Better ways of working for digital design teams

By Michael Wickers

After a long period away from the UX design scene (thanks, global pandemic), I returned to the News UK design team to discover new tools I now can’t imagine working without. Here’s why.

(Before we get into things, I’d like to stress that I received no benefits from, nor am I in any way affiliated with, the applications I mention here — I’m posting out of pure appreciation.)

Positive changes

Upon returning to News UK to start my current role as a UX designer on The Times & Sunday Times team, I noticed a few things: the wider design team had grown, processes and collaboration had vastly improved and many new applications were being used.

The design system team (known as NewsKit) at News UK has been working incredibly hard to devise a new way forward for the design team, and were developing a design system that was starting to make things that much more efficient.

Alongside the evolution of the design system, there was a widespread move away from Sketch and Invision, and a big leap towards the use of Figma.

Shoutout to the NewsKit team

Why I fell hard for Figma

This was my first real experience using Figma. I personally didn’t find it difficult to make the switch, having previously used applications like Sketch — but everything in Figma seemed to work more efficiently (or maybe I was just in the honeymoon phase). Here are some of the ways Figma won me over:

• Figma has helped provide us with a collaboration space — this keeps us in sync across the many different titles of the News UK portfolio, improving collaboration and also minimising duplicate effort.
• Working files are saved in your Figma accounts dashboard — no more mess on your desktop (and creating that file titled ‘to sort’, which you never do).
• Frames (as opposed to layers) can be nested within frames, which just allows for more complexity when needed.
• Being able to create components for elements that repeat across your designs (think symbols in Sketch) — this is really useful and saves time in the long run — you just need to plan how these are set up. Also, interactive components are on the horizon, which will certainly be helpful.
• Being able to prototype directly in Figma — long gone are the days of painfully connecting to Invision and waiting for artboards to update, as I previously did in Sketch. Plus you can get dedicated prototype URLs from Figma, meaning you can run tests directly on that prototype should you need to for user testing.

And then, I met Miro

Another application I was introduced to upon my re-entry into the design world was Miro. How has Miro changed ways of working for me?

• My own work processes and collaboration with teammates has improved vastly — no more sketches on this bit of paper, wireframes in that application, research in this doc, user testing report in that deck… now I create and share my thought process through research, analysis, sketches, user flows, wireframes — all in one place and with the wider team. I can also get answers to any questions thanks to a handy commenting feature.
• With everything in one place, we all have visibility on the different aspects of various projects — especially helpful with most of our team working remotely.

I feel like I’ve only just scratched the surface of what’s capable in both Figma and Miro, but I look forward to learning more and striving for more efficiency in my work processes. For now, I’d recommend any digital designers not yet using these applications do a little research and see how working with Figma and Miro can make you a better designer too.