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As a developer, the "one big bulletin board" visual model that Figma promotes is one of the worst steps backwards in UX I have ever had to deal with. I am const

As a developer, the "one big bulletin board" visual model that Figma promotes is one of the worst steps backwards in UX I have ever had to deal with. I am constantly zooming in and out and scrolling around trying to find anything. I hate it so much.

dangom 3y ago
Name your frames and the problem is solved. I for instance love the model because I no longer have to be tracking down millions of filenames - just one for each project.
- facorreia 3y ago
  As a developer, I don't "name" anything on Figma. The UX designer might. I have to work with what I get. I agree with OP that in general it promotes placing a lot of components side by side on a huge surface and you have to keep zooming out and in, scrolling, etc. It's a terrible experience.
  - brandall10 3y ago
    In my last job designers would put “in progress” in the title. But occasionally would make minor updates on final designs that would need to be communicated.
zackmorris 3y ago
I rarely use Figma but wanted to add that your experience isn't universal. I maintain one giant notes.txt file which I treat as my mental palace, finding sections within it by searching for "# keyword". This allows me to work as a 10x or 100x developer by avoiding bookkeeping chores like categorizing my notes, so more like a search engine. Figma might be targeted at designers who want to work fast also. But I do agree that Figma needs an auto-organizing feature of some kind for people who receive the work. Perhaps with machine learning to track designs by the timestamp when they were edited, instead of their location on the page. Which could be as simple as a linear or hierarchical view which only scrolls along one axis, with tags similar to git/Sourcetree. Apologies if this already exists!
- susanthenerd 3y ago
  Have you ever considered going for Markdown? # is used for defining headers in markdown.
  - prollings 3y ago
    I think they're essentially using "hashtags", so they could have many for one note.
- seanthemon 3y ago
  Hah, i'll be honest I thought you were kidding about the notes.txt - are you following some kind of standard? Or just spill everything into one big document?
  - jckahn 3y ago
    I do something similar and just dump everything into a giant chaotic document. It works well because I intuitively understand my own personal brand of chaos, so I know how to easily find everything.
- nonethewiser 3y ago
  > This allows me to work as a 10x or 100x developer What do you mean here? That this note taking method makes you 10 to 100 times better at your job? I do something very similar except different files. But unstructured and rely on search to find things. Optimizes for writing. But this one trick makes you a 100x developer?
  - sublinear 3y ago
    I think they mean 100x better than they'd be without it, not 100x better than a "1x developer" (whatever that means anyway).
    - RussianCow 3y ago
      It's still hard to believe that a note-taking trick makes you 10-100x better as a dev, for any definition of better.
revskill 3y ago
As a MacOS user, zooming on a touchpad is painful.
- RussianCow 3y ago
  I'm not sure if this is related to your gripe, but FYI, you can use the pinch to zoom gesture on the trackpad in Figma. I find that it works quite well.
- tharkun__ 3y ago
  I'm a MacOS user at work and ThinkPad user in private and honestly, the MacBook (we have MacBook Pros) trackpad is awesome. I've never been so at ease with not having a mouse as I am with the work MacBook. It works with great precision for a regular mouse and zoom is awesome. It's also in exactly the right place, slightly off center and huge that I can use keyboard shortcuts and easily switch to mouse (i.e. trackpad) use when it's gonna be easier/faster to use the mouse to select/do something. I'm never gonna buy into the Apple ecosystem on principle but product wise it's great to have it at work. On my ThinkPad I always go for my actual mouse when I need precision but the hand travel time between mouse and keyboard use is distracting.
- eddieroger 3y ago
  As a MacOS user with a Logitech Ergo mouse, I haven't figured out how to navigate at all, and have to get my external trackpad out just to move around. If anyone knows how to move around Figma with a scroll wheel, please tell me, seriously. I would be glad to be wrong. That said, the touchpad experience is at least intuitive.
  - CityOfThrowaway 3y ago
    I have the same mouse and it works fine: 1. Hold the cmd key on your keyboard while spinning the scroll wheel to zoom in and out 2. Click and hold the scroll wheel and move the mouse around to pan
    - eddieroger 3y ago
Akronymus 3y ago
We use figma quite extensively as a reference for our current project. The disgners constantly move stuff around, so the links to them, in tasks, break and point to nothing. Which is a major pain in the ass indeed. So yeah, 100% agree that the "big bulletin approach" is a negative.
- ShadowBanThis01 3y ago
  And this M.O. would seem to make zero steps toward recognizing the tedium of their platform: "By hovering and clicking around the Figma canvas, you can find and export all the information you need" Because "hovering" over every shape or area in a screenful of design content to prospect for hidden goodies, then exporting them one by one, is a great way for developers to acquire a complete rundown of what they need to implement. I guess I can't speak for all developers, but I don't want to dick around with an Advent calendar that's masquerading as a design document. Meanwhile, has Figma fixed the absurd confusion that it presents in the UI between projects and teams? It seriously confuses those two things right there on the "home" page of your account. And finally, for those who don't want to support Adobe's software-rental nonsense, there is an open-source alternative to Figma called Penpot: https://penpot.app https://penpot.app
- noizejoy 3y ago
  I suspect, that the main problem is inconsistency in the underlying mental model, because there’s multiple individuals doing that and/or over longer periods of time. I can typically figure out a mental model, even if designed by someone else (assuming they are somewhat consistent), pretty well and fast. — But it’s the inconsistency, that screws things up for me.
- tharkun__ 3y ago
  I've completely reneged on linking to figma in individual tasks. I take screenshots of the state of figma at the time we all agreed that "this is it" (or close enough to what we'll implement). Sure I'll leave a link in the epic to the figma "bulletin board" for that feature so that people can find it and look around. But that's it. We're also never gonna implement exactly what's shown in figma (or said screenshots) either because it would take forever to get the designers to actually adjust everything to look like it does in product. They can never seem to get the look to match what our standard UI library looks like. Which is a shame because every new developer always tries to match what the design shows instead of sticking with the standard library. Honestly, the best thing would be if figma wasn't used at all and the designers just used black and white lines and boxes and focus on good UX instead of pixel perfect UI designs.
pcurve 3y ago
Looks like the new feature should help... To be fair, they were all like that even before Figma, including Sketch. But Figma doesn't allow you to link an artboard from one page to a one on different page, so it didn't allow designers to organize. Don't get me started on lack of subfolders.
drewbeck 3y ago
I can for sure see how the 'big board' approach isn't good (and it looks like they're attending to this to some degree with the new Dev Mode features). I'm curious what handoff experience you had before that was better. Prior to Figma (as a designer) my workflows were always "send a PDF with designs, export some assets", which I imagine was non-standard, and not great, so I'm wondering what was improved for you before?
- the_mar 3y ago
  I had a brief and horrific period of my life when I had to export assets for android at the weird android resolutions. I really don't understand why there isn't a better designer>developer hand off experience. It seems like Figma is trying with the CSS stuff and the layouts, but I don't think it quite works
  - mejutoco 3y ago
    In figma you set the export options for different layers (say png of x resolution, and svg), and you can export them all at once. Unless I am missing something, this should solve your problem.
    - the_mar 3y ago
      Thankfully in year 2023 it’s not a problem anymore since everything can be vector. I’m talking about 2015-16 when you had to use raster images for components and figma was not even a thing. But thank you nonetheless. My current complaint about figma is that even if I take time to set up all the dynamic scaling and layouts I don’t think it as useful for devs as I hoped it would be in my mind. (As in I thought u can just copypaste the code snippet). But i’m not quite sure as I have not done much IC design work in years aside some odd jobs for friends and perhaps they are just shit programmers or I am not using it right.
paulddraper 3y ago
Never have I seen such an accurate description of figma. My soul resonates with this
esjeon 3y ago
Yup right. I find myself zoned out while zooming in and out frantically and achieving nothing. It's often difficult to effectively navigate without guidance from the creator of the board. Figma is better as a collab tool than a documentation tool.
SkyPuncher 3y ago
Do your designers not wire up prototypes? Makes it way easier.
pbarnes_1 3y ago
Yup, it's absolutely horrible to use as a developer.

dangom 3y ago

Name your frames and the problem is solved. I for instance love the model because I no longer have to be tracking down millions of filenames - just one for each project.

facorreia 3y ago
As a developer, I don't "name" anything on Figma. The UX designer might. I have to work with what I get. I agree with OP that in general it promotes placing a lot of components side by side on a huge surface and you have to keep zooming out and in, scrolling, etc. It's a terrible experience.
- brandall10 3y ago
  In my last job designers would put “in progress” in the title. But occasionally would make minor updates on final designs that would need to be communicated.

zackmorris 3y ago

I rarely use Figma but wanted to add that your experience isn't universal. I maintain one giant notes.txt file which I treat as my mental palace, finding sections within it by searching for "# keyword". This allows me to work as a 10x or 100x developer by avoiding bookkeeping chores like categorizing my notes, so more like a search engine. Figma might be targeted at designers who want to work fast also. But I do agree that Figma needs an auto-organizing feature of some kind for people who receive the work. Perhaps with machine learning to track designs by the timestamp when they were edited, instead of their location on the page. Which could be as simple as a linear or hierarchical view which only scrolls along one axis, with tags similar to git/Sourcetree. Apologies if this already exists!

susanthenerd 3y ago
Have you ever considered going for Markdown? # is used for defining headers in markdown.
- prollings 3y ago
  I think they're essentially using "hashtags", so they could have many for one note.
seanthemon 3y ago
Hah, i'll be honest I thought you were kidding about the notes.txt - are you following some kind of standard? Or just spill everything into one big document?
- jckahn 3y ago
  I do something similar and just dump everything into a giant chaotic document. It works well because I intuitively understand my own personal brand of chaos, so I know how to easily find everything.
nonethewiser 3y ago
> This allows me to work as a 10x or 100x developer What do you mean here? That this note taking method makes you 10 to 100 times better at your job? I do something very similar except different files. But unstructured and rely on search to find things. Optimizes for writing. But this one trick makes you a 100x developer?
- sublinear 3y ago
  I think they mean 100x better than they'd be without it, not 100x better than a "1x developer" (whatever that means anyway).
  - RussianCow 3y ago
    It's still hard to believe that a note-taking trick makes you 10-100x better as a dev, for any definition of better.

revskill 3y ago

As a MacOS user, zooming on a touchpad is painful.

RussianCow 3y ago
I'm not sure if this is related to your gripe, but FYI, you can use the pinch to zoom gesture on the trackpad in Figma. I find that it works quite well.
tharkun__ 3y ago
I'm a MacOS user at work and ThinkPad user in private and honestly, the MacBook (we have MacBook Pros) trackpad is awesome. I've never been so at ease with not having a mouse as I am with the work MacBook. It works with great precision for a regular mouse and zoom is awesome. It's also in exactly the right place, slightly off center and huge that I can use keyboard shortcuts and easily switch to mouse (i.e. trackpad) use when it's gonna be easier/faster to use the mouse to select/do something. I'm never gonna buy into the Apple ecosystem on principle but product wise it's great to have it at work. On my ThinkPad I always go for my actual mouse when I need precision but the hand travel time between mouse and keyboard use is distracting.
eddieroger 3y ago
As a MacOS user with a Logitech Ergo mouse, I haven't figured out how to navigate at all, and have to get my external trackpad out just to move around. If anyone knows how to move around Figma with a scroll wheel, please tell me, seriously. I would be glad to be wrong. That said, the touchpad experience is at least intuitive.
- CityOfThrowaway 3y ago
  I have the same mouse and it works fine: 1. Hold the cmd key on your keyboard while spinning the scroll wheel to zoom in and out 2. Click and hold the scroll wheel and move the mouse around to pan
  - eddieroger 3y ago

Akronymus 3y ago

We use figma quite extensively as a reference for our current project. The disgners constantly move stuff around, so the links to them, in tasks, break and point to nothing. Which is a major pain in the ass indeed. So yeah, 100% agree that the "big bulletin approach" is a negative.

ShadowBanThis01 3y ago
And this M.O. would seem to make zero steps toward recognizing the tedium of their platform: "By hovering and clicking around the Figma canvas, you can find and export all the information you need" Because "hovering" over every shape or area in a screenful of design content to prospect for hidden goodies, then exporting them one by one, is a great way for developers to acquire a complete rundown of what they need to implement. I guess I can't speak for all developers, but I don't want to dick around with an Advent calendar that's masquerading as a design document. Meanwhile, has Figma fixed the absurd confusion that it presents in the UI between projects and teams? It seriously confuses those two things right there on the "home" page of your account. And finally, for those who don't want to support Adobe's software-rental nonsense, there is an open-source alternative to Figma called Penpot: https://penpot.app https://penpot.app
noizejoy 3y ago
I suspect, that the main problem is inconsistency in the underlying mental model, because there’s multiple individuals doing that and/or over longer periods of time. I can typically figure out a mental model, even if designed by someone else (assuming they are somewhat consistent), pretty well and fast. — But it’s the inconsistency, that screws things up for me.
tharkun__ 3y ago
I've completely reneged on linking to figma in individual tasks. I take screenshots of the state of figma at the time we all agreed that "this is it" (or close enough to what we'll implement). Sure I'll leave a link in the epic to the figma "bulletin board" for that feature so that people can find it and look around. But that's it. We're also never gonna implement exactly what's shown in figma (or said screenshots) either because it would take forever to get the designers to actually adjust everything to look like it does in product. They can never seem to get the look to match what our standard UI library looks like. Which is a shame because every new developer always tries to match what the design shows instead of sticking with the standard library. Honestly, the best thing would be if figma wasn't used at all and the designers just used black and white lines and boxes and focus on good UX instead of pixel perfect UI designs.

pcurve 3y ago

Looks like the new feature should help... To be fair, they were all like that even before Figma, including Sketch. But Figma doesn't allow you to link an artboard from one page to a one on different page, so it didn't allow designers to organize. Don't get me started on lack of subfolders.

drewbeck 3y ago

I can for sure see how the 'big board' approach isn't good (and it looks like they're attending to this to some degree with the new Dev Mode features). I'm curious what handoff experience you had before that was better. Prior to Figma (as a designer) my workflows were always "send a PDF with designs, export some assets", which I imagine was non-standard, and not great, so I'm wondering what was improved for you before?

the_mar 3y ago
I had a brief and horrific period of my life when I had to export assets for android at the weird android resolutions. I really don't understand why there isn't a better designer>developer hand off experience. It seems like Figma is trying with the CSS stuff and the layouts, but I don't think it quite works
- mejutoco 3y ago
  In figma you set the export options for different layers (say png of x resolution, and svg), and you can export them all at once. Unless I am missing something, this should solve your problem.
  - the_mar 3y ago
    Thankfully in year 2023 it’s not a problem anymore since everything can be vector. I’m talking about 2015-16 when you had to use raster images for components and figma was not even a thing. But thank you nonetheless. My current complaint about figma is that even if I take time to set up all the dynamic scaling and layouts I don’t think it as useful for devs as I hoped it would be in my mind. (As in I thought u can just copypaste the code snippet). But i’m not quite sure as I have not done much IC design work in years aside some odd jobs for friends and perhaps they are just shit programmers or I am not using it right.

paulddraper 3y ago

Never have I seen such an accurate description of figma. My soul resonates with this

esjeon 3y ago

Yup right. I find myself zoned out while zooming in and out frantically and achieving nothing. It's often difficult to effectively navigate without guidance from the creator of the board. Figma is better as a collab tool than a documentation tool.

SkyPuncher 3y ago

Do your designers not wire up prototypes? Makes it way easier.

pbarnes_1 3y ago

Yup, it's absolutely horrible to use as a developer.