When Figma initially marketed themselves as the first collaborative design tool, I asked myself: “Why would I need that? Why would I want some manager to poke around my designs? Why would I need to work on a file simultaneously with another designer?”
It was only after the switch that I came to understand the value.
At Intercom, we do regular design critique sessions where designers get feedback on their work. The fact that multiple designers can jump into and inspect one file at the same time in Figma turned out to be a dramatic improvement for these sessions.
But it is when you start looping in engineers that the collaborative aspect of Figma truly shines. The very fact that the entire handover now happens with a single click on the “Share” button is amazing, a considerable improvement on the previous process.
Another benefit lies in how its commenting feature works – conducting design reviews and gathering feedback, looping in managers and content designers, even asking for support, Figma brought together all these various types of communication inside the tool, and it goes even further now with plugins. This opened a whole new world of possibilities.Tool tips: How our design team switched to Figma
I'm currently working on two separate projects where most of the reviewing and discussions are in Figma and I absolutely love the experience. Engineers, managers and stake holders all comment on progress in Figma - and they always know exactly where to find the latest designs. No more: here's something the team is working on but this isn't actually the latest design, can you send me an updated .png?