So, Adobe bought Figma for $20B. Just how did Figma come to dominate the UX/UI Market?
1 word: collaboration.
In hindsight, it seems obvious that design tools should be collaborative. And it’s not as if Figma is the only collaborative design tool. But, Figma was able to innovate faster, and through a relentless focus on serving their customer, they ultimately won over the hearts and minds of designers everywhere.
In fact, a 2021 survey by https://UxTools.co found that 63% of designers used Figma as their primary design tool. (https://uxtools.co/survey-2021/)
Why do designers use Figma?
Read a few things designers say about Figma:
- “The core insight of Figma is that design is larger than just designers.” (Kevin A Kwok, Investor and writer)
- “Figma understands how people work and accommodates the designer’s needs. It then translates into easy collaboration.” (Eva Kuttichova, Product & Interaction Designer)
- “Figma simplifies the design process and is more effective than other programs at helping designers and teams work together efficiently” (Ben Kopf, Senior Information Architect at UPS)
There are thousands of testimonials like these. It is clear: designers love Figma.
Figma’s success proves Claritee’s use-case
We at Claritee are happy for the success of Figma. It is especially sweet, since it proves to us something very important: The success of Figma proves that people need design to be collaborative. And, it proves that the collaboration should extend even to those outside the design team.
Claritee was built exactly on this philosophy. The best part is, teams that use Figma can also use Claritee. We don’t replace the design process – we enhance it!
Figma brought collaboration to designers.
But they didn’t make design, itself, collaborative.
That is, Figma brought a collaborative tool to the design team. But outside the design team, design with Figma is just as uncollaborative as it always was. Non-designers are still dependent on designers to come up with all the ideas, make all the changes, and interpret all the feedback, during the design process. And this is despite the fact that design is now considered to be a core business activity.
Taking collaboration further
Claritee takes collaboration a step further than Figma because it opens up the design process to everybody. In Claritee, the entire team collaborates to produce a blueprint for the design project. Teams that use Claritee may still design in Figma, or any other tool. But they build and manage their blueprints in Claritee.
A blueprint is interactive and clickable, like your final design, but it is without design aesthetics. It includes the requirements, content, and copy. All departments can be involved from the beginning. It is the single source of truth for the product.
Claritee makes it easier for changes in the design to be planned and implemented, because it makes the blueprinting process accessible to everybody.
In short, Claritee makes design truly collaborative.
Today, thousands of users create and manage their blueprints in Claritee. These teams design in Figma and in other tools, but Claritee has become an important part of their total design workflow.
We are happy for Figma, and we hope that their success will encourage more people to embrace a collaborative approach to design!
If you are interested in trying out Claritee, head over to Claritee.io and open an account. It’s free!
