Product Review: Figma
As I continue to embark on my product management journey, I wanted to document the products I am adding to my stack that have made me a more efficient and effective product manager. First, I will look at Figma, a SaaS product that “helps teams create, test, and ship better designs from start to finish.” Figma allows product teams to create quality wireframes that look and feel incredibly close to the end product without having to build the product itself.
I first heard a fellow product manager mention Figma during a talk for other product managers. He talked highly of its ability to create cohesion within teams by providing a service that was easy for product managers to use, designers to visualize the layout, flow, and themes, and for engineers to have a specific guide to reference. The speaker claimed it was an easy way for every department to have a clear vision for the end product. I was sold and knew I had to give Figma a try.
Before diving straight into using the product, I wanted to conduct more research and hear more user reviews. From what I gathered, Figma is fairly popular among the digital product community and even has customers in Microsoft, Zoom, Volvo, and DropBox. Figma is often compared to Sketch or Adobe XD, however, Figma has the advantage of being web-based meaning there is no installation and your team can view your work in real-time.
Time to dive in!
Trying Figma via their free trial was very easy. I simply signed into Google, ticked that I’d be using it for product management, and I agreed to be on their mailing list. Simple as that and I was ready to make some wireframes.
Right away, I could see this was going to be a fun product to review. The welcome tour made it easy to explore the service by guiding the user through the various features available without providing too much information at once. It was a nice touch to mention, “We’re different from other design tools in some really special ways” and then showing just how.
There was a strong emphasis on using Figma for team collaboration, and I can see why. It allows for a better mockup of digital products in order for all team members to know and understand what their contribution will be to the end product.
I found that the free version was suitable for me to test if this is the right software for me, but it only has a 30-day version history while the other Figma subscriptions are unlimited and could be very beneficial for designers.
So how was it?
I clicked through the guided tour, and it wasn’t long before I realized some great timesaving features. One of my favorites included the ability to set the exact parameters to show the accurate and exact space of the project. Another was an easy to use pen tool that’s not as touchy as other services and consolidates your movements so it doesn’t come out scratchy or hard to understand. Lastly, I appreciated that I could leave notes directly in the file and on the area I desired in order to show my team exactly what I was referring to.
When I originally was prompted with being able to choose the size of my file, I didn’t take this too seriously but I quickly realized the benefit of being able to choose from a list of options (IPhone, Android, Desktop: Mac or PC). It really helped me visualize my project and create a better understanding (down to the dimensions) for the rest of the product team.
When using Figma, there were a couple of features that weren’t as intuitive for the user. I was originally confused when placing images in the workspace. After I selected the image it did not naturally appear as I would’ve predicted. I quickly realized that when I used the pointer to draw the image space, the image seamlessly appeared and was placed where I wanted it and in the exact size I indicated. This was an interesting setting for the feature, but I would also prefer drag and drop (if it’s an option).
I also noticed that at some point I hit a setting that made it very difficult to view my project. I spent a good amount of time trying to undo the edit because it set a gray overlay over my layers and I wasn’t able to continue creating my wireframes. After reading through some user guides and Google reviews, I discovered that I somehow turned the ‘Outlines” view on which prevented normal editing. As a first time user, I would not have sorted out this setting by simply playing with the product; there may be a more intuitive way to present this feature to users that makes this feature and its purpose more clear. My research found there were mixed reviews of this feature where some claimed it was simply a UX error, others believed it was consistent throughout.
I was a bit frustrated with reversing edits and expanded images, but eventually got the hang of it and enjoyed building wireframes with Figma.
Was it worth the hype?
In my first go, I spent about 45 minutes using Figma, but it’s probably longer than I should have for such a simple project. It’s hard to tell if this was a new user issue or a product issue because of the nature of the problems I experienced. That being said, I see the real value in the product and have been using Figma for many products since. There are a few intricacies of Figma that require some studying up, but overall the product could be very beneficial to any product team.
A feature I particularly enjoyed was being able to create prototypes that show how menus will display or how pages are connected when calls to action are completed. This has been proven to be very beneficial in order to streamline complete processes and has prevented my team from thinking about each page as a separate project.
As a visual learner and thinker, Figma is a great tool for me to easily work with my developers and designers to create the team’s vision for a product. The team can work together to problem-solve, the designers can create a mockup of design and functionality solutions, engineers have a guide of how the end product should look and feel, and then the product manager can use the mockups to present those solutions to upper management, cross-functionally, or simply within the team.
It would be useful for all members of the team to have a basic understanding of Figma in order to visually show their ideas, questions, or concerns with a particular feature or product. I personally use Figma on a weekly basis but can see myself using it more and more.
As long as Figma continues to grow with its users, incorporate features for even more interactivity and team collaboration, and stay ahead of competitors, we can expect it to be around for some time.
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