Tidy workspace, tidy mind: How to optimize collaboration in Figma
Principal Designers Israel Martin and Clementine Jinhee Declercq share their practical tips to organizing the Figma digital workspace to improve the collaborative well-being of design teams.
Tidy space, tidy mind. Whether we’re at home or at work — or both at once — it’s common knowledge that reducing clutter boosts our psychological well-being. When it comes to the workplace, there is clear evidence that our environment influences our cognition, behavior, emotions, and performance. A recent article in the Harvard Business Review makes the case for finally cleaning your desk, emphasizing how cluttered spaces can have negative effects on our stress levels, ability to focus and make decisions, and more. In short, “when our space is a mess, so are we.”
The same goes for digital work environments — especially those we share with others. At the very least, a cluttered digital workspace can cause us to lose time searching for files. At worst, it can hinder the collaborative process — which, in times of remote and asynchronous work, can be especially problematic. After we, at Zalando, had settled into the digital environment, we recognized that something as simple as organizing our shared spaces could benefit both the work and the well-being of our community.
For Zalando’s team of over 150 product designers, Figma is not only a design tool. At the start of the pandemic, it became one of our most important shared workspaces. The interface is a daily meeting point for Product Designers and the wider teams of Content Designers, User Researchers, Product Managers, and Engineers we collaborate with. Figma is a central space where we can locate all of the teams and the resources essential to our work. Therefore, just like the office, everything should have its place, and everyone should be responsible for keeping it tidy.
Interested in how we transformed our Figma? Read on for our insights and practical tips on how to reorganize your team’s workspace to optimize collaboration.
Step 1: Organize team structure
The department store approach
In late 2020, Zalando Figma comprised 1246 team members and 41 team spaces. At this point, there was not a clear overview of what each space was for — not least because there were no common naming conventions. Sometimes we saw nondescript names like “Godfathers” and “PacMan”; other times, we found empty or unused spaces. This lack of transparency and organizational structure made it really difficult to navigate teams and to find common resources, negatively affecting collaboration and productivity.
In order to organize the team structure, we reimagined Figma as if it were a physical space. We used the department store floor map as a mental model and introduced a clear numbered naming convention. In our new layout, the ground floor “0_Design Lobby,” is the starting point and central hub where you can locate all of the common resources and materials. The next level houses the various B2C and B2B design teams (1_Supply, 2_Customers, 3_Demand…). Then, on the last floor, we have a “6_Lost and found” floor for projects that are old or need to be archived.
We configured this layout to mimic the Zalando team structure, creating a useful birds-eye view of the Zalando Product Design organization. Anyone outside of product design can also find their relevant teams and projects, created based on the floor map, and add their space to the appropriate level.
Step 2: Tidy up individual spaces
The shared apartment analogy
Since Product Designers often work differently within Figma, navigating the space can be confusing and time-consuming for collaborators — especially when the design files they access are messy. We needed to find a solution that worked for everybody, striking a balance between flexibility (the freedom to work however we want) and standardization (rules and processes defining how we work). This is where the shared apartment analogy came in.
In the “shared apartment” of Zalando Figma, the file containing your early design exploration is like your own room — whether it’s crazily messy or scrupulously tidy is up to you. The shared kitchen — any file that can be accessed by collaborators — is where certain rules apply. Think design specs, user-testing prototypes, and official design review documents.
Here are our golden rules for keeping a shared space tidy:
1. Keep it up to date
Regularly archive old pages, files, and team spaces that are no longer in use. At Zalando, we have set up a quarterly Figma clean-up reminder.
2. Keep it separate
Files with prototypes for user-testing purposes should live in a separate file, away from exploration files. This is to ensure the separation of concerns and the avoidance of problems when running tests with users.
3. Keep it visible
Files which include design specifications or final deliverables should be easy to find by other collaborators even after a project is shipped. At Zalando, we recommend teams to use a standardized file cover for final specs so that it can be located at first glance.
Step 3: Learn, iterate, adapt
Since we implemented this structure, our community has experienced more flow and less friction when collaborating on Figma. Remote onboarding of new joiners is easy — we only need to point them to the relevant floors or teams they’ll be working in. Transparency has been maximized; all of the spaces are open to everyone, meaning anyone can join and see the work being done. What’s more, we’ve gotten over the ‘blank page’ start, meaning Product Designers can get into their groove much more quickly when starting something new on Figma.
The new setup became the starting point for further improvements, as well as a blueprint for other digital workspaces. It is crucial to keep evolving it; to learn, to iterate, and to adapt to the ever-changing organization of teams.
To finish, here are some helpful considerations to make before organizing your digital workspace:
- What is your current team structure? How can your digital workspace reflect this?
- Are there any inefficiencies or frictions in collaboration?
- Is there any unnecessary clutter that needs to be cleared?
- Where do you need to apply more order through clearer rules and processes?
- Where can the space be more loose and flexible?
How are you fine-tuning your digital workspace to meet your team’s needs? Share your tips in the comments!
