figmaJan 24, 2018

Bug Bashing Party at Figma During Quality Week | Figma Blog (opens in new tab)

Figma’s Quality Week is a company-wide pause from new feature development to focus on fixing accumulated bugs and polishing existing functionality. The initiative reflects Figma’s belief that small usability problems compound for designers who spend hours in the product. By making quality work a recurring tradition, Figma aims to deliver a smoother, more reliable professional tool while also giving employees opportunities to explore unfamiliar parts of the codebase. ## A Company-Wide Focus on Quality - Figma launched its first official Quality Week in early 2017. - Engineers and designers temporarily paused their regular projects to address: - Annoying but non-critical bugs - Broken or incomplete features - Improvements to existing workflows - The company found that focused maintenance work could be as valuable as continuously shipping new features. - Quality improvements are especially important because users spend long periods working in Figma, making small imperfections increasingly disruptive. ## Quality Week 2018 Improvements - Two engineering teams collaborated on a broad set of bugs and prioritized issues that affected Figma’s professional quality. - Notable fixes included: - **Figma Mirror:** Improved stability and reduced crashes in the mobile mirroring app. - **Sketch import:** Added drag-and-drop importing into the editor and improved text-import accuracy. - **Chromebook support:** Enabled users to hold the search key and drag to duplicate objects. - **Layer panel behavior:** Made it easier and more intuitive to nest layers into groups and frames. - Figma acknowledged that the product was not bug-free, but planned to continue focused quality efforts throughout the year. ## Benefits for the Team - Quality Week helped developers and designers work in parts of the codebase outside their usual areas. - The event encouraged collaboration across teams and made otherwise routine maintenance work enjoyable. - Figma celebrated achievements with awards, including recognition for fixing the company’s oldest known bug—an issue affecting Windows users since 2015. ## Feedback and Ongoing Support - Many bugs addressed during Quality Week were reported by Figma’s user community. - Figma encouraged users to submit feedback through: - The in-product Help menu - Twitter - The community forum - Email support - The company emphasized an all-hands support model, where users might interact with engineers or even the CEO. Figma’s approach shows that dedicated time for bug fixing and product cleanup can complement innovation rather than compete with it. Regular quality-focused periods, combined with continuous user feedback, help maintain a reliable and polished product as it evolves.

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figmaNov 1, 2017

Introducing: Figma Pages | Figma Blog (opens in new tab)

Figma Pages adds an organizational layer within a single design file, letting designers separate brainstorming, wireframes, iterations, and final assets without creating separate documents. The feature supports multiple workflows, including platform-specific designs, shared component libraries, and multiple prototypes. Figma emphasizes that Pages are for organization—not version control—and warns that duplicating large files across Pages may hurt performance. ## Organizing Designs with Pages - Pages can be added, switched, or deleted from the file’s left-hand panel. - The Pages menu collapses after use but can be kept open with a control-click. - Sketch imports preserve the original document’s pages and symbols. - There is no limit to the number of Pages in a file. ## Common Uses - Separate brainstorming, wireframing, and polished designs. - Organize iOS and Android screens on different Pages. - Store shared components, icons, or other interface elements separately. - Choose the first Page to control which design appears as the file thumbnail. - Create separate prototypes within one file. ## Collaboration and Moving Components - Sharing one Page grants access to the entire file containing it. - Components can be moved between Pages by right-clicking and choosing **“Move to Page.”** ## Pages Versus Version Control - Pages should not be used to create copies of designs as a version-control system. - Figma already provides version history for tracking changes. - Repeatedly duplicating large designs across Pages can negatively affect performance. Figma Pages is best used to structure related design work within one accessible file, while Figma’s version history should handle historical snapshots and revisions.

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figmaMay 19, 2017

Reflecting on Figma’s First Year | Figma Blog (opens in new tab)

Figma’s first year focused on proving that a browser-based design tool could deliver both powerful graphics performance and trustworthy collaboration. The company moved from being dismissed as a “toy” to becoming a serious platform through rapid feature releases, performance improvements, and better support for existing Sketch workflows. Its central insight was that multiplayer editing creates not only collaboration, but also a shared source of truth for entire product teams. ## Building a Browser-Based Design Platform - Figma faced major technical challenges in rendering complex graphics smoothly in a browser. - It also had to persuade designers that a web-based tool could be reliable enough for professional work. - The team spent its first year speaking with designers, engineers, and product managers to understand the needs of growing organizations. - Figma invested heavily in: - Faster file loading and rendering - Workflow improvements and polish - Continued refinement of Sketch import - Because releases came so quickly, the company collected its major updates in one anniversary retrospective. ## Collaborative Design and Multiplayer Editing - Public multiplayer editing launched on September 28, 2016, making Figma the first design tool to offer simultaneous editing. - Designers initially reacted both enthusiastically and skeptically to the idea of “pair design.” - After a year, teams were using multiplayer editing to: - Ship products under tight deadlines - Mentor designers remotely - Conduct more efficient design critiques - The larger benefit was a single source of truth: - Files could be shared through a persistent URL. - Updates appeared at the same location without requiring teams to synchronize assets manually. - Teams avoided overwritten files and outdated versions. - Different roles could work directly with the design: - Copywriters could test messaging. - Developers could inspect design attributes for implementation. - Product managers could monitor progress without relying on Slack updates. ## Components and Design Systems - As design became more central to product development, companies needed systems for maintaining consistent UI elements across teams and files. - Figma introduced components on December 8, 2016, allowing designers to synchronize reusable elements such as navigation menus and status bars. - Component overrides let designers customize individual instances—for example, changing color or typography—without disconnecting them from the underlying component. - This balanced flexibility with consistency, allowing teams to benefit from a broader design system while still adapting individual designs. Figma’s first-year progress suggests that browser-based design succeeds when performance, compatibility, and collaboration are treated as equally important. Its persistent shared files and emerging design-system features aimed to make the design process more connected across the entire product team.

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