I use Figma to create mock-ups for white labeling the company software to other brands, keeping all files separate from each other. I also create prototypes of new functionality and separate files for work in progress, separating them from the files for developer hand-off. Figma has allowed us a process for all of the above.
Pros
Plugins with different software.
Linking to frames.
Commenting
Cons
Spacing and layout specs seem hard for others to find for some reason.
We use Figma for our design mocks, for creating repositories of design guidelines, and for collaborating externally with other partners on all things product and design. Figma is a core part of our flow for engaging with product development and partnerships. I'm not a designer and even I end up using Figma in my day-to-day.
Pros
User interface is intuitive and easy to use
Easy to add collaborators
Great public-facing community
Cons
N/A - really helpful so far
Likelihood to Recommend
One area where we've used Figma successfully is in collaborating with partners outside of our team or company. Figma is an easy platform for adding external users and jamming on designs, setting standards for design language, and keeping each other up-to-date on how a product is being built or developed.
We use Figma for any topic related to Product development or improvements where we need to define a customer UX/UI. We use it to design new products, customer journeys, and interactions, or to improve the current product touch points we have for our customers. There are multiple touchpoints from our homepage, customer logins, and our booking funnel that need to be designed and documented, including all the flows from all the possible combinations of customer interactions. We have also used Figma in the past in our Marketing department to plan some rebranding campaigns for our different Brands, where logos, colors, and banners were updated.
Pros
Visualize product UX/UI.
Document in a visual way all product touchpoints.
Easy to compare different UI proposals.
Explain different customer journey flows in a visual way.
Cons
Browsing through file categories is difficult.
Touchpad gestures should align with your laptop preferences.
Likelihood to Recommend
I would recommend if you need to start from scratch a product UI or any customer journey that you need to implement that requires designing and visualizing different steps to complete a process. I would recommend that any design/UI/UX team brainstorm and make proposals that they can compare and discuss in a visual way.
VU
Verified User
Project Manager in Information Technology (501-1000 employees)
We use Figma as the main design tool to assist with the creation of design-related projects that span many cross-functional teams. For instance, Figma is the preferred tool we use to create our email templates, web banners, product pictures for our website, digital assets for Amazon, retail, and more. It allows multiple creators to use and share assets, so that everything we produce has a synchronous feel regardless of who creates it.
Pros
Figma allows us to create universal content. This means that if multiple designers want to re-use a piece of content, and if everyone's content should be dynamically updated from time to time, we can easily accomplish this by turning design elements into a universal instance. Then, if an update is needed, we can push the change out to all assets at once. It's very efficient and ensures we're all updating content accordingly.
Figma also allows us to set parameters for the company's brand guide and share them across various designers. This way, we can easily pull from approved brand fonts, colors, and more, which allows our assets to remain unified across multiple touchpoints.
Figma also allowed us to create and install our own plugin, which we use to export every slide we have in a frame at one time, versus the default export feature, which limits you to one slice at a time. This is particularly useful for us when we're working on email templates, since we tend to have a ton of slices in any given series.
Cons
One thing I've thought of that could be helpful would be an easy-to-navigate "help" or "guide" tool. We've hired a number of new employees this year who don't have any background in design, but sometimes need to rely on other teammates to give them simple assets. Instead of having to separately search the web for how to use Figma, I think it would be great if there were a feature right in the platform that allows people to search for what they're trying to figure out.
I wish Figma were integrated with Klaviyo, since they recently created an integration with Canva. It would reduce one extra step in our email template creation process.
Likelihood to Recommend
Figma allows us to create assets across multiple teams, such as email templates, website assets like site banners, product pictures, and Amazon/retail digital content. Outside of Figma, our design team still needs to rely on some other features to create all of our assets. This could include things like Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, and GIF makers. It would be nice if Figma included some of the basic features of these other platforms so that we could create everything in one platform.
My team uses Figma mainly for product design purposes (design ideation, establishing and using our design system, design jams with multiple collaborators) and as an alignment tool used with cross functional partners. We use it for quarterly/annual planning, ideation workshops, design reviews, knowledge share presentations, sync meetings, etc. Figma makes it easy for the org to jump into a file and easily leave feedback and jam on different ideas.
Pros
Easy for collaboration
Great for simple prototypes
Autolayout is amazing
Cons
I was disappointed in Figma Slides. I expected an easy transfer of assets from Figma -> Slides, but that wasn't possible and the entire brand system would've needed to be recreated.
Component interactivity doesn't always work as expected in prototype mode.
A built in annotation tool would be nice without needing to rely on plug ins.
Likelihood to Recommend
Figma is the primary tool the org uses for product design and collaboration. It's well suited for distributed teams that are looking to collaborate and jam. I think it's a good replacement for in person collaboration. Figma Make is still a work in progress, so if you're relying on AI to create clickable prototypes, there may be other tools that handle this better.
VU
Verified User
Manager in Research & Development (1001-5000 employees)
We use Figma to design and prototype user experiences across our entire product suite of e-commerce systems. From product catalogue & PIM, CMS and marketing through to storefront, checkout and customer service - every aspect of the service design is regularly reviewed, optimised and improved and Figma is the tool that allows us to visualise the future before we commit to building anything. This gives us confidence with usability testing that we’re building the right thing and then the engineering teams can review, estimate and plan based on the scope defined in the Figma files. Without Figma, these tasks would be very difficult. AI tools offer more intuitive prototyping however Figma is still winning at being a canvas editor that maps out messy problem spaces and acts as a communication tool to foster alignment in complex cross functional teams.
Pros
Canvas editing
Team wide design system libraries
variables and tokens setup
Commenting for review and refinement
Sharing prototypes for feedback and approval
Cons
Interactive prototyping with form fields
Figma make performance slow and laggy
Figma make quality of outputs does not match competitor vibe code products
AI design generation for canvas
Likelihood to Recommend
I’m the Figma team admin and regularly advocate for everyone to get on board the app. We now have thousands of users and our bill is $85k per year. It’s great for engineers, content teams, UX designers, graphic designers, CRM/marketing and more. Everywhere it’s being used regularly reports good feedback for us to continue maintaining the licenses year on year
VU
Verified User
Team Lead in Product Management (10,001+ employees)
Figjam and Figma regular are everyday tools for design, collaboration and user-flow documentation. We use it variably for design documentation and collaboration Our preferred medium is always Confluence or Sharepoint for any final documentation. Business problems : Alignment over a strategy, execution of designs in our apps, incorporation of feedback into the designs, ability to live collaborate for faster problem resolution.
Pros
Figjam collaboration.
Figma design documentation.
Presentations.
Cons
Figjam is still not as flexible as Miro.
Likelihood to Recommend
It is very suitable for design and presentation. Less suitable for documentation. Well-suited - all sorts of design! Collaboration with visuals and for alignment without multiple emails. Not particularly great - For documenting items in the long run, or presenting something in a formal forum (this takes more time than using Microsoft and CoPilot).
VU
Verified User
Employee in Product Management (10,001+ employees)
We use Figma from the ideation stages, when we need to experiment with concepts through wireframes and other low-fidelity deliverables, through flow design and up to the final design deliverables within the squads, where delivery includes navigable high-fidelity prototypes for business teams and documented deliverables for developers, in the process we call handoff.
Pros
High fidelity prototypes
Handoff for developers
flow design
rapid prototyping focused on initial concepts
Cons
Prototypes capable of handling databases
Ability to populate information in an automated way
generate higher quality source code for development teams
Likelihood to Recommend
Figma is an excellent tool for teams that work with a focus on design. From the ideation stages, when we don't yet know exactly what we're going to develop but need to make things visible to multidisciplinary teams (which involve people from business, technology and others) to the delivery stages, when we need to put the projects to the test.
VU
Verified User
Engineer in Professional Services (501-1000 employees)
Figma is used to create website designs, landing page sketches, and even small graphics for Final Apps. Pretty easy to use and collaboration with the team is also good. Has a good collection of icons and resources. The mobile app is also very useful. Have used it more multiple projects.
Pros
Website UI
Graphics
Landing page designs
Cons
Maybe more fast
Making it more user friendly for people without design knowledge
Likelihood to Recommend
files back and forth—everything updates in real time. Design Systems – Components, auto-layout, and shared libraries make it super easy to build and maintain consistent designs. Prototyping – No need for extra tools. You can create clickable prototypes that feel close to the real thing. Since it’s browser-based, you can access your designs from any device, and also the mobile app.
- Building systemic mappings (blueprints, flow maps, information architecture maps)
- Building low-fi visions
- Building prototypes for testing
- Documenting in hi-fi for Dev handoff
We are a team of 6 professionals (me as a Lead, 3 Interaction Designers, a Content Designer and a Researcher)
Pros
Collaboration in real time, zero delays, extremely lightweight application for being a web application
Componentization, super flexible set of properties and combinations
Highly detailed version history
Cons
Autolayout is still not as complex as CSS Flex, it should aim to be at par
Variables should be able to be tied to Components and referenced when prototyping to have the concept of Local Variables (this.Variable)
Components have a bug. If you create a Component in File A, then insert an instance of that component in File A, then copy-paste it into File B, the instance in File B never receives updates on the original component. But if the instance is inserted through the Library, it does get the updates. That's a huge bug.
Likelihood to Recommend
Well suited for
- Component/Design system building
- Hi-fi deliverables for Front End Development
Not well suited for
- Flow mapping, they've built FigJam for that, but you cannot make diagrams personalized to a complex degree
- Low-fi wireframing, the pixel perfect interface tends to force people to think in hi-fi
