Is This the End of Product Design as We Know It? (Figma AI)

In this video, I'll share my thoughts and perspective on recent Figma announcements. In particular Figma AI: dependencies, early constraints and impact on product design as a craft in UX.
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#ux #productdesign #figma

[@vaexperience]

What do you think about Figma AI?

[@brittei]

I think it’s strange that Figma, a tool for designers, is trying to make designers obsolete…

[@masterloot]

Every path has been explored and recorded. We have reached the human imput plateau. No more innovaion is needed unless fundamental systems change. Fully equipped Ai (not the chatgpt gimped version) can effectivelly do what product designers do.

[@calinola7957]

@@vaexperience I think it’s a search engine of Figma’s library with a chat interface slapped on it. I really like the way you can alter the designs it generates. That’s the coolest part.

[@platinumdynamite]

Not a fan of scraping customer libraries to feed a model. Not convinced that designers will seriously be using prompt outputs in professional contexts. Want to be proven wrong.

[@Author_SoftwareDesigner]

I’m in school for UX right now. And I feel kinda screwed. Taking figma wire framing and prototyping next semester. I guess I can switch over to product management.

[@MuratKarakus-to4tr]

your thumbnails...end of design and so on...always manages to ruin my beautiful day:)

[@Tarz2155]

Same 😂 and I’m a student

[@Author_SoftwareDesigner]

@@Tarz2155Same

[@Togglez97]

This journey of trying to get a job as a UX designer has been absolutely devastating. From going through a bootcamp, creating a portfolio and resume, networking, and job applying just to be rejected by everyone and everything. Only to now hear that AI may completely make it impossible to find work. I'm really feeling like giving up on this whole career path. So depressing.

[@maximillian9926]

Do another AI Course, learn the principles and instead of UX designer, call yourself AI designer, don't give up.

[@mnmlst1]

Learn Java. There's always jobs for Java.

[@juliandavis6140]

I realized a few years ago that UI/UX is a skill now. Not a career. Now that you understand how to design. Learn how to implement. Learn to code, or at least to use a CMS to transform your UI into a functional website or app. People and businesses are always going to need websites, and even if AI can make an entire website or app. There are a lot of people who aren’t going to care to learn anything about AI design tools. There are freelance opportunities at the very least. Consumers are hiring you because they don’t have wisdom to accomplish something and don’t have the time to develop that wisdom. They don’t care what tools you’re using if the end product does what it is supposed to do. It sounds like you know way more than me and I’ve picked up 7 clients over the past 3 months just from word of mouth. Don’t give up, just build and adapt on what you’ve spent all of that time and energy learning.

[@Author_SoftwareDesigner]

I’m in school for UX / UI design right now. Next semester I have a pro typing and wire framing class. I’m going to learn product management. I feel becoming a full stack coder or product manager are the only viable paths now.

[@SophiaVUX]

Learn IA and strategy!!! Just like Va says at the end of the video. You've got this. I've been annoyed with technology 200 times TODAY. UX still hasn't figured it out and all the training data is going to perpetuate the subpar design that 90% of the industry has been pumping out for years. We need all the bright minds we can get 🤓

[@jonimortimore443]

VA, this is like chicken soup for the soul. We’ve met online a while ago and I’m now a fan of your content and philosophy. Thank you 😊

[@SophiaVUX]

I am so glad you mentioned information architecture. IA, UX requirements definition (what PMs have kind of been doing...) and product strategy are where we all need to be enhancing our skills. OOUX helps with all of this!

[@daneconsidine1780]

Thank you for your great clarity again. Im so excited to continue my learning path and now we have such a powerful tool on our sides, we can only be more efficient on the empathy side of things. "if you cant beat it, join it" but this was'nt meant to be beat, it was meant to be joined.

[@tuams]

I like the realism you bring in. And seeing what these tools can and cannot do, really makes me understand that my skillset needs to focus on the collaboration and driving the discovery process through. Will really help to enrich discoveries with visuals.

[@Ocean2117]

Thank you so much for this. I have been looking for insight from seniors as I am only a few years into my Product Design career. While I'm successful, Config really has me worried about job security 10 years out. I've had the feeling a full service designer with code skills seems to be the way to go and I think you are confirming that. I like your input on how this vastly expands the user base to people who are not in design - like Canva these past few years.

[@angelova.nikoleta.design]

We will be fine. As long as we do not neglect UX, research and user testing. But that panel session shooked me a bit 😁

[@TCakes]

They already pulled it a couple hours ago because it’s not ready and copying designs verbatim 💀

[@rolfschierkowski8869]

I don‘t reallY see the problem. It‘s about time that these tool become mature. Instead of spending hours with dull activities there is more time to think, discuss and evaluate.

[@wge621]

dunno if you've played around with claude artifacts, but it actually creates clickable prototypes in seconds, which I find very cool! chatgpt could describe UI or even draw it out in a way with text, but claude now allows you to have nested react components and functionality. it's pretty cool, especially when you're having a brain freeze about how to lay things out/what the flow could look like

[@vaexperience]

No I haven't, sounds interesting. Will take a look

[@platinumdynamite]

Figma is still just a tool. It's still missing a lot of fundamental parts of what being a UX Designer is - and I honestly lament the generation of 'instant gratification' designers who don't really understand deeply what they're designing. A bit like frontend engineers building static sites in React - technology is getting more in the way than helping.

[@dinoscheidt]

lol…. A designer who wants consistency, suggests frontend engineers should code a “simple” static website with imperative html and css instead of declarative components. If technology would get in the way, it would not be adopted and survive at a macro economic scale.

[@platinumdynamite]

@@dinoscheidt "If technology would get in the way, it would not be adopted and survive at a macro economic scale." I don't think that makes sense. Many people can adopt a technology that is not ultimately that helpful, but makes a lot of promises of making things easier. Look at 'smart devices' that have permeated many product spaces but often come with annoying updates, lack of command recognition, at worst, locking features behind paywalls.

[@MrRobotoDomo]

I wonder if the AI can be used as a brainstorming partner doing HMW exercise by inputing insights from a user problem or feeding ux research outputs

[@adoraduca]

great video ... what it actually does it removes the hard skills from de design ... ten anyone can become UI / UX designer easily, because researching users, understanding people needs, business processes and so on are very transferable skills ... so basically anyone with business and people understanding can become UX / UI designer easily ... and also will be a lot less UX / UI works ... because the hard and time-consuming work has been automated ... now the Product Manager / Product Owner / Business Analyst can assemble screens and talk directly with Engineers ;)

[@vaexperience]

Sort of. Still there's way too much heavy lifting even with the best AI tools for any of the other roles to take on. At least for the foresable future. But yes if you zoom out long enough it's inevitable that design as we know it will morph across different hands

[@calinola7957]

Honestly, this seems like a new way to use a design tool versus a way to actually become a designer. It’s like saying if a product manager knows how to use Figma (which is pretty easy to use already) you don’t need a designer. Which is basically what was happening back in the day when non designers dictated designs to graphic and web designers before UX/UI designers existed. Imagine products designed by product managers with no design skills or training. AI seems more like a conversational interface and search engine instead of an actual designer in this case. You can search and put together UI kits now it just takes longer. Not to mention it takes pieces of designs that were created by human designers. Basically stealing their work and wrapping it up in a chat interface.

[@scrooge-mcduck]

Will AI replace Designers? No. But Designers using AI will replace non-AI-Designers. But seriously. This AI in Figma is terrible news because now non-Designers will pretend to be Designers and that'll lead to further en-shit-ification of the Internet. The "starting step" will become a MVP will become the finished product. For cheap.

[@shugyosha7924]

It has to be able to conform to the project's existing styles. If it can do that then it will be more useful.

[@Author_SoftwareDesigner]

It probably can’t do that yet, but it will be able to soon.

[@aaazer_]

Will this AI feature free for all user? Or it's only available for premium plan?

[@vaexperience]

Likely will be added cost just like figjam was

[@jdrewsdraws]

Introducing AI into Figma does not mean everyone’s jobs will be taken overnigh lol he’s right when he says Figma is a tool and these new feature releases are actually really useful to us product designers who want to test out ideas quickly, but after that we still need to do the work in implementing designs, navigation stakeholders, testing it with users, understanding success metrics, etc

[@Scarlett.R]

An AI is only as good as its training data.

[@reverb508]

Just got laid off from my last UX job. Thanks for making me worry even more about future employment prospects 🤣

[@vaexperience]

Watch it till the end. Pick yourself up - we aren't done yet 💪

[@DigiDriftZone]

Would you still use Sketch app for anything, or has Figma now fully and truly killed it?

[@vaexperience]

I haven't used sketch in around 3 years. Based on yearly ux reports companies still use it as you don't have to use subscriptions for it

[@DigiDriftZone]

@@vaexperience Yes, I quite like that and that it is a native Mac app. I haven't tried Figma but the fact it is in the browser puts me off somewhat. It's like Google Photos in Chrome vs Apple Photos natively, no matter how much effort Google make, the native app just "feels" better. Do you get that in your experience or is Figma really good in the browser?

[@vaexperience]

@DigiDriftZone I had and still do have some of that aversion, it was terrible back in the day but they made it really smooth last few years

[@scrooge-mcduck]

@@DigiDriftZone Figma is a standalone and a browser application. Your choice.

[@DigiDriftZone]

@@scrooge-mcduck Isn't the standalone application just a bundled chrome browser, like the Notion app say?

[@JoshTalent]

AI will replace us all even you Mr vaexperience

[@vaexperience]

Yes. Eventually