Developers will love Figma now, but what about designers?

While some designers despair that this tool has turned its focus to developers with the new update, others still believe the new interface was designed to improve collaboration between designers and developers.

Furthermore, Figma CTO Kris Rasmussen stated at this year’s We Are Developers conference that Figma is a tool that addresses the gap between design and development by creating tools that cater to both.

In this text, we have analyzed whether the CTO’s claims are true, whether the dissatisfaction of certain designers is justified, and whether it is just their twisting things from reality and inventing non-existent concepts to gain more attention from the global audience.

What does Figma offer to developers, and what does it provide to designers?

Figma is the current market leader in UI design and is a natural evolution of solutions in this space. Sketch paved the way for Figma by moving us from graphic design paradigms in Photoshop to more web-based mental models.

This tool took the next step in that evolution by adding native multiplayer (in a cloud-based, platform-agnostic tool), prototyping, and developer handoff capabilities.

Either way, it still serves the same goal of visually exploring and documenting product and design decisions. Still, it does it better and way more collaboratively than most tools before.

Collaborative Design Systems: Figma has evolved into a platform for designers to create user interfaces and facilitate the development process. Features like shared libraries and design systems enable developers to access design assets easily, making it simpler to find and export images, icons, and other necessary resources without needing to request them separately.

Integration with Development Tools: Figma integrates various development tools, such as code generation features that allow designers to export components directly usable by developers. This minimizes friction in the handoff process and promotes faster implementation of designs into production.

Real-time Collaboration: These features allow multiple users to work on a project simultaneously and help bridge the gap between teams. This capability ensures that developers can provide immediate feedback on design decisions, fostering a more iterative approach to product development.

Prototyping and Developer Handoff: With enhanced prototyping capabilities, designers can create interactive mockups that developers can reference directly. This minimizes misunderstandings during the development phase and ensures that the end product aligns closely with the original design intentions.

Developer-Focused Updates: Figma has rolled out updates focusing on developer needs, such as support for various viewports, code export options, and improved accessibility features. These enhancements make it easier for developers to understand and implement designs.

They do improve the design and developer ergonomics

Figma simplifies the job for developers in several ways:

• Code Generation: Figma provides the option to generate CSS code snippets for design elements. This can accelerate the development process since developers can directly use these snippets, reducing the time spent writing styles from scratch.
• Integration with Other Tools: Figma’s compatibility with various development tools (such as version control systems and testing environments) allows developers to integrate designs more easily into their existing workflows.

This ultimately allows developers to focus more on coding and implementation than deciphering designs or clarifying specifications.

In the current product and web development paradigm, UI design output (especially the kind Figma enables) is mostly input for developers. So, it is an absolute no-brainer that developers coming into the tool to explore the visual and technical specs should have a pleasant experience. Otherwise, you’re regressing and creating more work for designers to export and update those files continually.