Today's generative AI is lowering the bar for a large number of jobs. This is true for content creators, software developers, and now for UI designers.
On June 27, Figma, the market leader in UI/UX design tools, held its "Config 2024" conference at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. This is Figma's most important annual event, bringing together designers, developers and creatives from around the world to unveil the company's latest product technologies and discuss design trends and industry forward-looking.
Figma's position in the circle is equivalent to Photoshop for image editing, Slack for team communication, Salesforce for customer management... Therefore, it is not an exaggeration to describe the influence and attention of the event as the "Spring Festival Gala of the design industry".
This year's Figma Config 2024 can be summed up in one sentence: embrace AI. CEO Dylan Field announced a series of major updates led by AI feature integration, including a new user interface design, a stand-alone product, Figma Slides, and developer mode enhancements.
Figma CEO Dylan Field在Config 2024大会上身穿写着「Now with AI」的T恤
Figma AI is finally here, with 8 AI features that comprehensively optimize the design process
Figma believes that when software development is growing exponentially, design is what separates a good product from a common solution. They introduced a powerful set of AI tools to streamline the design process and improve creative efficiency. Let users think further and build faster in their work.
1.文本提示生成设计 （Make Designs）
Whenever I open a new blank canvas, I don't know where to start. It's now much easier with the Make Designs feature in the Actions panel: just type in the text requirements and the AI will quickly provide you with a first draft, generate UI layouts and component options, and solve big problems from 0 to 1.
2. 智能搜索 （Visual Search & AI-enhanced Asset Search）
Locating specific assets from a vast array of design assets is like looking for a needle in a haystack. Two new methods have been introduced: "Visual Search" and "AI-Enhanced Asset Search". Users can upload images, screenshots, or enter keywords, and Figma AI will quickly find relevant design elements in all files based on these inputs. In addition, it is possible to go beyond the literal meaning and understand the intent and context behind the semantics, such as searching for a "button", and the simplified name 'btn' can also be located.
3. AI生成交互原型 （AI-powered Prototype）
After completing the design, you want to show off the effect immediately, quickly enter the user test or collect feedback? There's no need to go through the tedious process of manually connecting the various interface elements first. Figma AI has launched a new auto-generated prototype function, which can instantly turn a static UI design into a prototype that can be clicked and interacted with just a few clicks, and preview it directly in the original canvas. Help designers avoid repetitive work and focus more on their own creative details.
4. 自动重命名图层（Rename Layers）
What may seem like a small feature can save designers hours of monotonous work throughout the project. With a single click, the developers who took over the disk were grateful for the intelligent renaming and reorganization of the layers based on their content and context.
5. 智能内容替换（Replace Content）
Placeholder text bye~ Figma AI can automatically replace these boring Lorem ipsums in the design with real, interesting and relevant content, so as to better simulate the look and feel of the final product, helping designers and customers evaluate the effect more accurately.
6. 生成图片（Make image）
A must-have Wensheng diagram function. Generate unique images by entering text commands and add them to your design.
7. 去除背景（Remove background）
A must-have one-click removal of the background of an image, simplifying the editing process without leaving the canvas.
8. 文本自动改写和翻译（Rewrite, translate, and shorten text）
In terms of copywriting optimization, Figma AI also has to contribute. Also click in the menu in Actions to help you adjust the length and tone of your text, or translate it into another language as needed – all for a higher-quality, smooth, and international design experience.
全新用户界面「UI3」:Simpler is Better
In addition to AI innovations, Figma has also launched its third major interface revamp, called "UI3", based on "inspiration from the way we work today and feedback from the community".
The new interface has been completely redesigned, updated with 200+ icons, and is cleaner and more intuitive overall, and more adaptable. Includes resizable, collapsible sidebar panels, and a new toolbar at the bottom of the canvas for quick access to features.
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NEW! Figma Slides makes PowerPoint presentations a joy
According to Figma, "The way of working has changed dramatically over the years, but the slides haven't kept pace. That's why so many people choose Figma as a solution. Last year alone, users created more than 3.5 million slide files in Figma. In fact, not only designers, but also many other practitioners use Figma as the tool of choice for creating slides.
Today, Figma is targeting the needs of the market and has combined all of the platform's popular features into a single, high-performance slideshow tool. Figma Slides supports real-time collaboration, interactive elements (such as starting a poll), a wide range of templates and themes, and allows users to embed and edit designs directly, helping to quickly create professional and interactive presentations. At the same time, some Figma AI functions are also integrated.
Figma Slides is currently in free beta. Starting in early 2025, it will be charged at $3 and $5 per user per month. Everyone has a need, and now the wool can be picked up~
而前面提到的Figma AI和UI3，可以去Figma官网的“Everything we launched at Config 2024”模块中加入首批体验的等待名单。
Many designers are already feeling that these big updates are bringing convenience to more people who don't have a background in designers, and that things that seem to be something that only design professionals can do are no longer needed.
After programmers, the most deeply replaced jobs by AI may be designers.
Figma: A design empire built by two science students
Figma is a San Francisco, California-based design platform firm founded in 2012 by Dylan Field and Evan Wallace. The core mission is to make design more powerful, convenient, and accessible through seamless collaboration and online real-time editing tools.
Figma's main products include Figma Design, FigJam and Figma Slides. Figma Design is a browser-based design tool that supports real-time collaboration and is built for UI/UX design. FigJam is an online whiteboard for meetings, brainstorming, and planning. The new Figma Slides is a must-have for saving migrant workers. Due to its powerful features and user-friendly interface, Figma has surpassed its peers such as Sketch and Adobe XD to become the standard tool in today's design world. It is also easy for non-professional designers to get started, forming an active resource sharing and community-driven culture.
As of early 2024, Figma has more than 4 million active users in more than 100 countries around the world, covering a wide range of industries such as IT, financial services, advertising, retail, professional training, and more. It is also more than 83,800 large enterprise users, including Microsoft, Twitter, Dropbox, Stripe, Slack, GitHub, etc.
Figma's fundraising journey has also been successful. From a $3.8 million seed round in 2013 to a $200 million Series E round in 2021, it has attracted the support of many top-tier investors, including Index Ventures, Greylock Partners, Sequoia, and a16z. In 2022, Adobe offered to buy Figma for $20 billion, but it was ultimately failed to do so due to opposition from regulators. According to the latest news in May this year, Figma has reached a valuation of $12.05 billion in a secondary market share sale.
Interestingly, the founders behind such a professional design company, which is regarded as a "fairy product" by the global design community and synonymous with creativity, art and fashion, are actually two pure science students.
图：The San Francisco Standard
Dylan Field (right) and Evan Wallace (left) meet in the Brown University tech community. Dylan studied CS and Mathematics, interned at Flipboard and LinkedIn, and was awarded a Thiel Fellowship for his outstanding performance. Evan Wallace is a teaching assistant in the Department of Computer Science at Brown University and has extensive experience in computer graphics. Common interests and skills bring them together and hit it off.
In the early days of their business, the duo experimented with several projects, including drone software and 3D content generation, but ultimately decided to focus on browser-based graphics editing tools. Using WebGL technology, they demonstrated the feasibility of implementing high-performance 2D and 3D graphics processing in the browser. In December 2015, Figma launched its first invitation-only preview and officially opened beta in September '16, which revolutionized the design tool market.
Dylan Field has been the CEO of Figma ever since. After 10 years as CTO, Evan Wallace left Figma to focus on his open source project, esbuild, and continues to be active in the technical community, sharing research results and project progress.
From the entrepreneurial dream of two science students to the benchmark enterprise that changed the global design industry, Figma's story itself also confirms the infinite possibilities of combining technology and creativity, and also injects the company's DNA with technology.
On the company's fifth anniversary, Dylan Field described Figma as "a digital extension of the physical self – an invitation to let go of the ego and co-create and share consciousness with others." "At Config 2024, there is a powerful force of AI that participates in co-creation. Of course, Dylan puts the wisdom of the community and people first: "Your designs shape the way people think, and in a future that is increasingly influenced by AI, it's the craftsmanship that makes the difference between success and failure." ”