Behind-the-scenes story on how Figma scaled their performance testing system from a single laptop running in the office to a dream setup built for scale: ​“After considering a few different approaches, we ultimately decided to ship two systems: A cloud-based system would handle mass testing, covering our bases for the majority of situations, and a hardware system would be highly targeted, tackling situations that required more precision. They would be connected by the same CI system, and engineers across product teams would run the same suite of performance test scenarios across them.”

“Design Manager Juli Sombat sheds light on how a need for more cohesion led Spotify’s design systems team to take a cross-platform approach to components.”

“The problem with Figma plugins is that the market is really not that big. If you look closely on the Figma marketplace, you can probably tell pretty fast there are relatively few plugins making money. There are some UI kits listed where, if you divide the views/​uses between 100 to get a sense of the revenue, you end up with something like €20-€400 which is frankly not worth the effort.”

I don’t think that’s necessarily true, and know that some creators make significantly more. That said, I wish it was easier to guesstimate the market size for the idea on the Figma marketplace. I love how Etsy shows the number of sales in every shop, and in combination with the number of ratings, it can give a rough estimate of the item’s success.

Allie Paschal writes about her process of migrating the Native Mobile Design System from using color styles to variables. Pretty cool to see that she already adopted a newly released scoping for color variables. I didn’t realize that some companies may not allow external plugins in Figma, so it’s nice to see that this process is completely manual and self-sufficient.

Hamish O’Neill is working on a new Figma UI kit and shares some of the advanced features included in his library. Love seeing a strong focus on accessibility, customizability, and theming!

This is a short but comprehensive checklist. Worth reviewing before sharing your next file!

I shared this beta’s release notes in the previous issue, but it didn’t show up in my account yet. Cool to see some folks are already trying it out. As Adham Dannaway pointed out, this release is bringing us ​“one step closer to a shared global design system”. Can’t wait!

That’s what I love about this community so much. Fons Mans shared an idea for the plugin, Rogie stepped in and offered to build it, and three days later they already had some WIP. Don’t know if I need this plugin yet, but seeing this collaboration makes me so happy.

Figma 101 before the school starts from Miggi: ​“In this workshop we will cover the basics of working with Figma for design covering topics like creating graphics, working with typography, and making reusable components. This workshop is intended to help you get more familiar and confident with Figma whether you are just beginning your design journey, or applying your existing knowledge from another tool.” See also his Homework Hotline livestream follow-up.

I’ve been using it for years but never shared it before! Great for putting any objects or text on a path.

Select two vector shapes and specify how many steps to create between them.

Keeybs is a customizable keycap and keyboard template library by Joanne Li, spawned out of a love for custom mechanical keyboards.