Recordings from all three Schema 2022 conferences are now available — London, Tokyo, and New York. (Virtual event streamed select talks from physical locations.) Some of the speaker decks are also available in the Community.

In Issue 89, I shared slides for Yuhki Yamashita’s talk ​“Confessions of modern design” on how design is changing, and how we need to change with it. This article summarizes his advice on navigating our new always-in-progress world and Figma’s approach to developing collaboration features designed with that in mind.

A portfolio of a talented designer and illustrator, with all artworks made in Figma.

“Figma prototypes are now accessible for screen readers. Learn how to turn on accessibility mode and how Figma design elements are translated to HTML for screen readers to interpret and understand the content and interactive elements in a design file.”

Dan Hollick with another nerdy thread, this time explaining boolean operators.

A beautiful deep dive into the making of a new background music feature in FigJam.

Organize content with sections to help teammates navigate through busy Figma files. A section is a default top-level element on the canvas and its own layer type is used primarily for organizing files and grouping designs. Additionally, sections allow you to organize prototypes and preserve their state, as Miggi shows in one video and Anthony in another. See also Sho Kuwamoto’s notes on the controversy surrounding launching this feature.

Get on the same wavelength as your team by working to the beat together in FigJam. Don’t miss a fantastic easter egg shared by Anthony and Miggi — you can put the needle on the record to start the timer and music in FigJam.

Speed up decision-making and remove bias by empowering teammates to vote anonymously on ideas and prompts.

Announcement from Figma: ​“We’re launching new features to help teams move work forward. Join us for a livestream Tuesday, Oct 25 at 9AM PST to be the first to try them out for yourself!”

All models of iPhone 14, the new MacBook Air, and TV.

“Rolling out over the next few weeks, you have the option to purchase a new Professional plan in your local currency or USD if you are located in Japan, Europe, UK, and Canada.”

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.

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.

Moving styles between files are now easier — now you can just cut and paste them.

Use ⌘-F or Ctrl‑F to trigger the search box. Fantastic update! This is a critical ​“must-have” feature, so I used to rely on Jackie Chui’s popular Find and Replace plugin. Fun fact: Jackie joined Figma and worked on the native feature as well. He’s even got a kind warning from Figma that his plugin is going to become obsolete soon. Love to see this kind of respect for the developers community from Figma.

Kavir Kaycee explains why Figma won over the competition from the perspective of the Product Manager. He explains Figma’s success by being collaborative, community-driven, and affordable. I also like his point that Figma might become the starting point for all software development in the future.

“This year we’re taking Schema by Figma, our annual design systems conference, on the road to host three in-person events in New York, London, and Tokyo, as well as a virtual event for the location agnostic. With so much to look forward to, we wanted to get our community prepped and primed with a sneak peek of the themes and talks our team is especially excited to see.”

You can now use Spotlight while viewing prototypes, which is a great way to present without sharing a screen. There are also some performance improvements to the initial load time of prototypes.

Updates to a new file screen in FigJam: ​“Instantly populate your file with the building blocks needed to host a brainstorm, create a flowchart, or craft a meeting agenda with the new quick start guide in FigJam files.”

Figma’s conference dedicated to design systems this year goes global and will happen in New York (Oct 26), Tokyo (Nov 2), and London (Nov 9). Bummed I can’t make it to NYC on this date, but it’s also available as a free virtual event on November 16. The number of live attendees is limited, so apply early!

New component property features in open beta: exposed nested instances for more customization, preferred values for more clarity when instance swapping, and simplified instances for more focus on relevant properties.

Sho Kuwamoto, Director of Product at Figma, on new features and applying the concept of ​“composition” from engineering to design systems.

Joey Banks explains why new features are so important for the design systems’ work.