“Create a FigJam board during or outside of a Google Meet call to jam remotely or in person.”
A short explainer on navigating a FigJam file — panning and zooming, keyboard shortcuts, and navigation hacks. I use FigJam for presentations, and navigating sections with a Tab or Shift-Tab keys is my favorite!
Now you can use the power of AI to generate and expand mindmaps and create visual timelines in FigJam. See examples in the gallery of ready-made FigJam AI prompts.
Fast Company calls Figma one of the “most innovative companies in applied AI” for boosting creativity and digital collaboration with the OpenAI-powered Jambot plugin for FigJam. Wild to think that it was born out of an internal two-day AI hackathon just eight months ago. (For additional context, see the above interview with Nilay Patel.)
Jenny Wen is the founding designer at FigJam and the person who brought it to market. In this interview with Ridd, she shares invaluable insights about FigJam’s product strategy, adding delight to software, and attacking ambiguity early in the process.
Jenny Wen “templatized” some of the frameworks she’s been using over and over again in her role as a design manager and pillar lead of FigJam. There are 11 FigJam (no surprise!) templates for strategy, managing, and meetings.
A large profile of FigJam AI in Fast Company. “Figma’s AI ambitions are clear. Singer noted that ‘we really do think of AI as playing a central role across the entirety of the platform.’ In theory, that could mean not just better meetings, but more capable coworkers. ‘In a collaborative environment where you’re working with many people on a project,’ Singer says, ‘AI really up-levels everyone.’”
A new FigJam icebreaker for the season — making snow friends from a set of accessories and snowball sizes.
Miggi, Mal, and Lauren’s first reactions to using the new mind maps feature in FigJam.
Hanging out and getting @mdeandesign and @laurenbandres' honest first reactions to using the new mind maps feature in FigJam while we are in the @figma office. Lets go! 👏 pic.twitter.com/l3BPsO26HO
— Miggi ✌🏽 (@miggi) December 8, 2023
As of last Thursday, mind maps are now live in FigJam!
Mind Maps in @Figma FigJam are now live yo! As of yesterday! https://t.co/OjN3z9p1ev
— Miggi ✌🏽 (@miggi) December 8, 2023
“Discover how you can import all of your existing Jamboard files to fully editable FigJams! From sticky notes to sketches, watch as we demonstrate how to seamlessly transition your Jamboard content into FigJam, where you can harness the full range of FigJam’s interactive capabilities.”
A workshop by Miggi and Alex exploring ways to use FigJam like a pro, including shortcuts, deep-dive features, and ways to speed up your workflow — both independently, and when collaborating with others!
A new plugin from Lichin Lin turns your FigJam table into a beautiful and editable bar chart. See a short demo of how it works.
Peter Yang interviewed Yuhki Yamashita about building FigJam AI, creating a culture where PMs and designers love their craft, making design accessible to everyone, and balancing new and power user needs. Most of Yuhki’s advice in this interview is for PMs, but it still applies to any product designer. (The interview is paywalled, but there is a lot of good stuff in the preview.)
Love this story about FigJam’s early days: “We had a meeting with our board two months before we were going to launch FigJam. The board asked us what our differentiator was since there were many other whiteboard tools. And Dylan said, “Well, it’s fun!” But then we realized that the product wasn’t fun enough. So the FigJam team ran a sprint called “FunJam” to come up with all the playful features that you see today like cursor chat, emotes, and more. So you’re absolutely right – fun was a core principle. Most workplace tools are a little boring and confine you in a box. We want to give you an inviting canvas with many lightweight ways to express yourself.”
The AI is now integrated into FigJam to “help you instantly visualize ideas and plans, suggest best practices, and, of course, automate tedious tasks, so you can focus on the bigger picture.” What started as an experimental widget Jambot is now a first-class part of the product using GPT‑4. I used it this week to create a structure for a presentation which was a useful 0 to 0.1 progression. You can give it a try at the playground or check out how Zander Whitehurst uses it to create crazy flow charts.
Miggi causes the “figception” by using Jambot to come up with ideas for making Figma content. Quite amazing to see how it can be used as a tool for thought (or even programming, FWIW).
Jambot is a free widget from Figma to interact with ChatGPT right in FigJam. Use it to create visual mindmaps, take a multi-threaded approach to brainstorming, or generate ideas with teammates and ChatGPT on the same canvas. Quite amazing that it was born during last month’s Maker Week and is already live!
Amber Bravo sat down with Jambot engineers and a designer to learn what inspired them to make the widget, and why they’re so excited to see ChatGPT go multiplayer. As a power user of Logseq, I loved this bit from Daniel Mejia on where the inspiration came from: “I’ve been a heavy user of these tools called Networked Thought — especially Roam Research and Logseq — which basically allow you to create pages that link between each other, so you can connect, organize, and trace ideas. More recently, I also found this tool called Albus, which adds a visual feel to interacting with AI, and so I thought there should be a way to connect these concepts to create a potentially useful alternative to ChatGPT.”
You can now embed videos in FigJam. MP4 and MOV files are both supported.
That’s pretty cool, especially if your team has multiple products with distinct color palettes! “Introducing custom color palettes in FigJam: you can now create custom color palettes for your team, so your files can match your team’s own aesthetic or company branding (Organization and Enterprise plans only).”