How Figma saved us when we were about to cancel the meetup event?

Published in

Lean Prototyping

4 min readDec 8, 2017

On November 15th, 2017 we had Prototyping using Figma event as part of Berlin Lean Prototyping meetup group.

This event was hosted at Microsoft Digital Eatery Berlin, they use Microsoft surface hub for the presentation, when I asked the event organizer to check my presentation and opened my MacBook, he said we can’t use my MacBook, HDMI port of the surface hub is broken! & only Microsoft device can be connected via surface share(kind of Apple TV for Microsoft Surface).

Lean Prototyping event is mainly focused on the hands-on session, giving the introduction to the prototyping tool, take a design challenge & creating prototype collaboratively using prototyping tool. How can I give demo without the device?

I thought I should cancel this meetup event as I don’t have Microsoft Windows device.

Wait! I have speaker, Rasmus Andersson, Design @figma, founding member Spotify, I don’t want to cancel this event at this very late stage.

Event Manager at the venue offered me to use Microsoft Surface Pro device for the Skype call.

Rasmus Andersson gave a great intro to Figma & it’s features in a very short time, gave a demo of components, version history, team library, grid & vectors in Figma. We had Q&A session at the end, talked about where is Figma team heading to, how Figma design & development team works.

What about introducing Prototyping tool & demo?

After Rasmus Andersson talk we had a hands-on session using Figma.

Design Challenge

Redesign Skype mobile app experience

How can we redesign Skype mobile experience? each team can create 2 mobile screens by picking 1 feature they are interested to redesign and need to design it in 30 mins. To save time, I exported FREE Chat application templates from Sketchappsources into Figma. Can find those files here.

How can I share my design templates & demo?

Figma to the rescue

I just logged into my Figma account, presented and gave demo from Microsoft Surface Pro without any issues.

Redesigning Skype Mobile app using Figma

These 3 features of Figma saved us from canceling our meetup event.

1. Figma works everywhere

Figma runs on the Browser, if you have access to the Browser, can run Figma,

2. Master the tools quickly.

Most of the attendees were new to the tool. Rasmus Andersson gave the introduction to all most all the features of Figma very quickly.

3. Real-time collaboration.

I shared my Figma design to the Microsoft Surface Pro device for the presentation, but, I edited the file and gave a demo using my MacBook. Everyone followed my instruction & can see my live updates to the design on the Surface Pro.

Pitch session

The best part is you can zoom on Microsoft surface hub while pitching the design.

Designs created by using Figma during the event.

https://www.figma.com/file/WikRjFJyIZxoOiuVtbbfG5BB/meetup-Figma
https://www.figma.com/file/FzuE8seXDdFok9ZYu9oBQ3JY/Skype-Redesign
https://www.figma.com/file/DH2iIWGSZk6IJf8zxwnwfRz2/Meetup-Prototyping-with-Figma
https://www.figma.com/file/W8GEdfgjJaZ21YbP4exVxr/classic-ios-messanger-pirogovoe-Copy
https://www.figma.com/file/X8ttGPZPq6eJy948cege3G/Vidly-Video-Calls-for-Teams-Copy
https://www.figma.com/file/BEAkFqbPTninldWyhwa9K0/classic-ios-messanger-pirogovoe-Copy

Feedback

Apart from a poor internet connection, the event went very well.

Lessons learned

Make sure to host remote speaker event only when we have a good internet connection & tested before the event day.
Super easy to use Sketch template file, start designing & prototyping in Figma.
Can master the Figma tool in short period of time, above design & prototype links created in just 30 minutes.