The Future of Design: Figma Updates from Config 2024

Well, well. If up until now I wasn’t sure if I should keep UI in my title, now I am removing it for sure. 😅

Suppose you are late to the party with the news, welcome! Even if you are not, grab a drink and see what’s new after Config 2024. 🧋

P.S. Instructions for opting out from AI features are further down in the story.

Did you watch the stream? Did you see the defining silence when the AI feature was announced? Let me show you! 😁 The link below is with a timestamp from the exact minute.

As a UX designer, my primary focus is on research, user testing, organizing findings in FigJam, and collaborating directly with web builders, which means I don’t spend most of my time in Figma.

Key Updates

What Figma introduced during this conference were some impressive updates and features!

• New user interface design version 3  — fresh, rearranged and rounded. Let the “where this could be” games start.
• More for the developers! — added dev mode options
• Action bar and AI tools — great positioning, in my opinion, all important buttons included
• Figma slides — jumpstarting with presentations 🥳

I see all these changes including the Figma AI and Figma Slides as helpful updates. Figma Slides is one of the most used newly introduced features. Renaming layers and being able to pull up screens to accelerate ideation and brainstorming will be quite practical. Are those screens sourced ethically, well, that’s Figma’s job to work around.

Instructions

Go to Home, All projects, go to your team name, right-click on View settings and scroll down to AI, Manage AI settings and choose which options you want to opt-out from. Either the one about feeding Figma’s models or the one about wanting your team to use Figma AI.

---

Thank you for reading!

Note: Some of the links in my articles are affiliate links, which means I may earn a commission if you purchase through one of those links.

To support my writing, you can:

• Follow me on Medium.
• Want more stories? Find my blog and previous stories here on my website.
• Subscribe to my newsletter for extended stories, news, materials and behind the scenes of my business.
• 🎙️Have a listen to my podcast that I host with my friend.
• If you enjoy my stories and want to support my work, you can buy me a coffee, sweet pastry or bubble tea! 🧋I have also created memberships with special rewards!

If you know someone who will enjoy my stories, please share them with them! 🙂

P.S. If you want to be part of my curious journey, you can find me on also on Instagram @angelova.nikoleta.design and LinkedIn (Nikoleta Angelova). Don’t forget to include a note on LinkedIn. 😉

Are you struggling with productivity or understanding design decisions? Join me on my YouTube where I explain web design and stream sometimes.

‍