Figma has transformed the landscape of design collaboration and prototyping, presenting a flexible and user-friendly platform for designers and teams alike. In this piece, we'll examine the essential features and capabilities of Figma, delving into its collaborative essence, intuitive design, and the newly introduced Dev Mode. Whether you're an experienced Figma user or a beginner, this article aims to offer valuable insights to improve your design process.

Overview about Figma 2024

Figma's collaborative functionalities stand out as one of its defining features. It enables multiple designers to collaborate seamlessly on a single project, facilitating real-time edits and updates. This capability promotes efficient teamwork, enabling quicker iterations and seamless integration of feedback. 

Moreover, Figma serves as a comprehensive platform for design, prototyping, and creating interactive experiences. Whether it's crafting individual elements or mapping out intricate user journeys, Figma provides a diverse toolkit to realize your creative vision. Another noteworthy aspect of Figma is its accessibility. Its browser-based interface, compatible with Windows, Mac, and Linux operating systems, ensures universal access to its features.

Figma 2024 Structure

Let’s explore the structure of Figma, starting from the organizational level down to individual files and libraries. Figma allows users to organize their work within teams, projects, and files or libraries. Within files, designers can utilize pages and layers to structure their designs efficiently, ensuring easy navigation and management.

• Organization
• Teams
• Project
• File or Library
• Pages: Layers

Landing on files

From login: What can we find here?

When users access Figma, they encounter a plethora of valuable features designed to enhance their experience. The search function facilitates rapid retrieval of targeted files, projects, or design components. The "recent files" section provides a convenient means to revisit recent projects efficiently. Additionally, Figma streamlines the process of adding new files, whether users opt to create them from scratch or utilize templates. 

From URL: Where can you land?

Through the use of URLs, designers gain direct access to particular projects, files, frames, or prototypes. Additionally, it's possible to direct URLs to specific prototype flows, enhancing navigational efficiency.

Figma 2024 Interface

Within the Figma interface, designers have access to several panels that aid in design and collaboration. The pages panel presents an outline of the design's framework, enabling designers to arrange their work into coherent sections. Meanwhile, the layers panel showcases the diverse elements within a design, with distinct icons representing different types of elements. Users can conveniently collapse and select layers to optimize their workflow. Figma also provides comprehensive exporting capabilities, allowing designers to export assets with tailored dimensions and formats. Moreover, the bulk export feature boosts efficiency when managing numerous design elements simultaneously.

Pages panel

Inside a document, it is possible to generate numerous pages according to your requirements. Each page contains its canvas, allowing you to delve into and refine your designs. Additionally, you have the flexibility to create distinct prototypes on individual pages.

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Layers panel

Any Frames, Groups or Objects you add to the canvas will be visible in the Layers panel. You can determine if a Layer is a Frame, Group or a specific type of Object by the icon next to it:

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Exporting Assets

Figma enables you to save your designs in diverse file formats and sizes, facilitating easy sharing with others, seamless transfer of content between different tools, and the ability to create backups of your designs beyond the Figma platform.

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Prototype panel

Figma’s prototype panel plays a pivotal role in demonstrating how a design could function. It allows designers to define flows and scenarios, create interactions, and incorporate animations. By showcasing the user experience in a simulated environment, designers can validate their design decisions and gather feedback effectively.

Toolbar: Available functions for viewers

The toolbar contains a variety of tools and functions. What appears in the toolbar depends on what you have selected on the canvas.

Access the toolbar at the top of your screen in Figma.

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Commenting

Comments enhance collaboration by offering a space to discuss feedback, refine designs, and improve the iterative process directly within the original design file or prototype. To incorporate comments into your files or prototypes, just enter comment mode.

Here, you can tag your collaborators using @mentions and include emojis in your messages to enrich communication and convey emotions effectively. This functionality simplifies the feedback loop and speeds up the design iteration process.

Sharing

In Figma, you have the ability to distribute various assets, such as files, prototypes, projects, and teams. For those affiliated with an organization, extending invitations to others to join is a straightforward process. These sharing options entail different tiers of access, with teams or organizations representing the highest level, and files or prototypes the most granular level. 

Typically, granting access at a certain tier automatically confers access to the tier below it. For instance, sharing a team grants members access to the files and prototypes within that team. This hierarchical structure fosters smooth collaboration and streamlines access management within Figma.

Share files and prototypes with others:

• Share a link: Each file and prototype has a unique URL. Copy this link and send it to collaborators. 
• Send an invitation: Enter their email address to invite them to a file or prototype. 

The Share settings allow you to configure who can access the file or prototype and what permissions they get on that file. To get started with sharing, open the Share modal on any Figma or FigJam file.

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Figma 2024 Dev Mode

An impressive enhancement within Figma's repertoire is the introduction of Dev Mode, designed to enhance collaboration between designers and developers. Dev Mode presents a fresh interface tailored specifically to the requirements of developers, offering a simplified pathway to access pertinent design details. Activating the Dev Mode toggle swiftly alters Figma's interface, enabling developers to concentrate on elements primed for implementation. With upgraded functionalities such as an enhanced inspect panel, customizable code generation, and the capacity to compare alterations, Dev Mode effectively closes the divide between design and development.

In Dev Mode, developers gain the following advantages:

• Efficient navigation through designs: Dev Mode empowers developers to swiftly traverse and scrutinize design files, facilitating rapid and effective retrieval of essential information. This aids in establishing a thorough comprehension of the design, which is pivotal for initiating the development process.

• Seamless integration with developer tools: Developers can enhance their workflow by seamlessly integrating Dev Mode with their preferred tools. This integration optimizes their work process and enables smooth transitions between design and development tasks.

• Tracking design alterations and monitoring status: With Dev Mode, developers can effortlessly monitor design changes made since their last file review. This functionality enables them to stay abreast of the latest modifications and discern elements ready for implementation. By maintaining oversight of design alterations and status, Dev Mode fosters enhanced collaboration between designers and developers, facilitating efficient development and mitigating the risk of errors or miscommunication.

For designers, mastering the use of Dev Mode in Figma will offer several benefits:

• Enhance the design workflow: Dev Mode simplifies the task of structuring the expansive canvas for designers, facilitating effortless organization and presentation of design elements. This refined organization process streamlines the handoff of designs to developers, ensuring a seamless transition.
• Streamline file preparation: Effective utilization of Dev Mode by designers enables developers to grasp designs comprehensively, eliminating the need for additional redlines or annotations. This efficiency saves time and effort for both parties involved in the collaboration phase.
• Promote design-code harmony: Dev Mode fosters communication between designers and developers by aligning them with a common language. By consolidating the source of truth within Figma, designers and developers can collaborate seamlessly, reducing misunderstandings and optimizing the overall development process.

Navigation panel

• The layers panel in Dev Mode is crafted to aid developers in seamlessly navigating the design file, identifying components ready for development, and optimizing their workflow for a more streamlined design-to-development process.
• Within the layers panel in Dev Mode, you'll find:
• A designated section for elements marked as "Ready for dev."
• Thumbnails representing each screen prepared for development.
• Objects on the canvas that aren't marked as ready will be displayed at the bottom of the panel.

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Inspect panel

1. Identify development-ready sections: The Dev Mode icon signifies pages containing sections marked "Ready for dev." These designated sections are conveniently listed under "Ready for development" in the Dev Mode navigation panel.
2. Track frame editing history: The last edit timestamp of a frame is visible beneath the frame's name in the navigation panel.
3. Efficiently navigate frames and layers: In Design Mode, designers or users can organize related content into sections and designate sections as ready for development. Dev Mode prioritizes content within these sections. Content outside of sections remains visible in the left sidebar but is initially collapsed.

1. Compare design changes: If changes have been made since you last viewed a file, Compare changes will appear next to the layer information in the inspect panel. Click the link to open the frame history modal where you can compare current version to previous versions of the design.
2. Add external links and resources for developers: Both designers and developers can add links to external resources that may help with the implementation of a component. This can include GitHub, Jira, and Storybook links, as well as VS Code links that can be used with the Figma for VS Code extension. Dev resources added to components propagate to all the instances of that component.
3. Build faster with customizable code snippets: Click any object on the canvas while in Dev Mode to populate the Code section in the inspect panel. Depending on what’s selected, a typographic preview or box model is displayed, followed by auto generated code snippets for the object.
4. View layer names and types: The selected layer’s name is displayed at the top of the inspect panel, along with its layer type (component, instance, frame, text, etc.). You can also see when the layer was last updated.
5. Try component variations in the component playground: When selecting a component or instance, you’ll see a component preview, a link to the main component, as well as any links to relevant documentation and dev resources.
6. View applied styles: View styles and variables applied to the selected layer.
7. Download assets: Dev Mode can automatically detect icons and present them as downloadable assets for developers. If you want to inspect an individual vector layer contained in an icon, you can turn off automatic icon detection.
8. Export: You can apply export settings to layers to define the format and any other export settings. Figma supports the following export formats: PNG, JPG, SVG, and PDF.

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Figma 2024 plugins

Figma plugins expand the platform's capabilities, providing developers with additional tools to optimize their workflow. These plugins can improve the inspection process by offering relevant contextual information necessary for implementation. They also offer customization options for Figma's code generation, allowing developers to generate code that may not be supported natively. The Figma plugin ecosystem is continuously expanding, and users have the opportunity to create their own plugins using Figma's developer resources.

• Help to ensure that developers have all of the relevant information that they need to implement a design in one place.
• Inspection: Plugins can take over the inspect panel and pull in context and info needed for implementation.
• Codegen: Plugins can customize Figma’s code generation that Figma doesn’t support natively.
• Want to create your own plugin? figma.com/developers

Figma 2024 Tips

To optimize productivity and unleash creativity in Figma, it's essential to familiarize yourself with crucial tips and best practices. Libraries, notably Styles and Components, are integral for maintaining consistency and reusability across designs. Autolayout proves invaluable for seamlessly organizing elements, considering factors like padding, spacing, alignment, distribution, and wrapping. Moreover, Figma's prototyping features enable designers to craft interactive and captivating user experiences, demonstrating various flows and scenarios through interactions and animations.

Libraries: Styles

• Paints and colors: fill, stroke, background color
• Text: font family, size, line height, spacing
• Effects: drop and inner shadow, layer and background blur
• Layout grids: row, column, grid

Libraries: Components

• Variants
• Properties
• Instances
• Variables
• Collections
• Modes

Autolayout

• Sometimes it might confuse you.
• Allows to organize the elements in a more fluid way.
• Includes padding and spacing.
• Alignment and distribution.
• Min and max sizes
• Wrapping

Prototyping

• Display of how it could work
• Flows and scenarios
• Interactions and animations
  

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Conclusion

Figma remains at the forefront of design tools, empowering designers and teams through its collaborative environment, intuitive interface, and robust features. The addition of Dev Mode and a vast array of plugins further enriches collaboration and customization possibilities within Figma. Through adept utilization of Figma's structure, interface, and insights, designers can streamline their workflow and unleash their creative capabilities. Leveraging the available resources, designers can continually enhance their skills and stay abreast of Figma's latest advancements.