Figma condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as an attack on democratic values central to its mission. The company is supporting affected communities through employee donation matching and continued access to paid features for Ukrainian customers needing assistance. It is also complying with U.S. and EU sanctions and has halted new sales efforts in Russia.
## Support for Ukraine and Ukrainian Customers
- Figma employees are donating to organizations aiding Ukrainian refugees and providing humanitarian relief.
- The company is matching those employee contributions through its donation-matching program.
- Ukrainian customers who request help will retain access to Figma’s paid features in the coming months.
## Actions Regarding Russia
- Figma is fully complying with applicable U.S. and EU sanctions against Russia.
- It has stopped pursuing new sales in the Russian market.
Figma’s response combines humanitarian support for Ukraine with sanctions compliance and a suspension of new Russian business, while expressing solidarity with its Ukrainian community.
The provided text does not include the blog post itself. It contains Datadog’s navigation menu and a promotional link announcing its recognition as a Leader in Gartner’s 2026 Magic Quadrant for Observability Platforms, but no technical discussion or conclusions from the referenced article.
## Available content
### Datadog’s observability platform
- Datadog promotes products for:
- Infrastructure and Kubernetes monitoring
- Application performance monitoring and profiling
- Logs, databases, and data observability
- Security and cloud protection
- Real-user and synthetic monitoring
- CI/CD and software delivery
- Incident and service management
- AI-powered investigation and automation
### Gartner recognition
- The page links to Datadog’s announcement that it was named a Leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Observability Platforms.
- The excerpt does not provide Gartner’s evaluation criteria, Datadog’s strengths or weaknesses, or supporting evidence.
Please provide the article body or a working text extract for an accurate technical summary.
Go 1.18 introduced major profiling improvements alongside features such as generics and fuzzing. Its Linux CPU profiler became substantially more accurate on multicore systems by addressing dropped `SIGPROF` signals, and profiler labels received an important correctness fix. These changes strengthened Go’s ability to connect continuous profiling data with tracing systems such as Datadog.
## More Accurate Linux CPU Profiling
- Earlier Go versions used `setitimer(2)` to request a `SIGPROF` signal every 10 ms of CPU time.
- On busy multicore systems, Linux could generate multiple signals within a single kernel “jiffy” window, but standard POSIX signals do not queue.
- As a result, many signals were dropped:
- A service using 20 CPU cores might generate roughly 2,000 profiling signals per second.
- Its Go profile could contain only about 240 samples per second.
- Linux’s software clock, commonly operating at 250 Hz, could only measure CPU time in roughly 4 ms intervals. This caused signal bursts and undercounted CPU usage.
- `setitimer(2)` also distributed process-directed signals unevenly across threads, creating additional profiling bias.
## Combining `timer_create` and `setitimer`
- `timer_create(2)` provided more reliable per-thread signal accounting and avoided most of the signal-dropping and thread-bias problems.
- Its drawback was that the profiler needed awareness of every thread, including threads created independently by cgo code.
- The Go 1.18 fix combined both timer mechanisms:
- The signal handler identifies the signal source.
- Signals from inferior sources are discarded.
- The implementation accounts for short-lived threads and cgo edge cases.
- The work originated from investigations into Go issues GH 35057 and GH 14434 and was developed through collaboration between contributors and Go maintainers.
## Profiler Label Correctness
- Profiler labels, also called pprof labels or tags, associate key/value metadata with goroutines.
- Labels are inherited by child goroutines and appear in CPU and goroutine profiles, enabling profiles to be filtered by request, service, or trace metadata.
- Testing at Datadog revealed that some stack samples were missing labels they should have carried.
- The cause was a CPU profiler lookup using the wrong goroutine reference.
- The fix changed the profiler to use `gp.m.curg`, the thread’s actual current goroutine, rather than relying on `gp`, which can differ in certain runtime situations.
Go 1.18’s profiling changes made CPU measurements more trustworthy on Linux and improved the accuracy of metadata attached to profile samples. Together, they provided a stronger foundation for correlating Go profiling with distributed tracing.
Figma’s February 2022 updates focus on making design collaboration easier, from finding files to brainstorming in FigJam. Search now offers previews and file-type filters, while FigJam—now out of beta—adds more flexible editing and clearer collaboration tools. Overall, the release aims to keep teams aligned and help ideas move smoothly from brainstorming to implementation.
## Updated Search and Discoverability
- Search results now include file previews, making it easier to identify the correct design.
- Users can filter recents, team pages, and search results by Figma or FigJam file type.
- These changes reduce the time spent locating current designs and resources.
## FigJam Collaboration Improvements
With FigJam available to all teams, Figma added several refinements for brainstorming and diagramming:
- **Centralized resource menu:** Components, templates, widgets, and other resources are now accessible from one simplified toolbar menu.
- **Flexible font sizing:** Text can be resized to any size by dragging the corners of a text box, supporting clearer hierarchy and emphasis.
- **Persistent stamps and highlights:** Reactions and highlights stay attached to the objects they reference when content is moved.
- **Faster color and shape changes:** Updated toolbar icons make it easier to swap colors and shapes while building diagrams.
- **Image borders:** Users can add borders to images to draw attention to selected visuals.
- **Simpler selection borders:** Thinner borders and larger selection corners make objects easier to select and resize.
Figma’s release reinforces its broader goal of bringing more people into the design process while keeping collaboration organized, discoverable, and visually clear.
Datadog’s product designers use their own monitoring tools to supplement interviews with quantitative insight into user behavior. By applying Real User Monitoring (RUM) and Logs to design questions, they made decisions about fonts, component functionality, and time-range input based on actual usage. This “dogfooding” approach improved products while making design collaboration faster and more evidence-based.
## Choosing a Monospace Font
- Datadog uses monospace text for logs, stack traces, source code, container IDs, and dense data views.
- Previously, users received different system fonts through a generic font stack, including Consolas, Menlo, and Courier.
- The team used the browser’s CSS Font Loading API and RUM to determine which fonts users were actually seeing.
- They analyzed the results in RUM Analytics and shared them through a dashboard with designers and engineers.
- Datadog selected **Roboto Mono** as the standard font and used RUM after launch to verify that the rollout worked as intended.
- Matching the existing visual proportions was important because font-size and character-width changes could disrupt tightly designed tables and other interfaces.
## Simplifying the DraggablePane Component
- DraggablePane lets users resize adjacent content panels, but its small handle contained several controls that created visual clutter.
- Custom loggers were added to the component and its draggable handle to track how users interacted with each feature.
- Logs showed that almost no users used the minimize and maximize buttons, despite the space they occupied.
- The team removed those buttons and replaced their functionality with a double-click on the handle.
- Datadog notes that custom actions in RUM now provide a more direct way to collect this kind of interaction data.
## Expanding Custom Time-Range Syntax
- Datadog initially offered only preset ranges such as 15 minutes, 1 hour, and 1 day.
- The DateRangePicker introduced text-based custom ranges, but early versions supported only limited patterns such as “{N} months” or explicit dates.
- Logs captured invalid user-entered time expressions, along with the page and country associated with each request.
- The most common unsupported input involved “weeks,” including phrases like “last 1 week” and “last 2 weeks.”
- The team used these patterns to prioritize improvements to the parser.
- After adding support for common previously invalid inputs, the error rate fell from roughly 10 percent to 5–6 percent.
## Dogfooding and Collaboration
- Designers tracked behavior, analyzed results, built dashboards, and documented findings using Datadog products.
- Keeping data collection, analysis, and presentation in one platform made design reviews more efficient.
- Shared dashboards and documentation helped designers and engineers collaborate around concrete evidence rather than assumptions.
- Using the product internally also gave the team direct experience with the platform from a user’s perspective.
Datadog’s examples show that quantitative product data works best alongside qualitative research: interviews explain user needs, while RUM and Logs reveal how often behaviors occur and which improvements will have the greatest impact.
Datadog leverages its own monitoring tools to bridge the gap between qualitative user interviews and quantitative performance data. By "dogfooding" features like Real User Monitoring (RUM) and Logs, the product design team makes evidence-based UI/UX adjustments while gaining firsthand empathy for the user experience. This approach allows them to identify exactly how users interact with specific components and where current designs fail to meet user expectations.
**Optimizing Font Consistency via CSS API Tracking**
* To ensure visual precision in information-dense views like the Log Explorer, the team needed to transition from a generic system font stack to a standardized monospace font.
* Designers used the Web API’s `Document.font` interface and the CSS Font Loading API via Datadog RUM to collect data on which specific fonts were actually being rendered on users' machines.
* By analyzing a dashboard of these results, the team selected Roboto Mono as the standard, ensuring the new font’s optical size matched what the plurality of users were already seeing to avoid breaking embedded tables.
**Simplifying Components through Interaction Logging**
* The `DraggablePane` component, used for resizing adjacent panels, was suffering from UI clutter due to physical buttons for minimizing and maximizing content.
* The team implemented custom loggers within Datadog Logs to track how frequently users clicked these specific controls versus interacting with the draggable handle.
* The data revealed that the buttons were almost never used; consequently, the team removed them and replaced the functionality with a double-click event, significantly streamlining the interface.
**Refining Syntax Support through Error Analysis**
* When introducing the `DateRangePicker` for custom time frames, the team needed to expand the component's logic to support natural language strings.
* By aggregating "invalid inputs" in Datadog Logs, the team could see the exact strings users were typing—such as "last 2 weeks"—that the system failed to parse.
* Analyzing these common patterns allowed the team to update the parsing logic for high-demand keywords, which resulted in the component’s error rate dropping from 10 percent to approximately 5 percent.
Leveraging internal monitoring tools allows design teams to move beyond guesswork and create highly functional interfaces. For organizations managing complex technical products, tracking specific component failures and interaction frequencies is an essential strategy for prioritizing the design roadmap and improving user retention.
FigJam emerged from Figma’s shift to remote work and the growing need for a shared digital space for collaboration and connection. Figma launched it in beta to avoid perfectionism, learn quickly from users, and balance immediate needs with a longer-term product vision. Its path from inception to general availability was driven by cross-functional teamwork, rapid decisions, and continuous user feedback.
## A Collaborative Product Culture
- Product Manager Emily Lin describes her role as a facilitator rather than a sole decision-maker.
- Figma’s culture encourages ideas and decisions from anyone, with designers, engineers, product, support, sales, and marketing working together.
- This collaborative model was especially important for building Figma’s second product.
## Why FigJam Was Created
- As Figma began working remotely, the company saw users using its design tool to connect, brainstorm, socialize, and collaborate beyond traditional design work.
- Figma employees experienced the same need for a digital gathering space during a difficult transition to remote work.
- Because the need was urgent and FigJam became a company-wide priority, teams across Figma contributed to its development.
## Using Beta to Avoid Perfectionism
- Building a second product created pressure to match the quality and care associated with Figma.
- The team recognized that trying to perfect every detail could slow development and prevent them from responding to real user needs.
- A beta launch allowed Figma to ship sooner, gather feedback, and iterate while continuing to pursue a broader product direction.
## Prioritizing Decisions and Feedback
- The team focused first on questions that could block future decisions, such as how FigJam should relate to Figma and whether it needed to be a separate application.
- Rather than extensively deliberating over every detail, they made decisions, consulted stakeholders, and adjusted based on feedback.
- Hundreds of alpha testers participated through a shared Slack workspace and supplied ongoing insights.
- Requests were divided into launch-critical fixes and fast-follow improvements:
- Author names on sticky notes were required for the initial launch.
- A timer could be released after launch as a follow-up feature.
## Iterating After the Beta Launch
- After FigJam’s April 2021 beta introduction, product decisions continued to center on solving user problems.
- A panel of users opted into new features and provided proactive feedback.
- Ideas also came from support conversations, Twitter, and internal teams across the company.
- The process emphasized giving active FigJam users the functionality they actually needed rather than following a rigid predetermined roadmap.
The FigJam launch demonstrates the value of shipping an adaptable beta, resolving foundational questions early, and involving users and cross-functional teams throughout development. For products facing uncertainty or time pressure, iterative learning can be more effective than waiting for a perfectly defined first release.
Figma’s 2022 plan updates aim to make design a company-wide activity while reducing the organizational complexity that comes with more participants. FigJam is leaving beta with expanded collaboration features and new pricing, while Figma Enterprise adds structure, controls, security, and administrative support for larger organizations. The central goal is to help teams collaborate from brainstorming through implementation without overwhelming users or administrators.
## FigJam Becomes a Full Collaboration Product
- FigJam was launched in beta to support brainstorming, diagramming, planning, meetings, and informal collaboration.
- Teams adopted it for varied uses, including:
- Dwell’s company-wide idea “swarms”
- Square’s employee onboarding
- Twitter’s cross-functional bug-bashing sessions
- Figma expanded FigJam with plugins, widgets, and ready-to-use templates.
- FigJam is free on the Starter plan, including:
- Unlimited personal whiteboards
- Three shared whiteboards
- Unlimited collaborators
- Unlimited shared whiteboards for an organization start at $3 per editor per month.
## Figma Enterprise for Larger Organizations
- As more departments joined the design process, companies faced:
- More files and projects to navigate
- Less flexibility for individual teams
- Greater administrative responsibility
- The Enterprise plan is designed for organizations needing more structure, granular controls, advanced security, and support.
- Pricing begins at:
- $75 per editor per month for Figma
- $5 per editor per month for FigJam
- Features were being released immediately or planned for the following months.
## Workspaces Reflect Company Structure
- Enterprise workspaces let organizations create dedicated areas for departments, product groups, or functions.
- Workspaces help users focus on relevant content while preserving access to company-wide resources.
- Administrators can define default teams and libraries for each workspace.
- Users can limit searches to a particular workspace to find files, people, and components more quickly.
## Administration at Company Scale
- Enterprise tools are intended to manage large numbers of files, users, and permissions more efficiently.
- Workspace administration can be delegated to people familiar with each group’s users.
- Delegated responsibilities include membership, roles, and true-ups.
- Role-setting through SCIM is also introduced to automate administrative workflows.
Figma’s broader recommendation is that companies should invite more people into design while using FigJam for inclusive collaboration and Enterprise workspaces and controls for organization-wide scale.
Figma’s “Little Big Updates” introduces 32 small but meaningful improvements aimed at making Figma and FigJam faster, more accessible, and easier to navigate. The updates cover text editing, keyboard shortcuts, component publishing, libraries, exporting, and FigJam collaboration. Together, they streamline common workflows and reduce friction for designers and teams.
## Faster Editing and Accessibility
- Text editing is up to 10 times faster in Figma and FigJam.
- macOS accent-menu support is available by long-pressing letters.
- HEIC image uploads are supported, making it easier to use iPhone photos.
- Bullets remain consistent across mixed text styles.
- Home and End keys navigate to the beginning or end of text areas.
- External-link interstitials have been removed to preserve workflow continuity.
- Retina screenshots pasted from Chrome will use the correct dimensions.
- Text highlights on blue FigJam backgrounds are now more visible.
## Canvas Navigation and Keyboard Shortcuts
- `⌘L`/`Ctrl+L` copies links to files and selected frames in the desktop app.
- `⌘R`/`Ctrl+R` renames elements while the interface is hidden.
- Holding `⌘`/`Ctrl` while clicking selects top-level frames directly.
- Quick actions (`⌘+/` or `Ctrl+/`) can show or hide the FigJam UI.
- Quick actions can also unlock all objects.
- Hovering over the FigJam toolbar reveals additional keyboard shortcuts.
- Connector text now supports new lines with Return or Enter.
- Objects continue snapping to the grid while being dragged.
## Design Tools and Components
- Vector network regions can be filled with different colors.
- Components and instances can be searched when inserting (`Shift+I`) or swapping.
- Any component can be published via its right-click menu.
- Components can be searched in the publishing modal.
- Published files now have a distinct icon for easier identification.
- Invalid components can be located directly from the publishing modal.
- The publishing modal allows users to choose which components appear in the asset list.
- Unpublished changes can be published directly from the relevant interface.
- A “Return to instance” option is available when selecting a main component.
- SVG strokes on parent objects export correctly.
- Libraries can be accessed directly from organization subscription settings.
## FigJam Improvements
- FigJam shapes support more flexible resizing.
- Right-clicking an element copies a direct link to it.
- Stamps can be dragged directly from the stamp wheel.
- The red shape color is now a truer red.
- Team libraries are prioritized in the library-selection modal.
- Connector text editing is simpler with standard Return or Enter behavior.
The updates demonstrate how incremental improvements to shortcuts, performance, publishing, and collaboration can substantially improve everyday workflows. Designers and teams can explore the changes through Figma’s accompanying Community file.
Figma’s Quality Weeks dedicate focused time to bugs, edge cases, and features that technically work but feel broken. The post argues that software quality is not defined only by code correctness: browser behavior, user expectations, perceived responsiveness, and inconsistent support can all make a product feel buggy. Small fixes—sometimes only a few lines of code—can therefore have disproportionately large effects.
## Quality Week and the macOS Accent-Menu Bug
- Figma periodically holds Quality Weeks to address forgotten bugs, oddities, and issues outside normal feature work.
- A macOS accent-menu problem caused letters to repeat or fail to appear.
- The issue involved the complex sequence of keyboard and text-input events handled by the operating system and browser before Figma received them.
- Molly developed a fix of fewer than ten lines that worked in Firefox and Safari and supported both keyboard and mouse input.
- Chrome, Figma’s most widely used browser, still exhibited the problem, showing that a technically correct fix may not solve the user-facing issue for most customers.
- She also reported the underlying browser issue to Chrome developers for a possible future fix.
## The Difference Between a Technical Bug and a Real Bug
- In theory, a bug consists of:
- How the software is supposed to behave.
- How its current behavior differs.
- Real-world systems make those definitions ambiguous:
- Intended behavior may not be clearly defined.
- A perfect fix may be impractical or impossible.
- Some problems require choosing a new, less-buggy direction rather than restoring the old one.
- Historical examples such as Y2K, the Pentium FDIV error, and the Mars Climate Orbiter failure demonstrate that identifying a problem and knowing its cause does not automatically make it easy to resolve.
- Figma treats issues as worthy of attention when they materially affect users, even if they do not fit a strict engineering definition of “bug.”
## When Missing Support Feels Like a Bug
- HEIC image support illustrates the difference between “never implemented” and “broken” from a user’s perspective.
- Figma’s inconsistent handling of HEIC files—especially images dragged from iPhones and iPads—made the product feel unreliable.
- Sawyer added support in 98 lines of code.
- The new support exposed a second usability problem: large, high-resolution HEIC files could take many seconds to process, during which the canvas appeared to ignore the drop.
- Jackie identified that a loading state could communicate progress and prevent users from assuming the feature had failed.
- The example shows that fixing one problem can reveal another, and that perceived responsiveness is part of product quality.
Figma’s approach is to prioritize issues based not only on technical correctness but also on how users experience the product. Quality work should address the small inconsistencies that make software feel unreliable, particularly when a modest implementation can remove substantial frustration.
Figma used a series of data-driven experiments to redesign its comments experience and encourage collaboration among both editors and viewers. Although comments strongly predicted team retention and growth, they were underused because users struggled to discover them. Experiments confirmed that improving visibility increased comment creation, while an intuitive-looking relocation of the comments control unexpectedly reduced discoverability.
## Collaboration and Comments
- Teams that collaborate during their first month are:
- 1.75× more likely to be retained.
- 6.5× more likely to become customers.
- Figma identified comments as a potential “front door” to collaboration because both editors and viewers can use them.
- Despite their value, comments were not widely used, prompting the data science team to investigate the gap between user needs and behavior.
## Testing Comment Discoverability
- Users previously entered comment mode through an icon in the upper-left corner of the editor.
- Research sessions suggested that comments were valuable but difficult to find.
- Figma tested a prompt encouraging view-only developers to leave comments.
- After two weeks in a 50/50 experiment:
- Comment creation increased by 45% in the test group.
- The rate of users returning to comments the following week did not change.
- The result showed that simply making comments more visible could substantially increase usage.
## An Unexpected Result
- Figma hypothesized that moving the comments entry point from the left side of the menu bar to the right would improve discoverability.
- The reasoning was that the left side emphasized creation tools, while the right side contained collaboration and viewing features more relevant to cross-functional users.
- Among new users, the change caused a 20% decrease in comment discovery within seven days of signup.
- The failed experiment demonstrated that seemingly logical product changes can significantly harm user behavior.
- It also reinforced the value of controlled experiments: product hypotheses are often wrong, and teams should expect testing to disprove many ideas.
Figma’s experience illustrates that effective product development depends on combining user research with rigorous experimentation. Rather than relying on intuition about interface placement, teams should validate each change with real behavioral data and use unexpected results to guide subsequent iterations.
The article explores how creative work may evolve in 2022 as remote and hybrid work become permanent. Soleio argues that collaboration will move further into digital tools, requiring stronger documentation, asynchronous processes, and organizational discipline. He also predicts that creative tools will spread across the workforce and increasingly incorporate automated, virtual collaborators.
## Hybrid Work Will Reshape Creative Collaboration
- Creative work will increasingly reflect hybrid workforce models.
- Institutional knowledge and team context will move from physical offices into digital environments.
- Traditional brainstorming sessions may shift from conference rooms to tools such as FigJam.
- Creative software will become more accessible and collaborative, encouraging people outside traditional creative roles to use it.
## London’s Growing Technology Ecosystem
- Relocating from Silicon Valley to London required Soleio to adjust his understanding of the two technology ecosystems.
- Whereas technology dominates the Bay Area, it remains a newer and more disruptive sector in many other regions.
- London is attracting more early-stage investors and becoming a stronger home for ambitious startups.
- This growth may allow founders to build major technology companies without moving to Silicon Valley.
## Global Teams Need Better Organizational Hygiene
- Distributed teams must deliberately coordinate feedback and decision-making across time zones.
- Clear writing, recorded video feedback, and structured processes will become more important.
- Remote teams cannot rely on shared office space or informal conversations to maintain context.
- Transparent documentation and decision-making will become a competitive advantage.
## Automation and Virtual Collaborators
- Design exploration and feedback are expected to become increasingly automated.
- Future knowledge work may involve non-human agents that provide feedback, support iteration, and perform tasks currently handled manually.
- These tools could fundamentally change the nature of teamwork by making virtual collaborators part of everyday creative processes.
Teams preparing for the future should invest not only in collaborative tools, but also in documentation, asynchronous communication, and transparent organizational practices.
Figma’s 2021 data shows how remote and hybrid work reshaped design collaboration. Teams increasingly worked across borders and included product managers and developers earlier, using FigJam for ideation and Figma for interface design and handoff. The overall trend was toward a more open, continuous design process spanning idea to implementation.
## Building Across Borders
- Figma users represented 235 countries and territories.
- Collaboration activity grew across regions and time zones as organizations adopted virtual-first and hybrid work.
- In the U.S., New York and California remained major collaboration hubs, while Washington and Texas gained activity.
- Globally, the U.S. and Russia were established hubs, with India, Brazil, and Indonesia increasingly active.
- Nearly 14% of collaboration occurred between different continents, up from 8% in early 2020.
- Examples included teams collaborating between Madrid and Wellington, and between Beijing and Buenos Aires.
## From Ideas to Shipped Products
- About 52% of users collaborated with others in 2021.
- Shared files had a median of four invited collaborators.
- Product managers and developers were the largest groups of Figma users outside designers.
- FigJam supported early-stage brainstorming and freeform exploration before teams moved into Figma to build interfaces.
- Around 15% of active FigJam users began with templates, with brainstorming templates the most popular.
## A More Open Design Process
- The first collaborator viewed a Figma file an average of 10 days after creation, compared with 19 days in 2019.
- This suggests cross-functional partners were being involved earlier in design.
- Developers participated in 40% of collaborative files.
- When developers joined, handoff typically began 33 days after design creation and continued for 45 days after the first code inspection.
- Handoff activity often continued well after the final design edit.
## Collaboration Beyond Design
- Teams increasingly used digital tools for activities traditionally held in person.
- FigJam supported stand-ups, icebreakers, roadmapping, retrospectives, and other team exercises.
- The shift reflects a broader move toward virtual-friendly collaboration across the entire product development process.
Figma’s findings recommend treating design as a shared, end-to-end process rather than an isolated stage. Bringing cross-functional partners into FigJam and Figma early can improve collaboration across locations, disciplines, and the full path from concept to code.
Figma’s December 2021 updates focus on making collaboration and creation more seamless across Figma and FigJam. The release adds richer media support, improved drawing tools, and expanded mobile capabilities. Together, these changes help teams share context, refine ideas, and preview designs without interrupting their workflow.
## Enriching FigJam collaboration
- Users can paste links into FigJam to watch Vimeo videos, play Spotify music, and share other rich media.
- The new Vimeo plugin supports screen and webcam recordings directly within Figma and FigJam.
- Recordings can be used for status updates, product demos, tutorials, and asynchronous collaboration.
## Highlighting and refining ideas
- The new **Highlighter** tool emphasizes text and other FigJam elements.
- Holding **Shift** while highlighting creates perfectly straight lines.
- The **Eraser** tool removes individual strokes, making it easier to correct sketches and refine work in progress.
## Expanding mobile design workflows
The updated Figma mobile app lets designers preview, review, and manage work more independently from a desktop.
- Play prototypes directly on mobile devices.
- Toggle hotspot hints during prototype playback.
- Mirror selected desktop frames to a mobile device.
- Share, browse, and view Figma files and prototypes.
- Share, browse, and view FigJam files.
- Navigate teams, projects, and workspaces from the app.
- Updates are available for iOS and Android phones and tablets.
Figma’s December release is primarily about removing friction from collaboration: teams can communicate with richer media, improve FigJam ideation with more precise tools, and validate mobile experiences directly on their devices.
The Figma prototype challenge is a 15-day learning series designed to help designers move from basic prototyping to advanced, high-fidelity interactions. It emphasizes experimentation, user testing, developer handoff, and critique, using Figma’s newer features—especially Smart Animate and interactive components—to create more realistic prototypes with less wiring.
## Building a Foundation with Smart Animate
- **Smart Animate** creates animated transitions between screens by matching layers with the same names.
- It can be combined with preset transitions such as slide and push.
- Matching layers with Smart Animate is useful for interfaces such as tab navigation.
- Preserving consistent layer names between screens is essential for the animation to work correctly.
## Creating Reusable Interactive Components
- **Interactive components** define interactions and animations between variants within a component set.
- Instances become interactive immediately in prototype mode.
- Component-level interactions reduce the size and complexity of larger prototypes.
- They are particularly useful for demonstrating microinteractions.
## Nesting Components for More Complex Behavior
- Interactive components can be nested inside one another.
- Nested components allow elements such as list items to contain their own built-in interactions.
- This reduces the number of prototype links required between component variants.
- The approach makes complex interfaces easier to maintain and reuse.
## Applying the Techniques to a Mobile Prototype
- The first week concludes by combining Smart Animate, matching layers, interactive components, and nesting.
- These techniques are used to build a mobile prototype with interactive bottom navigation.
- The challenge progresses from foundational transitions to increasingly complex, component-based interactions.
- Figma Community files accompany the daily challenges so designers can follow along or create their own version.
The practical recommendation is to learn prototyping incrementally: start with Smart Animate, preserve layer structure carefully, then introduce interactive and nested components to create sophisticated interfaces with fewer connections and more reusable behavior.
