Videos in Prototypes. DesignOps 2022. Nothing Great is Made Alone.
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App Updates
Add videos to Figma prototypes
Now you can incorporate videos into Figma prototypes for richer, more realistic experiences. Videos can be viewed on any Figma plan, but only users on paid plans can upload new videos into files. See the playground file for more details.
Build and edit prototypes faster
Two more updates to prototypes: drag to select multiple interactions to edit or delete all at once, and create interactions from any edge of an object for easier-to-read prototypes.
Updates to moving styles
Moving styles between files are now easier — now you can just cut and paste them.
Updated new tab on the desktop app
When you open a new tab in the desktop app you’ll now see your recent files, making it easier to pick up where you left off.
Smart chips in Google Workspace
Figma is partnering with Google on building “smart chips” into Google Docs. In the case of Figma and FigJam that will be a visual thumbnail of the project. Available to all users starting January 2023.
What’s New
State of DesignOps 2022
Industry benchmarking report for an emerging field of DesignOps, delivering insights into the state of the practice, people, and tools (no surprises there — Figma is used by 92.3%of teams) of design operations teams everywhere. If you’re interested in this field, don’t miss the “From Designer → DesignOps” essay from Cai Charniga, DesignOps at Figma.
The Future Of Design Is Open Source
Graeme Fulton looks into the difference between “open design” and “open-source design tools”, the new opportunity for an era of open-source design amidst Adobe ⨉ Figma, and how designers can be a driving force behind open-source itself. Sketch’s open file format is something we’ve always taken for granted.
A very tough day for Sketch
Sorry to hear the bad news and wish the best to the Sketch team: “In response to challenging market conditions and with a desire to keep our product-first strategy, we’ve taken the difficult decision to reduce our team by just over 80 people. This will mostly impact Operations and Marketing, who have done great work in the recent weeks and months. Our Product team remains well-equipped, with a core team continuing to drive things forward.”
Designing for Gen Z
Madeleine Lee, Product Designer at Figma, took a stab at breaking down some of Gen Z’s unique differentiators into design principles we can carry into our own work at the recent Friends of Figma SF meetup. Even if you’re not interested in this topic, her slides are gorgeous and worth a look.
Using Figma
Figma Design Tokens with GitHub Repositories
Nick Burd walks readers through the process of creating basic design tokens in Figma and syncing them with a Github repository.
That’s So Hot! Figma Fridays
Designer Advocate Mal shares one hot community file, plugin, and widget.
Scratchpad file
Many of us have our own scratchpad files, but I love this naming suggestion!
Base components for exploratory work
With the recent improvements to variants and components, Ridd makes a point that the benefits of using base components are no longer worth the cost for the design systems work. That said, they’re still great for exploratory work.
How to Prototype in Figma
In this video, Figma Bites teaches the basics of prototyping in Figma and covers interaction details, navigation options, multiple flows, and more. By the end of this video, you’ll be able to create stellar prototypes that help convey your ideas interactively.
Backstage
Nothing Great is Made Alone
Figma asked the design company COLLINS to help craft a brand story and campaign that would debunk the Myth of the Lone Genius and get everyone from the intern to the C‑suite collaborating on their platform. The two companies worked closely together on this fantastic story.
Our approach to security at speed
“On the Figma security team, our goal is to help Figmates ship new products and features as securely as possible — all without slowing them down. We wanted to share our operating model, which prioritizes transparency, decentralized and reusable solutions, and earning trust over mandating processes.”
How we use data
“Knowing how people use Figma is a critical process for making design accessible to everyone, and it requires us to carefully collect and analyze different types of user data. It’s a big responsibility to be entrusted with this data, so we want to be sure our customers know what we use it for and why.”
Resources
Linear home page
Linear launched a new gorgeous home page and did a Q&A party in a Figma file while the website was under a DDoS attack. The file is read-only but still fun to explore and review the questions and answers from the team.
Carbon Design System v11
Carbon is IBM’s open-source design system for products and digital experiences. The Carbon kit for Figma contains all resources you need to get started.
Plugins
html.to.design
Free plugin to convert any website into a fully editable Figma mockup. Not building each element from scratch is a huge time-saver if you’re picking up on a project with outdated or missing design files.
Figma Autoname
Rename all your Figma layers with the power of AI.