Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Making Figma better for developers with Dev Mode

figma.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 238 posts

Re: Making Figma better for developers with Dev Mode

#131

Post by ShadowBanThis01 »

Akronymus wrote: post #125
bgribble wrote: post #103

As a developer, the "one big bulletin board" visual model that Figma promotes is one of the worst steps backwards in UX I have ever had to deal with. I am constantly zooming in and out and scrolling around trying to find anything. I hate it so much.

We use figma quite extensively as a reference for our current project. The disgners constantly move stuff around, so the links to them, in tasks, break and point to nothing. Which is a major pain in the ass indeed. So yeah, 100% agree that the "big bulletin approach" is a negative.

And this M.O. would seem to make zero steps toward recognizing the tedium of their platform:

"By hovering and clicking around the Figma canvas, you can find and export all the information you need"

Because "hovering" over every shape or area in a screenful of design content to prospect for hidden goodies, then exporting them one by one, is a great way for developers to acquire a complete rundown of what they need to implement.

I guess I can't speak for all developers, but I don't want to dick around with an Advent calendar that's masquerading as a design document.

Meanwhile, has Figma fixed the absurd confusion that it presents in the UI between projects and teams? It seriously confuses those two things right there on the "home" page of your account.

And finally, for those who don't want to support Adobe's software-rental nonsense, there is an open-source alternative to Figma called Penpot: https://penpot.app

Re: Making Figma better for developers with Dev Mode

#132

Post by prollings »

susanthenerd wrote: post #122
zackmorris wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I rarely use Figma but wanted to add that your experience isn't universal. I maintain one giant notes.txt file which I treat as my mental palace, finding sections within it by searching for "# keyword". This allows me to work as a 10x or 100x developer by avoiding bookkeeping chores like categorizing my notes, so more like a search engine. Figma might be targeted at designers who want to work fast also. But I do agre…

Have you ever considered going for Markdown? # is used for defining headers in markdown.

I think they're essentially using "hashtags", so they could have many for one note.

Re: Making Figma better for developers with Dev Mode

#133

Post by pcurve »

dahwolf wrote: post #123
pcurve wrote: post #42

I ran a design team, and many really struggled with Sketch -> Figma transition, and took a long time. I welcome many of the new features. It's great for designers who are more technically oriented, though enterable input fields would be nice. I do wonder how non-technical designers are going to feel. The learning curve is definitely going higher. I'm worried about the rather pricey per / seat cost. There are far more…

I know quite a lot of non-technical designers and many aren't too happy about what one might call design engineering. Design systems, tokens, modules, over the top consistency/reuse, the programmatic approach to design is experienced by some as a major buzzkill.

One of the lead designers on my team called Figma "production tool" when I rolled it out to the org a few years ago (and replaced Sketch)

She eventually came around, but these latest features may push her over the edge. I kind of feel bad. :-S

It would've been nice if they'd incorporated more design focused features:

> Improved and more intuitive drawing tool. Bezier experience in Figma is horrendous

> Keyframes

Re: Making Figma better for developers with Dev Mode

#134

Post by noizejoy »

Akronymus wrote: post #125
bgribble wrote: post #103

As a developer, the "one big bulletin board" visual model that Figma promotes is one of the worst steps backwards in UX I have ever had to deal with. I am constantly zooming in and out and scrolling around trying to find anything. I hate it so much.

We use figma quite extensively as a reference for our current project. The disgners constantly move stuff around, so the links to them, in tasks, break and point to nothing. Which is a major pain in the ass indeed. So yeah, 100% agree that the "big bulletin approach" is a negative.

I suspect, that the main problem is inconsistency in the underlying mental model, because there’s multiple individuals doing that and/or over longer periods of time.

I can typically figure out a mental model, even if designed by someone else (assuming they are somewhat consistent), pretty well and fast. — But it’s the inconsistency, that screws things up for me.

Re: Making Figma better for developers with Dev Mode

#135

Post by Domenic_S »

emilsjolander wrote: post #13

Hey all! Emil here from the Figma team that brought you Dev Mode and Figma for VS Code today! Really interested to hear what you think and also here to answer your questions. We are super excited to invest more into developers in the future, today is just the start of that!

Tip to future folks who jump on HN after releasing something: don't announce that you're here to answer questions and then answer only 2 questions (as of 5 hours after Emil's comment was posted).

Re: Making Figma better for developers with Dev Mode

#136

Post by butlerm »

pcurve wrote: post #68
jozzy-james wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I do wonder how non-technical designers are going to feel. The learning curve is definitely going higher. how would this impact them? just use figma as usual i would assume looking forward to giving this a spin, our design team tends to go the iterative artboard style with everything...so sussing out values can be a pain

"how would this impact them? just use figma as usual i would assume" Since designers share files, whether at the same time, or at later date, if you have someone on the team who is fully taking advantage of all the features, like the new variables, conditional logics, etc.., and you're not quite up to speed, you may not be able to do your job effectively or may mess up what others have done. Understanding abstraction…

Designing a user interface of all things is a technical job, and non-technical folks who are asked to do that should probably study those things to do their jobs well.

Re: Making Figma better for developers with Dev Mode

#137

Post by mattwad »

zackmorris wrote: post #114
bgribble wrote: post #103

As a developer, the "one big bulletin board" visual model that Figma promotes is one of the worst steps backwards in UX I have ever had to deal with. I am constantly zooming in and out and scrolling around trying to find anything. I hate it so much.

I rarely use Figma but wanted to add that your experience isn't universal. I maintain one giant notes.txt file which I treat as my mental palace, finding sections within it by searching for "# keyword". This allows me to work as a 10x or 100x developer by avoiding bookkeeping chores like categorizing my notes, so more like a search engine. Figma might be targeted at designers who want to work fast also. But I do agre…

a private notes text file is completely different content, let alone UX, from a visual board that everyone uses

Re: Making Figma better for developers with Dev Mode

#138

Post by cratermoon »

gedy wrote: post #57
deckard1 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

they always use text that is ideally sized in mock-ups but completely falls over when real data is used in a responsive web app. My favorite is when design adds data to a mock-up that we don't actually have. My company is, admittedly, a bit of a joke. Also up there: design giving us mock-ups that are a composite of shit that needs done today and future shit they still haven't decided on. And then demand review approv…

> responsive web app That's my favorite - if you mention responsive or how things should wrap or cascade you get the blank stares or "we aren't solving for mobile right now"

That's one of the few things done right at my previous consulting gig. They were mobile first, and didn't even start putting up a desktop web version until they had the core functions of mobile working they way they wanted.

Re: Making Figma better for developers with Dev Mode

#139

Post by pcurve »

butlerm wrote: post #136
pcurve wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"how would this impact them? just use figma as usual i would assume" Since designers share files, whether at the same time, or at later date, if you have someone on the team who is fully taking advantage of all the features, like the new variables, conditional logics, etc.., and you're not quite up to speed, you may not be able to do your job effectively or may mess up what others have done. Understanding abstraction…

Designing a user interface of all things is a technical job, and non-technical folks who are asked to do that should probably study those things to do their jobs well.

It definitely used to be, especially back in the VB / fat-client app days. I sometimes miss it. Things used to be simpler ;-)

Re: Making Figma better for developers with Dev Mode

#140

Post by samstave »

RussianCow wrote: post #129
sublinear wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think they mean 100x better than they'd be without it, not 100x better than a "1x developer" (whatever that means anyway).

It's still hard to believe that a note-taking trick makes you 10-100x better as a dev, for any definition of better.

Think of it as journaling...

If I was a good note-taker and had a rich, deep journal which was searchable - I'd be 100X more than the 1X me right now.

Not journaling is a big regret of mine.

Post reply on HN