A cool bunch of improvements to Figma this week! #10: Select and copy items on the canvas while viewing version history. #11: Copy the URL of a file via Quick Actions. #12: When pasting links over existing selected text, you can now paste and match style so the text you’ve selected will be replaced by the URL or email address you want to paste in, rather than auto-link-ifying the selected text. #13: Exporting objects with a multiplier applied no longer occasionally adds an extra pixel to width and/​or height.

You can now collaborate on Figma and FigJam files directly in Google Meet.

Alright, as an author of this newsletter, I feel personally attacked! (Just kidding, I’m not.) In my opinion, it all comes down to the eternal debate about the role of ​“hard skills” vs. ​“soft skills”. You can’t get far without either. ​“Perfecting every Figma plugin” wouldn’t advance your career, but being efficient with time, solving problems that others couldn’t, or making something unique with these plugins might. On another hand, we’ve all seen portfolios with detailed case studies, processes, wireframes, and diagrams where the end result… is just meh.

All of the competencies in Artiom’s pyramid matter, but it’s noteworthy that tools, visual design, and UX design are at the foundation. Considering that this foundation is always in flux and evolving, it’s no surprise that the design community is paying so much attention.

New research from the Figma’s Insights team: ​“In a recent study we commissioned from Forrester Consulting, researchers found almost 9 out of 10 respondents experienced some type of barrier in the product development process, with 60% reporting either a lack of alignment across teams, difficulty making decisions, or lengthy development cycles. These barriers aren’t necessarily new, but have been amplified by three major forces at work: 1) More people involved, 2) More distributed work, and 3) More work in progress.”

On collaboration: ​“One striking finding from Forrester’s study was that the most successful teams collaborate more and also see improving this collaboration as critical. According to the study, successful teams want to improve feedback on work in progress, get more people involved earlier, and increase cross-team collaboration.” On that note, see upcoming events by Friends of Figma for anyone who regularly facilitates meetings and cross-functional collaborations.

Raquel Piqueras and Christina Yang from Microsoft on organizing Figma files and making a few intentional changes which resulted in fewer meetings, higher quality work, a more agile environment, and a few praises from their partners along the way. (Thanks for sharing the friend’s link!)

Great article getting into the nitty gritty details of tokens — why the design community had to invent them, where the influence came from, what problem they solved, how they were adopted by the design tools, and why all of that is happening now. ​“Design tokens are the first time in a lot of years that designers get to step up in the abstraction tower, and think in terms of meaning and purpose rather than concrete hard-coded values. This is a big cultural shift — but an inevitable one.”

This one is a more practical and hands-on guide to Figma variables, with detailed instructions on implementing, organizing, applying modes, publishing to the library, and transferring them to code.

Molly Hellmuth with tips on the best ways to name, organize, use, and theme color variables.

Luis with an interesting approach to documenting use cases or ​“intentions” of specific color levels in a palette. The color scales documentation from Radix recommended in the comments is also a fantastic resource. See also Luis’ Documentation template for colors in the Community.