How Figma Revolutionized Design and Made it Accessible for Everyone

It’s no secret that the way people work has drastically changed over the last year and a half. Even before the pandemic, companies were beginning to gravitate towards tools that fostered better creativity and remote collaboration.

Figma has eliminated the need for a design team to have to sit in the same room in order to build together. The platform enables teams to work in the same file at the same time to build better experiences faster.

“We’ve seen a macro shift towards more transparency, more collaboration and more community — both outside and within organizations.” — Dylan Field, co-founder and CEO of Figma. Listen to the full podcast episode.

At YML, we use Figma for our entire end-to-end design process. It’s connected our teammates across countries and time zones, and given our clients (ranging from Yeti and Thrive Market to State Farm and Universal Music Group) a unique view of how products are built and iterated upon. As a result, our design teams are nearly 2–3X faster and more productive — and have become closer in collaboration and culture as they build for velocity and scale.

While Dylan and his co-founder always knew they wanted to build an interface design tool, they also knew they needed to keep it simple to create something that would withstand the test of time. When Figma was first released, most people either didn’t get it or thought it was impossible. Very few actually saw the need for real-time collaboration at the time.

“The amount of recognition and importance placed on design is fundamentally different than it was 10 years ago. This is the decade of design — it’s about building the right thing with quality, respect and integrity.”- Dylan Field, co-founder and CEO of Figma. Listen to the full podcast episode.

Once they officially launched the product in 2015, Dylan and his team cultivated a waitlist, and then slowly released it to as a closed beta over time. This strategy was pivotal for Figma as it allowed the team to collect real user feedback so that they could continually improve and release new versions of the product at a smaller scale.

This release strategy and method of honing the product as they go is arguably one of the biggest advantages that Figma gives its users, too — teams can quickly iterate and design without having to share files or be in the same place. This ultimately allows for less presentations, more prototypes and faster releases.

Originally published at https://ymedialabs.medium.com on June 21, 2021.