Published on | Prototyping: From UX to Front End — Medium Wamisoftware

In our new project, we completely put away Photoshop, Illustrator, Adobe and Sketch. Do you want to know why? We decided to try another platform which we‘ve found more convenient and relevant in terms of implementation of the project we have to deliver.

So we decided to try Figma! Figma is an innovative cross-platform service for web designers, which allows several people in real time to work on the same project that simplifies working process dramatically.

Recently, countless number of graphic online editor programs have appeared. But all of them copied, in varying degrees, the ideas of their big brothers, such as Photoshop or Illustrator. Figma went on a completely different path. It is not only the first service for collaborative graphics editing, but also an extremely easy to use design tool.

It should be noted that collaborative editing does not cause any delays; changes in the project come smoothly and synchronously for all participants of the session.

In sake of being objective let’s try to find out both advantages and flaws of the platform. First of all Figma is web based, so it works in any modern browser and therefore is available for everyone. That makes Figma very accessible compared to other designer platforms. But at the same time binding to the internet has its disadvantages, as you can’t work offline.

Figma saves its files in the Cloud, so designers can share design with the others, but in a way that saves the file from accidental editing because you transfer it to developers in a view-only mode. Meanwhile you can track who made changes and when.

Figma has built-in prototyping (so you don’t need to use any additional tools) as well as Comment Tool inside the app that allows adding comments to design directly, while in other platforms you are not able to leave your comments on design.

In terms of pricing Figma is free for individuals, but if you have a team you’re priced 12$ per editor. But there is no any notification when adding editors and once you put your credit card details, money is simply withdrawn from it without any special warning. Withdrawal is made right after sending your card details, so you should be careful with that because if there is any mistake money won’t be returned.

Wanna know the opinion of our web designer Vlada, former fan of Adobe, on Figma? Let’s have a look.

“I liked Figma at first glance! Its interface is so cool and simple at the same time that helps a lot to learn how to use the platform very quickly. I made it in a couple of hours. Figma is very fast, it’s not lagging or freezing and it makes working process to go smooth. It works in the browser which is very convenient.

There is no longer needed to save hundreds of layouts and throw them into Google Docs, and here, as in Google Docs, it is possible to leave comments directly on the layout.

The team and customers, everyone you give access to, see the changes in real time. And you can coordinate the project with your non-designer colleagues. Thanks to the intuitive functionality of Figma, even someone who has a very vague idea of graphic editors can make a change to the project.

There is an import from Slack and version control, so you can see what was done, when and by whom and in addition you can roll back to any state any time.

Of course Figma has some drawbacks, but the number of pluses that I receive every day, working with this program, still prevails and I have only good impressions about Figma.”

So do your web designers still use Photoshop?

We start using new tool for design — Figma was originally published in Prototypr on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

We start using new tool for design — Figma

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