[bgribble]

As a developer, the "one big bulletin board" visual model that Figma promotes is one of the worst steps backwards in UX I have ever had to deal with. I am constantly zooming in and out and scrolling around trying to find anything. I hate it so much.

[Akronymus]

We use figma quite extensively as a reference for our current project. The disgners constantly move stuff around, so the links to them, in tasks, break and point to nothing. Which is a major pain in the ass indeed.

So yeah, 100% agree that the "big bulletin approach" is a negative.

[tharkun__]

I've completely reneged on linking to figma in individual tasks.

I take screenshots of the state of figma at the time we all agreed that "this is it" (or close enough to what we'll implement). Sure I'll leave a link in the epic to the figma "bulletin board" for that feature so that people can find it and look around. But that's it. We're also never gonna implement exactly what's shown in figma (or said screenshots) either because it would take forever to get the designers to actually adjust everything to look like it does in product.

They can never seem to get the look to match what our standard UI library looks like. Which is a shame because every new developer always tries to match what the design shows instead of sticking with the standard library. Honestly, the best thing would be if figma wasn't used at all and the designers just used black and white lines and boxes and focus on good UX instead of pixel perfect UI designs.

[nkrisc]

At a previous job me and my team (UX Design) were so well meshed with the developers that I could hand them a text outline of the page structure I wanted of our design system components and they could produce it with 90% accuracy. Afterwards I would sit with them at their desk and we’d work out the last 10% together - either things I hadn’t thought of or bits they weren’t sure how to implement. It was glorious and it’s still the highlight of my professional life.

Unfortunately that’s been the exception in my personal experience, so most of the time I have to produce pixel-perfect comps that leave nothing to the imagination.

[andruby]

This is the ideal workflow that I would like to strive towards.

Unfortunately, the product designers don't seem to want to let go of Figma. I understand that this helps them think and organise the layout so perhaps it's not really a problem.

[nkrisc]

Figma and Sketch are fine and necessary for design tasks. We still need to quickly conceptualize and iterate on design ideas, including creating comps for research purposes.

The missing link, often, is then formalizing the design in some form that both developers and designers can use.

At the job I mentioned in my anecdote, we had a guy who lead our design system team. He had string design experience and was also a front end developer. He acted as the interface between the dec Org and the design team to create and develop a component library that was actually used in production and documented on an internal site.

Devs had real code they could use and design could focus on future products and reducing existing things.

[powersjcb]

Yep, this is a problem that people have been working on in the Mechanical Drafting world for well over a hundred years.

I'm also surprised we don't see the utilization of some GD&T style language to specify design intent. (https://www.gdandtbasics.com/gdt-symbols/)

For the problem of:

"I have a design I would like produced. Please make it like this please."

I couldn't imagine giving a machinist or welder a drawing containing no annotations. (This would be something an intern does once and the shop calls them up to tell ask them questions about what they actually need for 45min. Probably sending them back to rework it)

Pulling from the mechanical world:

  * make 3d models (equivalent to HTML/CSS components)
  * put 3d models into an assembly (HTML components together on the page)
  * make variations of the assembly to show range of motion (variations on user activity)
  * make "drawings" that contain components that are broken down to the smallest practical level (this would map to: modal, tables)
    ** in software these are usually managed similarly to Spreadsheet tabs
    ** this would contain a reference to the 3d parts + dimensional annotations. This means updating the assembly/part geometry automatically updates the drawing
  * anytime significant changes are made, issue new "Revisions" of those "drawings" are committed, issued, and then sent to the shop
  * 3d modeling software has change management systems so you'll automatically know if your proposed changes to a 3d part will break a drawing or assembly that depends on it

[Akronymus]

For us, figma has the final say in looks. So, it's actually a benefit that the designers can change it afterwards, as it is refined. They still have no incentives to keep the links up to date, though.

[tharkun__]

Being able to change things as design is still in flow is great, agreed. Once something is agreed upon the ability to change things without notice is really bad, especially if you're expected to follow the design as it has "final say". You go an implement something on Monday based on designs and show it to stakeholders on Tuesday. They compare with the figma board and flogg you because it looks nothing like it. Ugh! (yes that's also a process failure but absent better processes I make my own process that doesn't get me flogged ;) )

[andsoitis]

That sounds like an opportunity to improve on collaboration (i.e. people talking, notifying each other) as well as trust ("compare with the figma board and flogg you because it looks nothing like it")

For instance, if something is agreed upon and a designer changes it afterwards, they could simply give you a heads up that they intend to do so with context so the two of you can discuss.

People > process.

[tharkun__]

They could. They don't. It may not even be their fault. They don't know. They just change things. They live in their world. You tell them, they are sympathetic, apologize, vow to do better next time. They're in their world. They do it again.

The flogging still happens. Is that broken? Yes! Does it still happen in too many companies? Yes! Is there an easy fix where you "trust but verify"? Yes! (as in, sure I trust they will notify me next time, which even if they actually do may be too late. So we made the process "figma is the 'working theory' and what we actually build will sorta look like that". Not every stakeholder may understand that but we sure will tell them when the flogging is about to start. (I say flogging, but in reality it's a gradient of course and while in some companies it will resemble an actual flogging quite closely in others it's more like what you describe. Not all countries and companies are as chill as some others ;))

[supertofu]

And I thought it was just my design colleagues who did this :/

[onlypositive]

Next week on HackerNews:

Figma, considered harmful.

[ShadowBanThis01]

And this M.O. would seem to make zero steps toward recognizing the tedium of their platform:

"By hovering and clicking around the Figma canvas, you can find and export all the information you need"

Because "hovering" over every shape or area in a screenful of design content to prospect for hidden goodies, then exporting them one by one, is a great way for developers to acquire a complete rundown of what they need to implement.

I guess I can't speak for all developers, but I don't want to dick around with an Advent calendar that's masquerading as a design document.

Meanwhile, has Figma fixed the absurd confusion that it presents in the UI between projects and teams? It seriously confuses those two things right there on the "home" page of your account.

And finally, for those who don't want to support Adobe's software-rental nonsense, there is an open-source alternative to Figma called Penpot: https://penpot.app

[NTARelix]

My designers take their own snapshot by cloning their work and using versions in the names of things. Older things are not to be modified with few exceptions. It makes for a good linking experience on my end, but I don't know what that kind of maintenance is like for them.

[softsound]

This is my method, especially because it shows how design will progress, with tight deadlines this becomes harder but I still consider it a very valuable way of proving work (only a minor designer though with freelancing)

I certainly can understand stand the move fast method of quickly changing things, when I'm doing concept work this makes more sense here.

Long term though, if you actually care about your work you should be making copies or different boards to show how and when you made some decisions. Especially mayor design changes.(Granted I could just be a bad designer that just can't come up with a better workflow)

[balaji1]

Good product engineers just go with the flow - workflows with Figma is way up there, compared to without. Those folks were probably the early adopters, and they were much happier to work with designers now.

Minor design details tend to change and even if they are missed out, they get caught at some point - cost of dev rework is generally manageable.

Another big tool for bigger product teams has been component libraries (and corresponding Figma assets). That makes it all simpler.

[alwaysbeconsing]

This is good, yes, but it requires that the team culture does not treat minor deviation from the Figma document as a bug or a failure of the developer. That mindset isn't always present, and it's not usually up to the product engineers themselves. It requires buy-in from the designers, product people, and managers.

[noizejoy]

I suspect, that the main problem is inconsistency in the underlying mental model, because there’s multiple individuals doing that and/or over longer periods of time.

I can typically figure out a mental model, even if designed by someone else (assuming they are somewhat consistent), pretty well and fast. — But it’s the inconsistency, that screws things up for me.

[sebazzz]

For this reason we use Zeplin, where designs are easily shared and versioned. For both developers and clients.

[dawnerd]

Ugh yeah when designers change things after a client signs off and in the middle of implementation. It confuses everyone and no one remembers what was actually signed off.

[spacemadness]

I feel like this is the UX designers version of “gives you enough rope to hang yourself with.”

[dangom]

Name your frames and the problem is solved. I for instance love the model because I no longer have to be tracking down millions of filenames - just one for each project.

[facorreia]

As a developer, I don't "name" anything on Figma. The UX designer might. I have to work with what I get. I agree with OP that in general it promotes placing a lot of components side by side on a huge surface and you have to keep zooming out and in, scrolling, etc. It's a terrible experience.

[brandall10]

In my last job designers would put “in progress” in the title. But occasionally would make minor updates on final designs that would need to be communicated.

[drewbeck]

I can for sure see how the 'big board' approach isn't good (and it looks like they're attending to this to some degree with the new Dev Mode features). I'm curious what handoff experience you had before that was better. Prior to Figma (as a designer) my workflows were always "send a PDF with designs, export some assets", which I imagine was non-standard, and not great, so I'm wondering what was improved for you before?

[the_mar]

I had a brief and horrific period of my life when I had to export assets for android at the weird android resolutions.

I really don't understand why there isn't a better designer>developer hand off experience. It seems like Figma is trying with the CSS stuff and the layouts, but I don't think it quite works

[mejutoco]

In figma you set the export options for different layers (say png of x resolution, and svg), and you can export them all at once. Unless I am missing something, this should solve your problem.

[the_mar]

Thankfully in year 2023 it’s not a problem anymore since everything can be vector.

I’m talking about 2015-16 when you had to use raster images for components and figma was not even a thing.

But thank you nonetheless.

My current complaint about figma is that even if I take time to set up all the dynamic scaling and layouts I don’t think it as useful for devs as I hoped it would be in my mind. (As in I thought u can just copypaste the code snippet). But i’m not quite sure as I have not done much IC design work in years aside some odd jobs for friends and perhaps they are just shit programmers or I am not using it right.

[paulddraper]

Never have I seen such an accurate description of figma.

My soul resonates with this

[esjeon]

Yup right. I find myself zoned out while zooming in and out frantically and achieving nothing. It's often difficult to effectively navigate without guidance from the creator of the board. Figma is better as a collab tool than a documentation tool.

[pcurve]

Looks like the new feature should help...

To be fair, they were all like that even before Figma, including Sketch.

But Figma doesn't allow you to link an artboard from one page to a one on different page, so it didn't allow designers to organize.

Don't get me started on lack of subfolders.

[revskill]

As a MacOS user, zooming on a touchpad is painful.

[eddieroger]

As a MacOS user with a Logitech Ergo mouse, I haven't figured out how to navigate at all, and have to get my external trackpad out just to move around. If anyone knows how to move around Figma with a scroll wheel, please tell me, seriously. I would be glad to be wrong. That said, the touchpad experience is at least intuitive.

[CityOfThrowaway]

I have the same mouse and it works fine:

1. Hold the cmd key on your keyboard while spinning the scroll wheel to zoom in and out

2. Click and hold the scroll wheel and move the mouse around to pan

[eddieroger]

Thank you! I will try this. I think I had the pan down, but would have liked shift+scroll for sideways and it wasn't doing that.

[reinierladan]

I use this hack to turn mouse movements into scroll movements with Hammerspoon. It's one of the first things I need on a fresh install of MacOS.

https://github.com/reinier/dotfiles/blob/main/hammerspoon/er...

It let's you hold down the right click key and use your mouse to scroll any x/y direction.

Original source for this hack is offline, but Internet Archive to the rescue: https://web.archive.org/web/20200808000102/https://savouryti...

BTW I use Figma all the time, I have never any issues scrolling with this hack.

[eddieroger]

I am a big Hammerspoon fan, and I will definitely try this today! Thank you so much!

[reinierladan]

Did it work for you?

[clownpepe]

Holding the space bar and just moving your mouse works best for me

[tharkun__]

I'm a MacOS user at work and ThinkPad user in private and honestly, the MacBook (we have MacBook Pros) trackpad is awesome. I've never been so at ease with not having a mouse as I am with the work MacBook. It works with great precision for a regular mouse and zoom is awesome. It's also in exactly the right place, slightly off center and huge that I can use keyboard shortcuts and easily switch to mouse (i.e. trackpad) use when it's gonna be easier/faster to use the mouse to select/do something.

I'm never gonna buy into the Apple ecosystem on principle but product wise it's great to have it at work. On my ThinkPad I always go for my actual mouse when I need precision but the hand travel time between mouse and keyboard use is distracting.

[RussianCow]

I'm not sure if this is related to your gripe, but FYI, you can use the pinch to zoom gesture on the trackpad in Figma. I find that it works quite well.

[polymath21]

Hold CMD + two fingers on the trackpad to zoom in+out

[zackmorris]

I rarely use Figma but wanted to add that your experience isn't universal. I maintain one giant notes.txt file which I treat as my mental palace, finding sections within it by searching for "# keyword". This allows me to work as a 10x or 100x developer by avoiding bookkeeping chores like categorizing my notes, so more like a search engine. Figma might be targeted at designers who want to work fast also.

But I do agree that Figma needs an auto-organizing feature of some kind for people who receive the work. Perhaps with machine learning to track designs by the timestamp when they were edited, instead of their location on the page. Which could be as simple as a linear or hierarchical view which only scrolls along one axis, with tags similar to git/Sourcetree. Apologies if this already exists!

[mejutoco]

You might like Obsidian. It fits this mental model very well, and is all local. I used to do exactly what you mention, and having a better interface now, but without lock in to a company has worked very well for me.

[nonethewiser]

> This allows me to work as a 10x or 100x developer

What do you mean here? That this note taking method makes you 10 to 100 times better at your job?

I do something very similar except different files. But unstructured and rely on search to find things. Optimizes for writing. But this one trick makes you a 100x developer?

[sublinear]

I think they mean 100x better than they'd be without it, not 100x better than a "1x developer" (whatever that means anyway).

[RussianCow]

It's still hard to believe that a note-taking trick makes you 10-100x better as a dev, for any definition of better.

[samstave]

Think of it as journaling...

If I was a good note-taker and had a rich, deep journal which was searchable - I'd be 100X more than the 1X me right now.

Not journaling is a big regret of mine.

[rtpg]

Maybe not 10x but even just noting stuff means that picking up an older task that you had to shelve before could go from a 15 minute thing to a 30 second thing depending on what context you put down/how accessible it is.

Ultimately a lot of this stuff is commingled with comfort with tools and general ability to juggle things though, so hard to isolate the effects

[zackmorris]

Ya sorry, poor wording on my part. What I meant was, if I use every trick in my arsenal, I can effectively go around a problem entirely and maybe reach 100x faster than when I was a fresh grad writing my own data structures by hand. Lately I've been dragging so badly though that I'm probably at 10% or even 1% productivity, negating my experience and putting me on par with my original inexperienced self, albeit with reduced effort.

Edit: my actual point was that if a person works along their natural tendencies, they'll probably be faster than if they have to fight their instincts (and take time to organize in this case), mainly because they might fall out of the zone

[susanthenerd]

Have you ever considered going for Markdown? # is used for defining headers in markdown.

[prollings]

I think they're essentially using "hashtags", so they could have many for one note.

[seanthemon]

Hah, i'll be honest I thought you were kidding about the notes.txt - are you following some kind of standard? Or just spill everything into one big document?

[jckahn]

I do something similar and just dump everything into a giant chaotic document. It works well because I intuitively understand my own personal brand of chaos, so I know how to easily find everything.

[mattwad]

a private notes text file is completely different content, let alone UX, from a visual board that everyone uses

[pbarnes_1]

Yup, it's absolutely horrible to use as a developer.

[SkyPuncher]

Do your designers not wire up prototypes?

Makes it way easier.