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Why Figma Wins

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Re: Why Figma Wins

#2
I championed the rollout of Figma at my company and what this article mentions is true: this is a tool for design, not just for designers.

We initially thought we'd need to provision the same number of licenses as we did for Sketch/InVision/Abstract. Turns out way more people started to get involved in the design process and we now have a more inclusive design practice. Content strategists, UX developers, researchers, can all participate early and often. (From a revenue perspective that's a pretty convenient thing for Figma, as each editor costs $45/mo — not only are they eating market shares from the existing pie, but they are also making that pie bigger)

Re: Why Figma Wins

#3
Meh. Everybody knew that "design is not just for designers" for quite a while, Adobe made several failed attempts at "collaboration" workflows trying to solve exactly those kinds of problems. This is just post-hoc justification... and also, let's not jump ahead of ourselves, "Figma wins" is not a foregone conclusion. A few years ago it would've been "why Sketch wins".

Re: Why Figma Wins

#4
I wish Figma would add page formatting and links so that it could be used as a wiki also. Figma is on a much better track to make a good product than Notion.

Re: Why Figma Wins

#5
Figma is a great piece of engineering, but I'm sticking with Sketch for personal use since it checks all of my boxes.

I've been watching it though, because I'm curious to see if they'll ever switch away from Electron for their desktop app. As far as I can tell, it doesn't need much from the browser other than a canvas. A lightweight standalone webassembly+canvas runtime would probably be enough to run it with some tweaks and could net significant performance/efficiency improvements (especially if said runtime leveraged Vulkan, Metal, etc). If they do that, it'll grab my attention and may kick off a new way to build cross-platform high-performance desktop apps.

Re: Why Figma Wins

#6
Figma can be shared with a link and has no version control. Multiple designers can work in the canvass without having to worry if everyone is working form the same version. To me, these were the advantages that got us to switch from Sketch to Figma.

Re: Why Figma Wins

#7
post #6

Figma can be shared with a link and has no version control. Multiple designers can work in the canvass without having to worry if everyone is working form the same version. To me, these were the advantages that got us to switch from Sketch to Figma.

Figma can be shared with a link and has no version control.

This is great for quick, informal design work, like prototyping with participants who aren't specialists.

It's a double-edged sword, though. There are good reasons that professional creative workflows often include revision control and sign-off processes attached to distributing specific revisions outside of the internal team.

Re: Why Figma Wins

#8
Comparing pricing directly, looks like Sketch is cheaper, if company already uses Macs. But how does it compare in reality? Do developers need additional Figma licences, or can designers just share designs with them to inspect?

Re: Why Figma Wins

#9
Figma sounds like a great tool, but it feels overhyped to me - especially in this article.

This reads like a long-winded pitch to a Figma investor more than an honest review.

I’ve been wanting to try it out but this article was a little bit of a turn off because it is so enthusiastic. Every tool has strengths and weaknesses so an article like this makes me wonder, what are the trade offs?

Re: Why Figma Wins

#10
post #8

Comparing pricing directly, looks like Sketch is cheaper, if company already uses Macs. But how does it compare in reality? Do developers need additional Figma licences, or can designers just share designs with them to inspect?

Pure “viewer” licenses are free on figma. You only pay per editor.

And IMHO the price delta between sketch and figma is basically a rounding error on the wage cost of your designers, so it’s barely even worth thinking about.

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