Config 2024: Figma product launch keynote
TLDRAt Config 2024, Figma unveiled a redesigned editor UI3, streamlined developer experiences in Dev Mode, and introduced AI-powered features to enhance design workflows. The keynote highlighted the community's impact, new capabilities like suggested Auto Layout, and the launch of Figma Slides for presentations. The focus is on reducing complexity, improving developer experiences, and leveraging AI to assist in design generation, finding assets, and maintaining design flow, all while ensuring a smooth transition to new features and respecting user privacy.
Takeaways
- 🌟 Figma has launched a redesigned user interface called 'UI3', which aims to reduce complexity and improve the user experience by bringing content to the forefront and helping users stay in a flow state.
- 💻 The introduction of 'Auto Layout' has been made more accessible with 'Just Auto Layout', simplifying the process of structuring designs and automatically suggesting layout configurations.
- 🔧 Figma is enhancing the developer experience with updates to 'Dev Mode', including new views and statuses to better synchronize the workflow between designers and developers.
- 🎨 The platform is integrating the latest iOS 18 and Material 3 design kits, making it easier for designers to access and utilize these resources within Figma.
- 🔗 'Code Connect' is coming out of beta, offering a direct link between Figma components and codebases, which helps maintain consistency and reduce redundant code implementations.
- 🤖 Figma is incorporating AI into its platform to address specific workflow pain points, enabling users to explore more design options and streamline their creative process.
- 🎨 'Make Design' is a new feature that allows users to generate designs from prompts, helping to overcome the initial challenge of a blank canvas and explore design variations.
- 🔍 Figma is improving search functionality with 'Search for Similar', allowing users to find specific screens or components within their files or across the Figma community.
- 📈 The company is planning to address gaps in billing and sharing workflows, especially for freelancers and agencies, by introducing features like 'Figma Connect' for external collaboration.
- 📊 Figma Slides, a new product for creating presentations, is being introduced, which is built on the principles of visual communication and integrates seamlessly with Figma's design capabilities.
- 🚀 Figma continues to expand its capabilities to support the evolving needs of its users, with a focus on improving the quality of the software and raising the bar for design and collaboration tools.
Q & A
What is the main theme of the Config 2024 Figma product launch keynote?
-The main theme of the keynote is the unveiling of Figma's new capabilities and features, focusing on reducing complexity, improving the developer experience, and integrating AI into the design process.
What does Figma co-founder and CEO Dylan Field mean by 'the time to get online'?
-Dylan Field is referring to the current era where everything is moving towards being accessible and functional online, emphasizing the importance of being connected and responsive in the digital age.
How does Figma plan to address the complexity that has grown in the platform over the years?
-Figma plans to address the complexity by undergoing a redesign of its user interface, referred to as 'UI3', aiming to bring content to the forefront and help users stay in a flow state more easily.
What is the significance of the 'suggest Auto layout' feature introduced in the keynote?
-The 'suggest Auto layout' feature is significant as it simplifies the process of engaging with Auto layout by automatically generating the necessary frames and structure for a design, making it easier for users to start structuring their layouts.
Can you explain the 'code connect' feature and its benefits for developers?
-Code connect is a feature that brings design systems directly into Dev mode, allowing developers to access real code from their own design system within Figma. This ensures that the code is always in sync with the designs and helps to prevent the rewriting of existing code, thus saving time and maintaining consistency.
What is the purpose of the 'make design' feature in Figma's AI capabilities?
-The 'make design' feature is intended to help designers overcome the initial hurdle of starting a new design by generating a design based on a given prompt. It allows for quick exploration of variations and is a step towards utilizing AI to accelerate the design process.
How does Figma's new 'search for similar' command assist in finding specific assets or screens within a project?
-The 'search for similar' command uses AI to identify and locate assets or screens that match the user's query, whether it's a screenshot, a sketch, or even a string of text remembered from the design. This makes it easier for users to find what they need within their projects or across the Figma community.
What updates were made to Dev mode to support an iterative design process?
-Updates to Dev mode include the introduction of 'ready for Dev view' and 'Focus View', which help developers find and inspect only the relevant parts of a design. Additionally, new statuses for edited and completed designs help to keep the development process in sync with the design changes.
What is the new feature 'figma slides' and how does it differ from using Figma for presentations traditionally?
-Figma slides is a new product designed specifically for creating presentations. It differs from traditional Figma use for presentations by offering a purpose-built environment with features like automatic color and text adjustments, grid mode for structuring narratives, and the ability to integrate interactive designs and polls directly into the presentation.
How does Figma ensure the privacy and data protection of its users when training AI models on Figma data?
-Figma ensures privacy and data protection by allowing admins to control settings related to content training. Users on starter and professional plans are opted into content training by default but can opt out, while organization and enterprise plans are opted out by default. Figma is committed to respecting user privacy and protecting data.
Outlines
🖥️ Figma's Instantly Responsive Design Display
The speaker introduces the concept of a highly responsive computer display for intellectual workers, suggesting significant value can be derived from such technology. The audience is encouraged to experience the new capabilities of the Mac by simply plugging it in and switching it on, emphasizing the ease of access to information and the significance of online connectivity. The event, Config 2024, is introduced with a welcome to the stage of Figma's co-founder and CEO, Dylan Field, who acknowledges the impact of the design community and the importance of design as a differentiator in product development.
🛠️ Figma's Ongoing Evolution and Community Contributions
Dylan Field discusses the evolution of Figma, highlighting its growth in complexity and features over the years. He addresses the community's role in pushing the boundaries of what's possible with Figma, mentioning specific community members who have inspired with their creations and plugins. The talk also covers the release of new capabilities in Figma, such as Fig GM, an overhaul of compared changes, annotation, typography support for variables, and more, emphasizing the importance of both big features and small, user-centric improvements.
🎨 Redesigning Figma's Interface for Enhanced Usability
The speaker announces a major redesign of Figma's interface, codenamed UI3, aimed at reducing complexity and improving the user experience. The new interface is designed to bring content to the forefront and help users maintain a flow state. Key changes include a repositioned toolbar at the bottom of the screen and a new spotlight feature that allows the UI to recede when not in use. The speaker acknowledges the potential for adjustment and promises a gradual rollout with close attention to user feedback.
📐 Auto Layout Enhancements and Design System Integrations
The speaker introduces new features to improve the workflow with Auto Layout in Figma. The 'Just Auto Layout' feature simplifies the process of getting started with Auto Layout by automatically generating necessary frames. Additionally, the speaker demonstrates how to easily integrate the latest iOS 18 and Material 3 design kits into Figma, showcasing an overhauled assets panel and the ability to search within kits for a more streamlined design process.
🔧 Improving Developer Experience and Workflows in Figma
The speaker discusses updates to Figma's Dev mode, aimed at improving the developer experience. The updates include a new 'Ready for Dev' view that helps developers quickly identify what needs to be worked on, and a 'Focus View' that isolates the design for inspection. The speaker also introduces a new responsive setting for the Prototype viewer, ensuring developers can accurately implement designs across different screen sizes.
🔗 Bridging Design and Code with Code Connect and Design Systems
The speaker presents Code Connect, a feature that brings design systems directly into Dev mode, ensuring consistency between design and code. The feature allows developers to see and interact with real code from their design system within Figma. The speaker also discusses the benefits of using UI kits and how they can help streamline the design-to-production process, with a special thanks to Apple and Google for their collaboration.
🛑 Addressing Gaps in External Collaboration and Billing
The speaker acknowledges the challenges faced by freelancers and agencies when working with external clients in Figma and outlines plans to address these gaps. The plans include the introduction of Figma Connect, a feature that allows for shared workspaces with external clients using existing Figma seats, and improvements to project transfer workflows from agencies to clients. The speaker also discusses updates to billing and sharing workflows to provide more clarity and control.
🤖 Introducing AI-Powered Features in Figma
The speaker introduces AI capabilities in Figma, focusing on three main areas: helping users get started with design, finding what they need, and staying in the flow. The 'Make Design' feature is highlighted, which allows users to input a prompt and generate a design concept, leveraging large language models and diffusion models. The speaker demonstrates the feature with examples and discusses the potential for integrating custom design systems in the future.
🔍 Enhancing Search Functionality with AI
The speaker demonstrates new AI-powered search features in Figma that allow users to find screens and components within their team's work or the Figma community. The 'Search for Similar' command can identify the right screen from a screenshot or find components based on a sketched icon. The speaker also mentions the upcoming visual search for the community and the immediate availability of visual search for teams.
📝 Streamlining Design Workflow with AI Suggestions
The speaker showcases AI-driven suggestions in Figma that help speed up the design workflow. Features like 'Replace Content', 'Make an Image', 'Remove Background', and 'Translate' are demonstrated, showing how they can be used to quickly generate content, edit images, and adapt designs for different languages. The speaker also highlights the 'Name Layers' feature, which automatically renames layers for better organization.
📈 Figma's Commitment to Craft and the Future of Design
In conclusion, the speaker reflects on the importance of craft in product differentiation and Figma's commitment to raising the bar in design capabilities. The speaker expresses excitement for the future of design and computing with the community and thanks the audience for their participation. There is also a mention of additional features and updates to be shared in a closing keynote by Figma's CEO and other team members.
Mindmap
Keywords
Figma
Config 2024
UI/UX Design
Responsive Design
Design System
Prototyping
AI in Design
Code Connect
Figma Slides
Dev Mode
Community
Highlights
Figma's product launch keynote at Config 2024 showcased the company's commitment to enhancing the design process with new features and a redesigned interface.
The introduction of 'UI3', Figma's redesigned interface, aims to simplify the user experience by bringing content to the forefront and maintaining a clean workspace.
Figma's new 'Auto Layout' feature simplifies the process of structuring designs, making it more accessible for users to create responsive designs.
The 'Suggest Auto Layout' function automatically generates a layout based on the design, streamlining the workflow for developers and designers.
Figma has partnered with Apple and Google to incorporate the latest iOS 18 and Material 3 design kits, enhancing the design resources available to users.
The 'Dev Mode' update includes a new 'Ready for Dev' view and 'Focus View', improving the inspection process for developers working with large files.
Code Connect, now out of beta, allows developers to link their codebase with Figma components, ensuring consistency between design and code.
Figma's AI capabilities were introduced, offering features like 'Make Design' to assist users in generating designs from prompts and exploring variations.
AI-driven 'Search for Similar' functionality enables users to find relevant screens and components within Figma projects or the community with ease.
Figma Slides, a new product designed for presentations, offers a seamless experience with features like automatic color updates and grid mode for slide organization.
Figma Slides introduces 'Design Mode', allowing users to utilize Figma's design tools within the presentation software for a cohesive design process.
The ability to conduct live polls and gather audience feedback within Figma Slides aims to transform one-way presentations into interactive experiences.
Figma's commitment to improving developer experience is evident through updates that focus on reducing complexity and enhancing clarity in workflows.
The Config 2024 keynote emphasized the importance of the Figma community in driving product evolution and inspiring new capabilities within the platform.
Figma's AI features are in beta, with the company planning to absorb the costs in 2024 and reassess for potential additional fees in 2025.
Figma's approach to AI includes training on Figma data to develop models that better understand design concepts and UI, aiming to create more unique designs.
The introduction of 'Fig Jam' pages, allowing multiple pages in a single board, enhances the collaborative brainstorming and planning experience.