Figma is an interface design software used at multiple stages of UI/UX design like creating prototypes, Graphic design, presentations, converting design into code and more. It is currently the industry leader and first choice to create collaborative designs. While there are many alternatives to Figma, there is no UI/UX design tool that can be a proper replacement for Figma, specially for creating industry-level collaborative interfaces and design.
In simpler words, Figma is a browser-based UI and UX creation application with design, prototyping and code generation tools. Here in this article, we will discuss why should one choose Figma over it’s other alternatives and what are it’s key benefits. But before that, let’s discuss the basics first.
Figma for UI/UX Design
What is Figma?
As we discussed earlier, Figma is a browser based UI and UX creation application with design, prototyping and code generation tools. Figma also comes with its desktop application but firstly, it is known for its browser compatible seamless experience and secondly, the principles behind the desktop app remains the same – it provides the same experience and still uses network connection rather than locally downloading all the tools, basically it remains an online app in both the cases.
Figma is not just the most used UI/UX design tool, it is also the highest rated among all UI/UX design tools. Figma is moving from being used for rapid prototyping and designing to a general design tools. Designers are not just using Figma. Figma is really a game changing tool for UI/UX design.
Why to use Figma for UI/UX?
- Rapid prototyping: With overlays, the animations, hover, clicks and a lot more functionalities Figma becomes exceptional for Prototyping. While tools like InVision provides a lot more functionalities, Figma is irreplaceable because of its easy to learn nature. You can also install the Figma android application and present the prototype using your mobile device.
- The Benefits of the Cloud: Using Figma in your UI/UX workflow you can take all the benefits of the cloud. It ensures autosaving the files so that you don’t have to worry about losing them accidentally. You can go beyond your local desktop and work from anywhere, from any machine – you just need your sign in id and password.
- Real-time Collaboration: Figma calls itself a UX design tool that allows the entire team to see and interact with the latest designs by accessing a single, live URL and this is entirely true. It the perfect tool for Real-time collaboration where the entire team can work together and the changes will be seen real time.
- It’s on your browser, just click and start get started: Using Figma you can go beyond your computer, since it is a browser based tool, it works seamlessly with all the operating systems be it Windows, Mac or Linux hence considered a cross platform user interface design tool. It is also Lightweight and exporting files is very straightforward.
- Vibrant community and easy resources to learn: Figma has the most vibrant community of people using it – from professional UI/UX designers to people doing design as a hobby. This becomes really beneficial for the beginners in the field since they get to have more resources and online support wherever they get stuck.
- Simple to learn and simple to use: One of the reasons for Figma’s disruption of the UI/UX space and beating giants like Adobe is its fast learning curve. Figma is super simple to use and has a very large community of professionals using it, hence you can find multiple tutorials on Figma.
- Not just UI/UX – a lot more now: Figma is now more than just a UI design and prototyping tool. Its is being used across fields from stuff like designing Thumbnails to creating presentations. It is also positioned as an online graphic design tool for creating logos, social media graphics, presentations and a lot more.
How to use use Figma?
Using Figma is very straight forward. For a beginner in Figma, you can simple go to “https://www.figma.com“. For the first time users, you can sign up for a Figma account and directly get started with the application. You can try using multiple features like Frames, Layouts, Rectangle, Text tool, Hand tool, etc. And finally you can check out online tutorials for knowing the uses of various features.
What can you create with Figma?
Figma being a very versatile application and now even coming up as a general design application. It can be used for creating a lot of stuff, from UI prototypes to YouTube thumbnails a lot can be done on Figma. Here are a few use cases for which Figma is mostly used:
- Prototypes
- Flowcharts and Presentations
- User Interfaces
- Website Designs
- Mobile App Designs
- Icons and Illustrations
- Social Media Graphics
Benefits of Using Figma in UI/UX
- Free to Use: For projects of smaller scale, Figma is absolutely free. It starts costing from $12 to $45 per editor per month for larger projects and additional features. The free version allows you to work on 3 Figma files at the same time which is good enough to complete a small design project.
- Prototype capabilities: As we discussed in earlier segments, Figma uses overlays, animations, hover, clicks etc. that makes great for prototyping.
- Better collaboration with the team: One of the biggest Figma’s strengths is the ability to seamlessly collaborate with our teammates working on the same project. It the perfect tool for Real-time collaboration where the entire team can work together and the changes will be seen real time.
- Better collaboration with the stakeholders: Before Figma, the mainstream way of sharing prototype and UI design was using applications like Invision. But options for preview and commenting was not very seamless in Invision. Invision also has options to share design presentations as URLs and then comments can be posted to start a discussion with the stakeholders. But the problem is that in Invision designers have to upload and manage slides separately. While in Figma, options for previewing and commenting are inherently supported
- Everything on Cloud: Figma is a cloud app, therefore, it runs on the browser and application and all the files are live on the cloud. we can simply open and share them using URL links. This makes storage and sharing of file quite straight forward.
- Frames: Figma uses Frames instead of Artboards used in Sketch and Adobe XD. The advantage of frames is that it resembles more to a real UI in its structure compared to artboards of Sketch and Adobe XD. neither of Sketch or Adobe XD supports frames.
- Auto Layout feature: Auto Layout solves a pain point of many UI designers using Sketch. A lot of time used to be wasted on fixing the paddings and margins in Sketch, and Sketch is also not good at keeping spacing consistent. Auto layout feature of Figma helps us create frames or elements in a way that when the content size increases or decreases, the spacing also increases or decreases accordingly.
Drawbacks of Figma
- Internet is required: Since Figma is a cloud app it is expected to have a good internet connection as a prerequisite, but even for the desktop application you will require an internet connection to work on Figma.
- RAM Uses is more in web version: Since Figma works on cloud and offers real time collaboration, it is a great deal for someone working on team and wants to collaborate. But for a designer working on a solo project. Figma would use unnecessary RAM of the machine.
- No options for responsiveness: Figma does not provide any options for responsiveness. There is no Flexbox support or to set maximum or minimum dimensions. Figma is not yet optimized for responsive design because of which we often design in multiple screen sizes.
Conclusion
We can come up to a conclusion after studying about benefits or Figma that it is one of the best if not the best prototyping and UI/UX design tool in the market. Its ability to be used as a web application and becoming platform independent has set it out from the crowd. Before Figma we had many UI/UX designing tools like Adobe XD and Sketch but Figma because of its rapid prototyping capability, real time collaboration features and focusing on the minute details has disrupted the space and has came up as one of the best if not the best UI/UX design tool.
In this article we discussed the benefits of using Figma over its alternatives. we hope that reading this article would have helped you understand and appreciate this piece of software that has been changing the lives of thousands of UI/UX designers for good.
FAQs
Q. Can we create Logos and graphic designs in Figma?
Ans: Yes, Figma can be used for designing logos and general graphic design.
Q. Can we use Figma for YouTube thumbnails?
Ans:Yes, Figma can be used for YouTube thumbnails but there are better alternatives for Thumbnail design.
Q. What is the disadvantage of Figma?
Ans:One big disadvantage of Figma is that since it is a collaborative tool, you cannot use it without internet connection.
Q. Where are Figma files stored locally?
Ans: Figma files are not stored locally, that are stored on the cloud. You can access them from the Figma web app or desktop application.
Q. What is best alternative to Figma?
Ans: There are many alternatives to Figma, Adobe XD is considered the best alternative to Figma.