7 ms·

Launch of Figma, a collaborative interface design tool

135 points by hellcow 11y ago

srameshc 11y ago
Sorry, I thought it was launched. After I signed up, I got this "You’ve been added to our waitlist. In order to ensure the best possible experience, invites are being sent in phases. We'll let you know when we're ready for you. See you soon!" A little too early for the title, but product looks promising.
- dfield 11y ago
  Thanks! I didn't submit, so no control over the title. If you want me to bump you up on the waitlist, DM me on Twitter: I'm @zoink.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
EC1 11y ago
"And even better, it lives in the cloud". Lost me here. I just want a solid desktop app that isn't a web wrapper or lives in the browser. I can't stand web apps to be honest. It's almost there, but it always feels like a cheap copy of what should be a proper desktop application.
- rossfishkind 11y ago
  I got access yesterday, and I have to say that it feels better than some desktop apps. :)
dfield 11y ago
Hey all, I'm Dylan Field — author of the linked post / co-founder of Figma. If you have any questions, let me know!
- vanderZwan 11y ago
  Does "cross-platform" include Linux? I'd like to give this a try, but I'd rather not boot back to Windows unless I have to.
  - dfield 11y ago
    In theory, yes. In practice, we haven't invested in testing Linux because designers prefer other platforms.
    - vircheck 11y ago
      I thought developers were supposed to use the tool, too :)
    - sandGorgon 11y ago
      how would you compre yourself against Avocode (which incidentally is available on Linux). As far the designers-prefer-Mac aspect is concerned, this part is not true in countries like India.
    - vanderZwan 11y ago
      For the record, I'm a designer. But I also know I'm a slightly unusual one.
- huhtenberg 11y ago
  Dylan, perhaps in the demo video they should be designing something other than a Weather app? As it's basically a poster child for the "bells & whistles over substance" trend in the UI design.
  - dfield 11y ago
    Yep — in the video, our primary goal for the UI was visual: we wanted something that was visually very different from Figma so it would stand out against the Figma interface. Makes sense the lack of substance shows through ;) While we don't plan to change the video, I think your point absolutely has merit.
xixixao 11y ago
This looks great. It's tough to win over people from other tools, so it'd be nice to see comparison with Sketch, say. Good luck, the future of Web is bright with projects like this one.
golergka 11y ago
I'm going to review this from a very subjective standpoint. If you want, you can just announce that I'm not the intended audience, that's OK. So, I'm a lead developer of a mobile project (usually, a game), who wants to improve collaboration with designers. They work in a professional WYSIWYG design tool like Photoshop and Illustrator (most know both). Then I take their designs and recreate them in the WYSIWYG design tool — Unity3d UI engine, or iOS Storyboards, or this Android XML thingy (I never actually worked with it, but from a couple of tutorials I got a feeling that it's not that different). Re-creating these designs is work-load problem as well as a communication one. Now, this service allows me to solve this communication problem by asking designers to learn this tool — which is new to them, which requires time, and also isn't as powerful as Photoshop. Or I can just ask the designers to learn the tool that WYSIWYG tool that I use to actually create their designs — like Unity UI or iOS storyboards — and solve both of these problems at once. Of course, they will also need to learn the scary words like "Pull", "Commit" and "Push", but after long experimentation I found out that designers are actually not brain-dead (as many engineers erroneously think) and are capable of understanding the basic VCS concepts. This leaves me with a question: how is the first solution better than the second? And also: how soon will we finally understand that the 00s hipster/indie-kid aesthetic is completely dead, and using it in a product video is not "cool" anymore — and haven't been for the last 5 years? Seriously, "corporate suits and elevator music" image would look much more fresh.
- jasim 11y ago
  Were you actually successful in getting the designers to ditch the WYSIWYG tools and write code instead? Agree strongly that designers are capable of using version control, navigate the command line, and even write scripts that make their life easier (the Sketch plugin ecosystem is a good example). However, it was my observation that to do the thing that they care most about, which is building great interfaces, they do not need to know any of these things, and they do it only for the benefit of the developers. Which is a good reason why tools like these exist. I'm curious to hear your thoughts around this. Thanks. (I'm not at all affiliated with Figma and in fact I'm building a tool in the same space)
  - 11y ago
katabasis 11y ago
How does this app compare to atomic.io [1], which just came out of beta and appears targeted to a similar use case? [1]: https://atomic.io/ https://atomic.io/
- Hengjie 11y ago
  Atomic certainly didn't need $18MM to get to beta. They also use a canvas to edit on.
yesimahuman 11y ago
Looks cool. I wonder if it generates actual code/project stuff or is a pure design tool like InVision/Sketch/etc.? I've always felt designers are well served by existing tools and know how hard it is to get them to switch.
- dfield 11y ago
  Thanks! We generate CSS styles and make it easy to export assets. We don't generate layout code.
agumonkey 11y ago
"since, we dropped our Photoshop license".. pretty telling.
tbenst 11y ago
I remember seeing an early alpha ~2 years ago that mainly consisted of pixel transformations using sliders. Amazing to see how far Figma has come since then, shrewdly moving from a browser implementation of a subset of Photoshop features to a new collaborative experience that reduces friction on a workflow already used by many in interface design. Best of luck to Dylan, Evan & Team!
she_moves_on 11y ago
I think this is amazing technology and great work, but as a designer I worry that collaborative design that this facilitates might actually lead to a worse overall product. From my experience, design is better as a dictatorship of the best designer. I'm sure many will disagree here.
salimmadjd 11y ago
The product looks rather cool and congrats to the team, but I have some concerns with this, Today, after three years of silence and hard work, I finally get to announce the launch of Sigma... we’ve raised to date ($18MM) 1 - Building an online-based collaborative design tool is nothing that novel, it's all about execution. Why keep it a secret. What do you gain by keeping it stealth? 2 - $18MM to spend only to see if you got it wrong is a rather interesting approach.
- dfield 11y ago
  First, thanks for the congrats :) 1. We didn't want to talk about ourselves before we had a product we believed in. So we kept quietly building and we didn't announce until (a) the performance was great, (b) we had the features designers needed to do their work day-to-day and (c) early alpha customers were visibly excited. 2. I think we might just have different points of view on this. Our approach has been to build towards a vision rather than test a hypothesis as quickly as possible.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
coolied 11y ago
I watched the video and was so physically repulsed by the actress at the beginning of the video I couldn't even pay attention the rest of the video. A woman dressed as a man and people act that is normal and professional. It's not. It's so disgusting. I won't be using this product.
msutherl 11y ago
A couple of years after everyone's dropped Photoshop for Sketch. It could be the case that designers, like front-end developers, will have to get used to the idea that all of their tooling will change every ~3 years. Personally very excited about this and want to start using it immediately.
vladdanilov 11y ago
The technology behind Figma is quite fascinating. From Twitter (https://twitter.com/skuwamoto/status/672486788192055296 https://twitter.com/skuwamoto/status/672486788192055296): > We’re using C++ → asm.js for most of our app, so it would be tough. React-canvas, seems incredible, tho. > The C++ → asm.js is via Emscripten. Everything else is done by our mad genius @evanwallace Graphics engine is based on WebGL. Evan Wallace has done some incredible work. Using C++ is a smart move, an emergency exit to a native app. Yet I think a standalone app should be the priority.
williamle8300 11y ago
MEH
abalone 11y ago
The main differentiator and focus of the post is "we're making this run in the browser". But nowhere does it explain why that's better for designers. You don't need it to power collaboration features. This echoes Asana and a lot of the "HTML native" product efforts. Which have mostly failed as a technical approach and resulted in a return to platform native apps.[1] What's different this time? Meanwhile this prompts amazed reactions from folks who are technically impressed with how far it pushes the browser. But that was the case with prior HTML native efforts too. It distracts from a critique of the actual product features. I'd like to see a more head to head comparison with popular tools like Sketch. Maybe the built in team collaboration is better than, say, a companion app like Zeplin. But the implementation details don't really matter to customers. [1] https://blog.asana.com/2014/07/mobile-plans/ https://blog.asana.com/2014/07/mobile-plans/
migueloller 11y ago
How do you compare to https://proto.io/ https://proto.io/?

135 points by hellcow 11y ago

Sorry, I thought it was launched. After I signed up, I got this "You’ve been added to our waitlist. In order to ensure the best possible experience, invites are being sent in phases. We'll let you know when we're ready for you. See you soon!" A little too early for the title, but product looks promising.

dfield 11y ago
Thanks! I didn't submit, so no control over the title. If you want me to bump you up on the waitlist, DM me on Twitter: I'm @zoink.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

EC1 11y ago

"And even better, it lives in the cloud". Lost me here. I just want a solid desktop app that isn't a web wrapper or lives in the browser. I can't stand web apps to be honest. It's almost there, but it always feels like a cheap copy of what should be a proper desktop application.

rossfishkind 11y ago
I got access yesterday, and I have to say that it feels better than some desktop apps. :)

dfield 11y ago

Hey all, I'm Dylan Field — author of the linked post / co-founder of Figma. If you have any questions, let me know!

vanderZwan 11y ago
Does "cross-platform" include Linux? I'd like to give this a try, but I'd rather not boot back to Windows unless I have to.
- dfield 11y ago
  In theory, yes. In practice, we haven't invested in testing Linux because designers prefer other platforms.
  - vircheck 11y ago
    I thought developers were supposed to use the tool, too :)
  - sandGorgon 11y ago
    how would you compre yourself against Avocode (which incidentally is available on Linux). As far the designers-prefer-Mac aspect is concerned, this part is not true in countries like India.
  - vanderZwan 11y ago
    For the record, I'm a designer. But I also know I'm a slightly unusual one.
huhtenberg 11y ago
Dylan, perhaps in the demo video they should be designing something other than a Weather app? As it's basically a poster child for the "bells & whistles over substance" trend in the UI design.
- dfield 11y ago
  Yep — in the video, our primary goal for the UI was visual: we wanted something that was visually very different from Figma so it would stand out against the Figma interface. Makes sense the lack of substance shows through ;) While we don't plan to change the video, I think your point absolutely has merit.

xixixao 11y ago

This looks great. It's tough to win over people from other tools, so it'd be nice to see comparison with Sketch, say. Good luck, the future of Web is bright with projects like this one.

golergka 11y ago

I'm going to review this from a very subjective standpoint. If you want, you can just announce that I'm not the intended audience, that's OK. So, I'm a lead developer of a mobile project (usually, a game), who wants to improve collaboration with designers. They work in a professional WYSIWYG design tool like Photoshop and Illustrator (most know both). Then I take their designs and recreate them in the WYSIWYG design tool — Unity3d UI engine, or iOS Storyboards, or this Android XML thingy (I never actually worked with it, but from a couple of tutorials I got a feeling that it's not that different). Re-creating these designs is work-load problem as well as a communication one. Now, this service allows me to solve this communication problem by asking designers to learn this tool — which is new to them, which requires time, and also isn't as powerful as Photoshop. Or I can just ask the designers to learn the tool that WYSIWYG tool that I use to actually create their designs — like Unity UI or iOS storyboards — and solve both of these problems at once. Of course, they will also need to learn the scary words like "Pull", "Commit" and "Push", but after long experimentation I found out that designers are actually not brain-dead (as many engineers erroneously think) and are capable of understanding the basic VCS concepts. This leaves me with a question: how is the first solution better than the second? And also: how soon will we finally understand that the 00s hipster/indie-kid aesthetic is completely dead, and using it in a product video is not "cool" anymore — and haven't been for the last 5 years? Seriously, "corporate suits and elevator music" image would look much more fresh.

jasim 11y ago
Were you actually successful in getting the designers to ditch the WYSIWYG tools and write code instead? Agree strongly that designers are capable of using version control, navigate the command line, and even write scripts that make their life easier (the Sketch plugin ecosystem is a good example). However, it was my observation that to do the thing that they care most about, which is building great interfaces, they do not need to know any of these things, and they do it only for the benefit of the developers. Which is a good reason why tools like these exist. I'm curious to hear your thoughts around this. Thanks. (I'm not at all affiliated with Figma and in fact I'm building a tool in the same space)
- 11y ago

katabasis 11y ago

How does this app compare to atomic.io [1], which just came out of beta and appears targeted to a similar use case? [1]: https://atomic.io/ https://atomic.io/

Hengjie 11y ago
Atomic certainly didn't need $18MM to get to beta. They also use a canvas to edit on.

yesimahuman 11y ago

Looks cool. I wonder if it generates actual code/project stuff or is a pure design tool like InVision/Sketch/etc.? I've always felt designers are well served by existing tools and know how hard it is to get them to switch.

dfield 11y ago
Thanks! We generate CSS styles and make it easy to export assets. We don't generate layout code.

agumonkey 11y ago

"since, we dropped our Photoshop license".. pretty telling.

tbenst 11y ago

I remember seeing an early alpha ~2 years ago that mainly consisted of pixel transformations using sliders. Amazing to see how far Figma has come since then, shrewdly moving from a browser implementation of a subset of Photoshop features to a new collaborative experience that reduces friction on a workflow already used by many in interface design. Best of luck to Dylan, Evan & Team!

she_moves_on 11y ago

I think this is amazing technology and great work, but as a designer I worry that collaborative design that this facilitates might actually lead to a worse overall product. From my experience, design is better as a dictatorship of the best designer. I'm sure many will disagree here.

salimmadjd 11y ago

The product looks rather cool and congrats to the team, but I have some concerns with this, Today, after three years of silence and hard work, I finally get to announce the launch of Sigma... we’ve raised to date ($18MM) 1 - Building an online-based collaborative design tool is nothing that novel, it's all about execution. Why keep it a secret. What do you gain by keeping it stealth? 2 - $18MM to spend only to see if you got it wrong is a rather interesting approach.

dfield 11y ago
First, thanks for the congrats :) 1. We didn't want to talk about ourselves before we had a product we believed in. So we kept quietly building and we didn't announce until (a) the performance was great, (b) we had the features designers needed to do their work day-to-day and (c) early alpha customers were visibly excited. 2. I think we might just have different points of view on this. Our approach has been to build towards a vision rather than test a hypothesis as quickly as possible.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

coolied 11y ago

I watched the video and was so physically repulsed by the actress at the beginning of the video I couldn't even pay attention the rest of the video. A woman dressed as a man and people act that is normal and professional. It's not. It's so disgusting. I won't be using this product.

msutherl 11y ago

A couple of years after everyone's dropped Photoshop for Sketch. It could be the case that designers, like front-end developers, will have to get used to the idea that all of their tooling will change every ~3 years. Personally very excited about this and want to start using it immediately.

vladdanilov 11y ago

The technology behind Figma is quite fascinating. From Twitter (https://twitter.com/skuwamoto/status/672486788192055296 https://twitter.com/skuwamoto/status/672486788192055296): > We’re using C++ → asm.js for most of our app, so it would be tough. React-canvas, seems incredible, tho. > The C++ → asm.js is via Emscripten. Everything else is done by our mad genius @evanwallace Graphics engine is based on WebGL. Evan Wallace has done some incredible work. Using C++ is a smart move, an emergency exit to a native app. Yet I think a standalone app should be the priority.

williamle8300 11y ago

MEH

abalone 11y ago

The main differentiator and focus of the post is "we're making this run in the browser". But nowhere does it explain why that's better for designers. You don't need it to power collaboration features. This echoes Asana and a lot of the "HTML native" product efforts. Which have mostly failed as a technical approach and resulted in a return to platform native apps.[1] What's different this time? Meanwhile this prompts amazed reactions from folks who are technically impressed with how far it pushes the browser. But that was the case with prior HTML native efforts too. It distracts from a critique of the actual product features. I'd like to see a more head to head comparison with popular tools like Sketch. Maybe the built in team collaboration is better than, say, a companion app like Zeplin. But the implementation details don't really matter to customers. [1] https://blog.asana.com/2014/07/mobile-plans/ https://blog.asana.com/2014/07/mobile-plans/

migueloller 11y ago

How do you compare to https://proto.io/ https://proto.io/?