Articles

“What seemed like a straightforward request — add a horizontal scroll bar to the Layers panel in Figma — presented unexpected challenges. Here’s how the design and engineering teams iterated and prototyped to find the right solution.”

In another article, Luis Ouriach shares tools that save him hours when starting a new design system and introduces 9 recent design systems features (covered in Issue #206) that address some common frustrations.

Luis Ouriach is laying down some uncomfortable truths: ​“The issue I have with the even number 4px calculation grid systems is that they can feel a bit loose, either vertically or horizontally. Although this is the de facto standard in product design now, I find myself getting focussing on what feels like a few pixels of extra flab within our components.”

Love this experiment, the proportions in multiple-based systems often feel too close to each other: ​“If I were to try and roll this idea out into a system, I’d probably want to at least try to build in a method to the madness. This is where we can lean on systems like the Fibonacci sequence to handle the heavy lifting.”

Andrew Hogan, Head of Insights at Figma: ​“With AI and the momentum around ​“just doing things,” we’re embracing experimentation and building at an eye-watering pace. Still, it’s up to us to steer these tools in the right direction—and if history is any guide, the most valuable innovations may be just around the corner.”

Figma explores five key takeaways from the report, and what they say about the state of design and development: agentic AI is the fastest growing product category; design and best practices are even more important for AI-powered products than traditional ones; smaller companies are going all in; designers are less satisfied with the output of AI tools than developers; there are still questions about how to use AI to make people better at their role.

If you’re curious about the new gpt-image‑1 model, check out this announcement from OpenAI: ​“Today, we’re bringing the natively multimodal model that powers this experience in ChatGPT to the API via gpt-image‑1, enabling developers and businesses to easily integrate high-quality, professional-grade image generation directly into their own tools and platforms. The model’s versatility allows it to create images across diverse styles, faithfully follow custom guidelines, leverage world knowledge, and accurately render text—unlocking countless practical applications across multiple domains.”

After reading Lenny’s Newsletter for a few years, I’ve recently changed to an annual subscription to benefit from the incredible value of this bundle. In addition to free annual plans of great productivity tools Linear, Notion, Perplexity Pro, Superhuman, and Granola, the bundle now also offers the hottest AI tools Bolt, Lovable, Replit, and v0.

Robert Bye reflects on his time at Figma. I love the way he defines product sense as ​“Reading data + Listening to users + Taste + Intuition + Craft”. Here is how to develop it: ​“I’ve come to believe that product sense isn’t really something you can learn in the traditional sense. You can’t just read a book or take a course and expect to be good at it. It’s something you develop over time – by being curious, by trying things out, and most importantly, by surrounding yourself with people who have great taste who are willing to constructively critique each other’s work.”

“We founded Modyfi to build the design platform that multidisciplinary designers deserve. We have known the team at Figma for a while, and have admired what they’ve built for the broader design community, as well as their shared mission to make design more accessible. We believe that together, we can continue to innovate and push the boundaries of what’s possible for designers. As part of this transition, Modyfi will no longer be available after Friday, June 13th.”

The design community never lets a good meme opportunity go to waste. ​“Figma slapped Swedish AI coding startup Loveable with a cease-and-desist warning for naming one of its new product features ​“Dev Mode.” It turns out Figma successfully trademarked the term Dev Mode in November last year, according to the US Patent and Trademark office, having introduced its own Dev Mode feature in 2023.”

The time has come: ​“Design software maker Figma said on Tuesday that it has submitted paperwork to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for an initial public offering.”

In her blog post, Alice Packard explores innovative applications of Figma variables beyond traditional light and dark modes. She outlines 11 use cases — including validation styling, asset availability, breakpoints, brand themes, seasonal promotions, subscription levels, loyalty statuses, authentication states, interface density, contrast settings, and levels of fidelity — demonstrating how variables can enhance design systems by enabling dynamic UI adjustments and improving collaboration between designers and developers.

Bold moves from Shopify’s CEO Tobi Lutke, shared in an internal memo. On general AI usage: ​“Using AI effectively is now a fundamental expectation of everyone at Shopify. It’s a tool of all trades today, and will only grow in importance.”

On prototyping: ​“AI must be part of your GSD Prototype phase. The prototype phase of any GSD project should be dominated by AI exploration. Prototypes are meant for learning and creating information. AI dramatically accelerates this process. You can learn to produce something that other team mates can look at, use, and reason about in a fraction of the time it used to take.”

AI skills will be a part of the performance reviews and affect future hiring. Highly recommend reading an entire thing.

Karri Saarinen from Linear: ​“Prompting is essentially like writing a spec, sometimes it’s hard to articulate exactly what you want and ultimately control the outcome. Two people looking for the same thing might get wildly different results just based on how they asked for it, which creates an unprecedented level of dynamism within the product. This shift from deterministic traditional UI to something more unbridled raises a challenge for designers: with no predictable journeys to optimize, how do you create consistent, high-quality experiences?”

Designer Advocate Corey Lee wants to help teams understand how to make the shift from just using design to becoming a truly design-driven organization. His central observation was that ​“the highest-performing teams don’t just use design; they embed it across every function.” After months of research and writing, Figma published his ebook to provide teams with insights to build a solid foundation of cross-functional design culture to navigate the current landscape of business and beyond.

“Connected Projects makes it easy for freelancers and agencies on different Figma plans to collaborate seamlessly with clients. Work together to co-edit designs, and share resources like libraries — all while staying on your own Figma seat.”

Three primary updates: hide and show variable fills, duplicate and copy styles, and the go-to-main component shortcut (Control+Option+Command+K). See the complete list of quality-of-life updates in the release notes. 

Claire Butler: ​“A love letter to scaling from 10 to 1400 people and 0 to millions of users over a decade as Figma’s first marketing and business hire.” One of my favorite insights: ​“As a product marketer I’d been trained to lead with ​“benefits over features,” but with designers that didn’t work. They cared about what the tool could actually do. They’d believe the benefits once they experienced them.”

Nick Babich explores his process of turning design into code using Lovable and Anima and shares the pros and cons of each tool.

Advocates Jake Albaugh and Chad Bergman wrote a tactical guide to collaborating with your developer counterparts, including common pitfalls, practical tips, and guidance on when to lean in.