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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figmaJan 8, 2020

Bringing the community together in Figma | Figma Blog (opens in new tab)

Figma’s 2020 priorities centered on strengthening its global community as the company and user base expanded. The company planned to connect users through in-person events, improved support, collaborative product features, and a richer platform for sharing design resources. Its broader goal was to make design more accessible and collaboration more effective for entire product teams. ## More Opportunities to Meet in Person - Figma launched Config, its first user conference, in San Francisco on February 6, 2020. - The event emphasized community-created programming, including talks on open-source design, developing future designers, design confidence, and redesigning Chicago.gov. - Figma also planned more local events and user groups in cities around the world. - Users were encouraged to participate either in person or online, and community leaders could help organize events in their cities. ## Expanded Global Customer Support - More than 80% of Figma’s active users were outside the United States, while its support team primarily covered North American and European business hours. - Figma moved its support technology to Zendesk to better serve customers globally. - Planned improvements included: - A new Help Center for self-service product information - Community forums for peer-to-peer support - Streamlined internal processes for faster responses ## Product Features for Entire Teams - After launching features such as Plugins, Auto Layout, Smart Animate, OpenType support, and Design System Analytics in 2019, Figma promised a larger 2020 product roadmap. - The company would continue reducing repetitive design work and improving creative productivity. - Figma also aimed to better support engineers, product managers, and other members of product teams—not just designers. - Files at larger organizations averaged six collaborators, highlighting the importance of team-based workflows. ## Building a More Open Design Community - Figma introduced the beta of Figma Community in October 2019 to let creators publish files for others to inspect, remix, and learn from. - More than 300 creators had already shared around 600 files, including templates, educational guides, and public libraries. - In 2020, Figma planned to expand the number of contributors and resources so both professional and aspiring designers could discover ideas and learn from shared work. Figma’s roadmap combined product development with community-building: expanding events, improving global support, enabling broader team collaboration, and making shared design resources easier to discover and reuse.

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figmaOct 2, 2019

Designing for top feature requests, like Smart Animate | Figma Blog (opens in new tab)

Figma introduced Smart Animate and Drag in 2019 to support more expressive, realistic prototypes. Smart Animate automatically animates matching objects between frames, while Drag lets users control transitions with finger movement. The features were shaped by customer feedback, recurring interaction patterns, and Figma’s effort to integrate advanced animation into its existing workflow. ## New Prototyping Features - **Smart Animate** automatically animates similar objects across frames. - It improves existing transitions and supports interactions such as: - Dropdowns and pop-ups - Button hover states - Tab changes - Moving or disappearing objects - **Drag** allows users to control a transition by dragging with a finger. - Figma provided a product tutorial and help article to explain how to use the features. ## Learning from User Pain - Figma used in-product NPS surveys as an ongoing source of qualitative feedback. - Rather than focusing only on NPS scores, the team categorized comments to identify recurring problems. - Customers wanted: - Simple, smooth animations for everyday interactions - A way to communicate advanced transitions to developers - Auto-animation and drag or slide transitions without relying on other tools - Several survey respondents became early beta customers. ## Identifying Broad Interaction Patterns - Figma collected animation examples from customer conversations and studied interactive interfaces in everyday products. - The team avoided designing Smart Animate around a single use case so the feature would remain broadly useful. - Two major patterns shaped the first release: - **Objects change while the user remains on the same screen:** for example, hover states, expanding menus, or content revealed after swiping. - **Some elements remain fixed while most content changes:** common in tabbed navigation, where content moves and the tab indicator shifts. - Focusing on these shared patterns helped Figma keep the initial scope manageable while addressing many different customer needs. ## Integrating Animation into Figma - Figma wanted Smart Animate and Drag to feel consistent with its existing prototyping tools rather than like separate systems. - Supporting automatic animation required revisiting fundamentals such as layer naming. - Figma updated how objects are automatically named and renamed during creation and duplication. - Layers can now match for animation based on hierarchy, naming, and order, allowing Smart Animate to work with minimal manual setup. Figma’s approach combined direct customer research with pattern-based product design. The practical recommendation is to start with real user pain, identify common behaviors across use cases, and integrate new capabilities into familiar workflows rather than building isolated features.

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