Figma widgets. Interactive Figmaland. Digital design.
Everything slows down during the summer, including the release cadence at Figma. It’s been 6 weeks since the last time they’ve shipped a few small updates, and I started wondering if the team is taking a well-deserved break after Config 2022 or working on something big again. Well, widgets in Figma are quite a big deal indeed! If you think they’re just glorified plugins, I suggest playing with Interactive Figmaland to change your mind. Looking forward to seeing what the community will do with all the new possibilities.
🇺🇸 Happy 4th of July, if you’re in the US!
— Eugene
Figma Updates
Widgets in Figma
Widgets are now available in Figma! Their addition was quite predictable, considering how useful and popular they are in FigJam. Widgets for GitHub, Asana, and Jira were part of the launch. Also, both plugins and widgets are now accessible from the toolbar and easier to try before installing in the Community.
Figma Developers
The Figma API documentation website was completely redesigned and updated. Time to start building!
Making widgets
Bersabel Tadesse, Product Manager at Figma, writes about building and releasing last week’s updates — Figma widgets, a new toolbar menu, Community improvements, and redesigned API docs.
International keyboard layouts
Figma is improving support of international keyboards, currently in beta.
Using Figma
Toggle between panels
Useful shortcuts to toggle between Design, Prototype, and Inspect panels.
Adjust mixed values
Cool tip on adjusting mixed values like object size or Auto Layout padding.
Study Hall: Manage Education teams and invite students
Video series helping educators learn tips & tricks and see how others use Figma & FigJam in the classroom.
Made in Figma
Interactive Figmaland
This is the craziest thing I’ve seen built in Figma (here is a quick preview, but go try it): “With friends & coworkers visit a petting zoo, play hide and seek, race go karts, and more! Interactive Figmaland is a multiplayer interactive world built with FigJam widgets. Objects will animate when a character gets close to them.”
Plugins & Widgets
Ballpark
Ballpark is a new app from folks at Marvel providing a fast way to capture high-quality feedback on questions, marketing copy, designs, and Figma prototypes using tasks and video.
Fontpair
Free Google Font pairing and color palette suggestions.
Voice Memo
One of my favorite widgets is now available for Figma. See the video demo.
Changelog
A widget to seamlessly document changes in your Figma files and libraries.
Calculator
The best looking widget out there.
Backstage
Digital design is now a real job
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics added “web and digital interface designer” to their annual report. Why it’s important: “The addition of web and digital interface designers as a category is a signal that BLS thinks the demand for this type of job has increased significantly, and that it will likely continue to do so. The agency has also revised projections for its old web developers and digital designers category; it now projects the category will grow almost 40% between 2020 and 2030, validating the demand that so many people working across the tech and design industries have been feeling for years.”