. - Designers often had to move Figma work into other presentation tools or distribute prototypes and pre-reads to non-designers. - Figma Slides brings presentation creation into the same environment as design and collaboration. ## High-Fidelity Design Features - Slides includes core presentation features such as: - Speaker notes - Slide transitions - Presentation-focused editing tools - Design mode provides access to Figma Design capabilities, including: - Auto Layout - Advanced properties - Precise alignment and snapping - Interactive components and states - Interactive components, such as hover states, can remain functional during presentations. ## Shared Libraries and Assets - Existing Figma text styles, color styles, and design assets are available directly in Slides. - Designers can reuse established libraries instead of recreating presentation elements. - Copy-and-paste workflows work across Figma products, reducing the need to export interface designs individually. ## Grid View for Structuring Narratives - Users can edit individual slides or switch to grid view for an overview of the entire deck. - Grid view organizes slides into rows, making it easier to: - Rearrange sections - Review the overall story - Refine the narrative arc - This bird’s-eye perspective is particularly useful for long presentations where restructuring becomes difficult. ## From Presentations to Conversations - Figma’s experience with FigJam revealed the limitations of one-way presentations. - FigJam became a regular tool for meetings such as team kickoffs, bug bashes, executive reviews, all-hands meetings, and Q&A sessions. - Figma Slides is intended to combine polished visual storytelling with collaborative participation, helping more people contribute to and influence the discussion. Figma Slides’ central promise is to make presentations both visually sophisticated and easier to build collaboratively, allowing teams to design, organize, and discuss their ideas in one shared space.

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figmaJun 25, 2024

Inside the Redesigned Figma, Where Your Work Takes Center Stage | Figma Blog (opens in new tab)

UI3 is Figma’s third major redesign, created to manage the complexity accumulated over nearly a decade of new features. Its central goal is to put users’ work—not the interface—at the center while preserving professional workflows and making Figma more approachable. The redesign also establishes a flexible foundation for products such as Dev Mode, Figma AI, and Figma Slides. ## Why Figma redesigned the interface - **Center users’ ideas:** New capabilities such as interactive components and AI risked making the interface feel crowded or distracting. - **Serve both beginners and experts:** Figma aimed to become more intuitive for newcomers without removing the power and familiar ergonomics professional designers rely on. - **Adapt to modern design practices:** Reusable components, generative AI, and higher-level abstractions require tools that provide building blocks rather than focusing only on individual pixels. - **Prepare for the future:** UI3 supports Figma’s broader ecosystem, including closer connections between design and code, Dev Mode, Figma AI, and the newly introduced Figma Slides. ## Clearing the stage for the canvas - The redesign began by maximizing canvas space and reducing visual distractions. - Figma experimented with extreme concepts, including interfaces that appeared only on hover and layouts where panels constantly appeared and disappeared. - These approaches made the workspace feel unstable, so the team moved toward a more consistent solution: - Resizable and collapsible panels - A slim toolbar positioned at the bottom of the canvas - The ability to hide the interface completely and reveal panels when needed - The new structure creates a roomier workspace and provides a consistent framework for switching between Figma products. ## Iterative design process - Figma explored hundreds of interface variations. - Designers built and used many prototypes internally to evaluate how each approach affected real workflows. - Features and controls were deliberately removed until the team identified what users genuinely missed, then selectively restored them. UI3’s practical recommendation is to give designers more control over the interface: keep tools accessible, but allow the canvas and the work itself to take priority.

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figmaDec 13, 2021

The Figma prototype challenge: 15 tips in 15 days | Figma Blog (opens in new tab)

The Figma prototype challenge is a 15-day learning series designed to help designers move from basic prototyping to advanced, high-fidelity interactions. It emphasizes experimentation, user testing, developer handoff, and critique, using Figma’s newer features—especially Smart Animate and interactive components—to create more realistic prototypes with less wiring. ## Building a Foundation with Smart Animate - **Smart Animate** creates animated transitions between screens by matching layers with the same names. - It can be combined with preset transitions such as slide and push. - Matching layers with Smart Animate is useful for interfaces such as tab navigation. - Preserving consistent layer names between screens is essential for the animation to work correctly. ## Creating Reusable Interactive Components - **Interactive components** define interactions and animations between variants within a component set. - Instances become interactive immediately in prototype mode. - Component-level interactions reduce the size and complexity of larger prototypes. - They are particularly useful for demonstrating microinteractions. ## Nesting Components for More Complex Behavior - Interactive components can be nested inside one another. - Nested components allow elements such as list items to contain their own built-in interactions. - This reduces the number of prototype links required between component variants. - The approach makes complex interfaces easier to maintain and reuse. ## Applying the Techniques to a Mobile Prototype - The first week concludes by combining Smart Animate, matching layers, interactive components, and nesting. - These techniques are used to build a mobile prototype with interactive bottom navigation. - The challenge progresses from foundational transitions to increasingly complex, component-based interactions. - Figma Community files accompany the daily challenges so designers can follow along or create their own version. The practical recommendation is to learn prototyping incrementally: start with Smart Animate, preserve layer structure carefully, then introduce interactive and nested components to create sophisticated interfaces with fewer connections and more reusable behavior.

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figmaOct 26, 2021

What’s new in Figma: October 2021 | Figma Blog (opens in new tab)

Figma’s October 2021 updates focus on making collaboration more flexible, prototyping faster, and design work easier to scale. FigJam gained widgets, plugins, templates, code blocks, advanced shapes, and open sessions, while Figma introduced interactive components and several workflow improvements. Together, these features aim to balance structured teamwork with experimentation and spontaneous collaboration. ## Work Better Together in FigJam - **Widgets** can be added directly to FigJam files to support activities such as: - Taking team selfies with Photo Booth - Checking team sentiment with Alignment Scale - Mapping organizational structures with Org Chart - **Plugins** help users develop and synthesize ideas more efficiently: - Tour Guide turns jam boards into slideshow presentations. - Color Picker expands color options for stickies and shapes. - Unsplash provides access to image libraries. - The FigJam toolbar now provides access to: - Plugins and widgets - Templates for brainstorming, workshops, research, and other activities - Code blocks and new shapes for technical collaboration - **Open sessions** allow visitors to join FigJam files without creating an account. ## Bring Designs to Life with Interactive Components - **Interactive components** create reusable interactive elements, reducing the amount of manual prototyping required. - Designers can experiment and iterate more quickly while collaborating with their teams. - Interactions inherited from main components are hidden on instances, making complex prototypes easier to understand and edit. - Additional prototyping improvements include: - `Shift + E` to switch between Design and Prototype tabs - Canvas visibility for interactions, allowing everyone to inspect and explore them - An option to disable keyboard navigation in prototype viewers for more realistic user testing - Copying and pasting prototype interactions to reduce repetitive work ## Explore and Design at Scale - Figma emphasizes supporting design systems while still leaving room for experimentation and new ideas. - The update introduces **branching**, presented as a way to help teams manage and explore design-system work at scale.

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figmaOct 25, 2021

Interactive components: Less wiring, more inspiring | Figma | Figma Blog (opens in new tab)

Figma’s October 2021 update introduces interactive components as a way to bring reusable interactions and animations directly into the design workflow. By reducing manual prototype wiring and the number of required frames, the feature helps teams create, iterate on, and share more realistic prototypes. Additional improvements make switching between design and prototyping, managing complex canvases, and reusing interactions faster. ## Interactive Components - Interactive components let designers define interactions and animations between variants in a component set. - Component instances become immediately interactive in prototyping mode. - A single frame can replace many frames for states such as: - Multiple selected checkboxes - Open accordion menus - Button hover states - Teams reported prototype frame reductions of up to 10 times. - Designers can edit component states beside where the component is used and duplicate versions to explore alternatives. - Interactive components can be distributed through shared libraries, allowing teams to reuse preconfigured interactions with one click. - Figma improved performance, load times, stability, observation mode, and auto layout support after the beta period. ## Faster Prototyping Workflows - The shortcut **Shift + E** toggles between the Design and Prototype tabs without losing context. - Interactions inherited by instances from main components are hidden on the canvas, reducing visual clutter from numerous blue prototype arrows, or “noodles.” - Prototype interactions can be copied and pasted into frames, reducing repetitive setup work. ## Broader Impact on Design Teams - Interactive components narrow the gap between visual design and interactive behavior. - Reusable interactions help designers focus on user flows instead of manually wiring repeated states. - Shared libraries make it easier for less experienced Figma users to build functional prototypes. - The feature also supports more experimental prototypes, including animated objects, music notation, and interactive games or toys. Figma’s recommendation is to use interactive components and its playground file to make prototyping a more integrated, reusable, and iterative part of the design process.

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