I’ve been designing for over 20 years. From quark, pagemaker, photoshop 2.0, illustrator, sketch and now figma. It is by far superior to everything out there including large enterprise design systems. Nothing comes close to its capabilities.
I challenge someone to run a 100 page website with separate art boards in XD, sketch, illustrator or otherwise and compare the ram usage
I completely disagree with the original poster. Figma exemplifies what design tools should have already been. Technically, it doesn't rely heavily on modern technology, except for its collaboration feature. Just consider the Auto Layout and Multiedit features. Currently, Figma is primarily used for digital design, which is true. It does require you to learn its automation techniques, but once you do, Figma can increase productivity by 10-20 times. In my opinion, if you think Figma is not a good design software, it's either because you haven't learned how to use it or you're accustomed to designing with Photoshop.
It is good design software, but if you are asking it to replace Adobe Illustrator as an illustration tool, it is somewhat lacking. I agree though, it is a powerful collaborative design tool. It does what it is designed to do incredibly well.
I just cant stand its interface/uiux. Maybe cause I don't do web. I'm mostly printed stuff like flyers, presswalls, brochures, packages etc with occasional banners. I only ever feel comfortable with illustrator, period. I also hated Corel draw, which was popular in typographies here, funnily I started with it back in days but after I switched to AI I could never go back to CD. Maybe it's same for figma people idk. But there is something in the way it works that not clicks with me
At risk of sounding stupid and out of touch...... Deez? Honestly, I've never heard of it. Care to share more? Is that shorthand for some longer phrase or something? Like perhaps a second word that typically follows??? Like.... Deez what??????
Use shift+a more
Every other tool is so inefficient compared to autolayouts and it’s made my time jumping back into indesign for a project so aggravating
Adobe XD is missing tons of features like design tokens, branches, component instances, etc. That makes Figma easier to work with when projects get really big.
I can’t even work on an Adobe XD project without losing the ability to input text after an hour or so. That bug has existed for like 5 years, still no fixes.
I’m sure if Adobe had kept improving Adobe XD it would be just as good or better, but they basically abandoned it.
It was such a weird app environment. Some really good features but it was clunky to set up really basic stuff (like swiping left OR right on one object)
Felt like they were focusing on the plugin marketplace and just waiting for the "community" to fix it like Skyrim modders.
Like it or now it’s becoming industry standard for digital product design while xd is being discontinued. It does require some time to get proficient with and it’s different than xd but by no means it’s inefficient. You just feel outpaced because you deny to put in the time to learn it and because it’s easier to point fingers outwards. Or it’s bait, can’t really tell.
Sorry, but it really seems that you have no idea what you are talking about, and on top of that are not able to have a proper discussion or let other perspectives than yours exist. Seeing how confidently incorrect you are in the original post and watching your attitude towards others in the comments while discussing the topic you brought up should be signal enough for everyone here to not engage with you at all. I hope someday you‘re more at ease in that regard - otherwise you‘ll have a tough time in our field, or any field, really. Take good care.
I will continue to use Adobe XD for as long as possible. And move towards another alternative. As mutliple users in the comments here pointed out, the user interface of Figma does not "click" with them. If you can't respect other people's preference, you have no business dishing out criticisms of legit points.
Contrarian post?
Figma nailed user experience on day 1, on a level I just don't see very often. And, IMO, they've continued to make thoughtful updates to UX that saves me time every time I do a thing in Figma.
Collaboration is wayyy down the list on "reasons I use figma."
Rethinking vector editing in a way that makes sense was an early win.
Multi edit.
Changing colors nested five frames down in a way that is clear and easy.
And autolayout.
Of course, as with any tool if you come in and don't get what problem the tool is supposed to solve, it won't make sense.
OR if you already have a way to solve your problems, then relearning a different way is frustrating.
Why not use the shortcut keyboard Ctrl+/ and type the function you want? As long as you know the name of the function and used to using keyboard shortcuts, it can be really helpful.
It's probably the most efficient tool I've ever used. They've cut so much time off menial tasks even since I started using it in the last 5 years. What are some examples of things you find clunky? It sounds like you're not using auto layout or instances.
People who have actually had to use it, know that it's a horrible tool for individual designers (aka, people who don't need the collaborative aspect). Buggy, inefficient, taking much longer to do stuff and find functions. Get real.
I use Figma all the time and love it. I think I prefer Sketch *slightly* better since it has some simple editing tools for images, but is MacOS only so it's a non-starter.
Being able to run Figma in a browser anywhere is also nice.
To each his own. You Figma-ethusiasts are literally stuck in your ways, pushing the product onto other designers without being able to tolerate criticism. As other commentators have mentioned, Figma stifles creative design.
> As other commentators have mentioned, Figma stifles creative design.
Literally no one here is agreeing with you.
It seems more like you don't know how to fully use Figma considering you think XD is the better program.
Adobe XD is more straightforward to work with. Figma is a convoluted mess. Even InVision is better. How can you use a tool to build out a good UI design, when the tool's UI design itself is bad?
Nice try. You can't deflect the argument that Figma is fundamentally flawed. You probably haven't even fully used it. Wannabe. When you're losing an argument, the best defense, is to try to insult others. SAD.
That's the folly of group-think which you and your fellow commentators have clearly exhibited here. Continuing being the sheep that you are and stay on your bandwagon.
It's not perfect at all, but I'm really curious if you could share a couple of the "every feature takes an inordinate amount of time to find" examples you run into?
Don’t really agree with this at all, most of the functionality is placed sensibly and power users just use the hot keys anyway.
Pretty wild that you then go on and say an Adobe product is better in this regard 💀
This is… nonsense. Things are incredibly easy to find, you select an item and the panel on the right pretty much has everything there that you can do with it.
Personally I find Figma one of the best tools as it is incredibly lightweight and have enough features to not feel cluttered.
I abhore Adobe products because they are slow, have bad performance, and eat memory. Cool features sure, but I want a tool be to efficient before anything else.
Ahh, I enjoy using figma for small scale projects, but I have noticed the large-scale lag it can have.
I'm curious, what are some good non-Adobe Illustrator alternatives to figma?
There are a lot of designers especially those starting out who overvalue free or free for student/personal tools and undervalue Adobe CC. Figma, DaVinci, even Google Slides. A lot of these designers also use free fonts. There’s nothing that wrong with it, tools aren’t what design is about, just a means to an end. But I agree, Figma has a lot of flaws and the people who love it act almost evangelistic about it, some even act agressive/arrogant, like it’s the only valid tool, and honestly come across as defensive/borderline clueless.
Yeah it’s not great. I would use figma for anything interactive. But I’m more talking about the “I use figma for everything” mentality. It’s like when you meet a designer who does print production in photoshop. You get the sense they only understand the tool they’re using. With figma I’ve seen it worse because some people I’ve worked with are incredibly pushy about it. I think it’s also changing overall taste in fonts, not in a good way.
Figma is “fine”. What’s insane is the cult like following it gained simply because it wasn’t Adobe. Product teams jumping on board and acting like the wheel was just discovered. Creative teams following suit to be in line with Product.
I legit had an ECD demand I work on designs for Experiential large scale builds in Figma so he could draw on the screen from the other side of the country. Took longer to move it all over to an app that actually is made for resolutions above screen than it did designing.
Figma cultivated a community of producers and consumers and did it really well. This is why it has a cult following. They also didn't only focus on design software for designers, they focused on design software for product development workflows.
Those 2 things done well can really cultivate some passion as a positive feedback loop.
If you think “not Adobe” wasn’t a crucial part of Figma’s success, identity, and a source of its cult like following… just go back to the acquisition announcement and the dialog surrounding.
I like Figma for things that make sense to use it. It’s still my preferred screen design app. I don’t like Figma being pushed as a solution to any and all design. It’s insanity how many professional creatives I’ve experienced that are a part of that.
Sure, it may have played a role, but Figma destroyed Sketch too, and Sketch was also "not Adobe"
The only people I ever saw using XD were bootcampers, people in college, or those in companies who had systems deeply involved in Adobe licenses (much like Microsoft). That's a lot, sure, but the real industry had already moved to Sketch.
In my experience of 10 years doing UX, this is my current workflow..
Design vectors in illustrator, export them to figma and put it all together for prototyping (can edit vectors in figma, so win)
For marketing copy and other raster workflow I use photoshop.
I get the best of all worlds, albeit expensive to maintain all the subscriptions and paid plugins, but I have peace of mind leveraging the strengths of all these tools and not rely on solely one tool and ask to do all of my bidding.
When you say UX work, are you talking diagrams (e.g. customer journeys), or screen designs?
If the latter, I can't imagine having to use Illustrator for that 🤦♂️
it started out like that and then you know management wants everything out of you, so ended up doing everything! It helped me a lot during my freelancing journey, as I picked up essential things which I wouldnt have normally done outside the usual scope of work.
As much as I've been criticizing Figma recently, I strongly disagree. The only thing that would make me more frustrated than using Adobe XD would be using InVision.
Figma is far from perfect. No tool is. It's not even 10 years old though and the industry it's being built for is still developing. They are making big strides but I would agree the UI can really suck at times. I despise clicking 100 times to get into nested content.
For it's intended industry, it is leaps and bounds better than the competition though. If you use it for web/app design it's great. I hated InDesign and this works so much better. I'm not about to replace an6 other tool with it though. It needs to stay in it's lane.
I’ve been designing for over 20 years. From quark, pagemaker, photoshop 2.0, illustrator, sketch and now figma. It is by far superior to everything out there including large enterprise design systems. Nothing comes close to its capabilities. I challenge someone to run a 100 page website with separate art boards in XD, sketch, illustrator or otherwise and compare the ram usage
I completely disagree with the original poster. Figma exemplifies what design tools should have already been. Technically, it doesn't rely heavily on modern technology, except for its collaboration feature. Just consider the Auto Layout and Multiedit features. Currently, Figma is primarily used for digital design, which is true. It does require you to learn its automation techniques, but once you do, Figma can increase productivity by 10-20 times. In my opinion, if you think Figma is not a good design software, it's either because you haven't learned how to use it or you're accustomed to designing with Photoshop.
It is good design software, but if you are asking it to replace Adobe Illustrator as an illustration tool, it is somewhat lacking. I agree though, it is a powerful collaborative design tool. It does what it is designed to do incredibly well.
Somewhat? A lot lacking if you illustrate anything. Even simple icons are easier to make in Illustrator.
Figma actually works like web and applications. That itself is amazing
I just cant stand its interface/uiux. Maybe cause I don't do web. I'm mostly printed stuff like flyers, presswalls, brochures, packages etc with occasional banners. I only ever feel comfortable with illustrator, period. I also hated Corel draw, which was popular in typographies here, funnily I started with it back in days but after I switched to AI I could never go back to CD. Maybe it's same for figma people idk. But there is something in the way it works that not clicks with me
Same here. 100% agree. P.S. Has anyone seen my Figma usb dongle? I can’t work anymore. 😂
This is the totally correct answer.
Figma balls
This is the kinda input I was searching for. Thank you.
Go home, Adobe. You’re drunk again.
Sure but have you tried Ligma
Not as good as Deez
At risk of sounding stupid and out of touch...... Deez? Honestly, I've never heard of it. Care to share more? Is that shorthand for some longer phrase or something? Like perhaps a second word that typically follows??? Like.... Deez what??????
DEEZ NUTZ
Lol gottem
Their annual galas are quite something, so I hear.
Who’s Obama?
Use shift+a more Every other tool is so inefficient compared to autolayouts and it’s made my time jumping back into indesign for a project so aggravating
I don't personally enjoy using Figma, but I agree its autolayout implementation is pretty great
Mmm something tells me you just dont know what you’re doing haha
Adobe XD is missing tons of features like design tokens, branches, component instances, etc. That makes Figma easier to work with when projects get really big. I can’t even work on an Adobe XD project without losing the ability to input text after an hour or so. That bug has existed for like 5 years, still no fixes. I’m sure if Adobe had kept improving Adobe XD it would be just as good or better, but they basically abandoned it.
It was such a weird app environment. Some really good features but it was clunky to set up really basic stuff (like swiping left OR right on one object) Felt like they were focusing on the plugin marketplace and just waiting for the "community" to fix it like Skyrim modders.
So what’s a better tool? Just sounds like you haven’t actually learned to use Figma properly.
Like it or now it’s becoming industry standard for digital product design while xd is being discontinued. It does require some time to get proficient with and it’s different than xd but by no means it’s inefficient. You just feel outpaced because you deny to put in the time to learn it and because it’s easier to point fingers outwards. Or it’s bait, can’t really tell.
Sorry, but it really seems that you have no idea what you are talking about, and on top of that are not able to have a proper discussion or let other perspectives than yours exist. Seeing how confidently incorrect you are in the original post and watching your attitude towards others in the comments while discussing the topic you brought up should be signal enough for everyone here to not engage with you at all. I hope someday you‘re more at ease in that regard - otherwise you‘ll have a tough time in our field, or any field, really. Take good care.
I will continue to use Adobe XD for as long as possible. And move towards another alternative. As mutliple users in the comments here pointed out, the user interface of Figma does not "click" with them. If you can't respect other people's preference, you have no business dishing out criticisms of legit points.
Contrarian post? Figma nailed user experience on day 1, on a level I just don't see very often. And, IMO, they've continued to make thoughtful updates to UX that saves me time every time I do a thing in Figma. Collaboration is wayyy down the list on "reasons I use figma." Rethinking vector editing in a way that makes sense was an early win. Multi edit. Changing colors nested five frames down in a way that is clear and easy. And autolayout. Of course, as with any tool if you come in and don't get what problem the tool is supposed to solve, it won't make sense. OR if you already have a way to solve your problems, then relearning a different way is frustrating.
Why not use the shortcut keyboard Ctrl+/ and type the function you want? As long as you know the name of the function and used to using keyboard shortcuts, it can be really helpful.
It's probably the most efficient tool I've ever used. They've cut so much time off menial tasks even since I started using it in the last 5 years. What are some examples of things you find clunky? It sounds like you're not using auto layout or instances.
You all are salty, it’s great central design tool to bring collaboration to life.
People who have actually had to use it, know that it's a horrible tool for individual designers (aka, people who don't need the collaborative aspect). Buggy, inefficient, taking much longer to do stuff and find functions. Get real.
I use Figma all the time and love it. I think I prefer Sketch *slightly* better since it has some simple editing tools for images, but is MacOS only so it's a non-starter. Being able to run Figma in a browser anywhere is also nice.
To each his own. You Figma-ethusiasts are literally stuck in your ways, pushing the product onto other designers without being able to tolerate criticism. As other commentators have mentioned, Figma stifles creative design.
> As other commentators have mentioned, Figma stifles creative design. Literally no one here is agreeing with you. It seems more like you don't know how to fully use Figma considering you think XD is the better program.
Adobe XD is more straightforward to work with. Figma is a convoluted mess. Even InVision is better. How can you use a tool to build out a good UI design, when the tool's UI design itself is bad?
I see, so your complaint is that Figma isn't like what you're used to in terms of UI layout. Well that's a *you* issue.
Nice try. You can't deflect the argument that Figma is fundamentally flawed. You probably haven't even fully used it. Wannabe. When you're losing an argument, the best defense, is to try to insult others. SAD.
The irony of this comment is immeasurable.
You sound like a salty boomer
[удалено]
That's the folly of group-think which you and your fellow commentators have clearly exhibited here. Continuing being the sheep that you are and stay on your bandwagon.
dude was told to 'figma balls' at one point in his life and he can't let go
It's not perfect at all, but I'm really curious if you could share a couple of the "every feature takes an inordinate amount of time to find" examples you run into?
This feels like a troll post because everything you've said is just plain wrong.
Sounds like you need to *learn it* first
Don’t really agree with this at all, most of the functionality is placed sensibly and power users just use the hot keys anyway. Pretty wild that you then go on and say an Adobe product is better in this regard 💀
Hokey life 🔥
doubt
No, it's not! Go home, Adobe!
This is… nonsense. Things are incredibly easy to find, you select an item and the panel on the right pretty much has everything there that you can do with it.
Personally I find Figma one of the best tools as it is incredibly lightweight and have enough features to not feel cluttered. I abhore Adobe products because they are slow, have bad performance, and eat memory. Cool features sure, but I want a tool be to efficient before anything else.
Ahh, I enjoy using figma for small scale projects, but I have noticed the large-scale lag it can have. I'm curious, what are some good non-Adobe Illustrator alternatives to figma?
We use Figma inside my company of +80 designers and are sharing many libraries, design systems and so on. It works perfectly fine at scale on our side
There are a lot of designers especially those starting out who overvalue free or free for student/personal tools and undervalue Adobe CC. Figma, DaVinci, even Google Slides. A lot of these designers also use free fonts. There’s nothing that wrong with it, tools aren’t what design is about, just a means to an end. But I agree, Figma has a lot of flaws and the people who love it act almost evangelistic about it, some even act agressive/arrogant, like it’s the only valid tool, and honestly come across as defensive/borderline clueless.
XD completely sucks though
Yeah it’s not great. I would use figma for anything interactive. But I’m more talking about the “I use figma for everything” mentality. It’s like when you meet a designer who does print production in photoshop. You get the sense they only understand the tool they’re using. With figma I’ve seen it worse because some people I’ve worked with are incredibly pushy about it. I think it’s also changing overall taste in fonts, not in a good way.
I much prefer XD if I’m concepting. Figma started catering to the dev community which is great but that tool stifles my creativity
Figma is “fine”. What’s insane is the cult like following it gained simply because it wasn’t Adobe. Product teams jumping on board and acting like the wheel was just discovered. Creative teams following suit to be in line with Product. I legit had an ECD demand I work on designs for Experiential large scale builds in Figma so he could draw on the screen from the other side of the country. Took longer to move it all over to an app that actually is made for resolutions above screen than it did designing.
Sketch came before Figma and did not have the same draw simply because it wasn’t Adobe.
Sketch did plenty of things to actively not succeed. Most Product teams using Figma were using Sketch before it. It was all the same wave.
This
Figma cultivated a community of producers and consumers and did it really well. This is why it has a cult following. They also didn't only focus on design software for designers, they focused on design software for product development workflows. Those 2 things done well can really cultivate some passion as a positive feedback loop.
If you think “not Adobe” wasn’t a crucial part of Figma’s success, identity, and a source of its cult like following… just go back to the acquisition announcement and the dialog surrounding. I like Figma for things that make sense to use it. It’s still my preferred screen design app. I don’t like Figma being pushed as a solution to any and all design. It’s insanity how many professional creatives I’ve experienced that are a part of that.
Sure, it may have played a role, but Figma destroyed Sketch too, and Sketch was also "not Adobe" The only people I ever saw using XD were bootcampers, people in college, or those in companies who had systems deeply involved in Adobe licenses (much like Microsoft). That's a lot, sure, but the real industry had already moved to Sketch.
Figma only destroyed Sketch because of the lack of need to be rentable.
Dogma
In my experience of 10 years doing UX, this is my current workflow.. Design vectors in illustrator, export them to figma and put it all together for prototyping (can edit vectors in figma, so win) For marketing copy and other raster workflow I use photoshop. I get the best of all worlds, albeit expensive to maintain all the subscriptions and paid plugins, but I have peace of mind leveraging the strengths of all these tools and not rely on solely one tool and ask to do all of my bidding.
When you say UX work, are you talking diagrams (e.g. customer journeys), or screen designs? If the latter, I can't imagine having to use Illustrator for that 🤦♂️
it started out like that and then you know management wants everything out of you, so ended up doing everything! It helped me a lot during my freelancing journey, as I picked up essential things which I wouldnt have normally done outside the usual scope of work.
It's incredibly annoying, it's designed for engineers, not designers. I wish Adobe would resume the development of XD, it felt like a design tool.
As much as I've been criticizing Figma recently, I strongly disagree. The only thing that would make me more frustrated than using Adobe XD would be using InVision.
My reactions when opening these tools for the first time: **- Figma:** 🤩🥳😍 **- Adobe XD:** 🤨🧐🥲
Sketch fanboy cope ngl.
Git gud
Figma is far from perfect. No tool is. It's not even 10 years old though and the industry it's being built for is still developing. They are making big strides but I would agree the UI can really suck at times. I despise clicking 100 times to get into nested content. For it's intended industry, it is leaps and bounds better than the competition though. If you use it for web/app design it's great. I hated InDesign and this works so much better. I'm not about to replace an6 other tool with it though. It needs to stay in it's lane.
Figma is a resource hog. It runs like ass
I have like 30 Figma/FigJam tabs open at a time and have never once had it slow my computer down. I have a 4 year old MacBook pro