No way, it’s not ACCESSIBLE

added answer from Figma:

To clarify, we had multiple shortcuts for the same action: bring forth, send back. These were:

1. The shortcut you were using before ctrl+alt+up/down
2. The shortcut we've kept cmd+[ and cmd+] 

 
During accessibility improvements we identified that ctrl+alt+up/down was the least used for this action, and favoured cmd+[ and cmd+] for it. In turn, we repurposed ctrl+alt+up/down for rotation, which was part of the accessibility effort.

Nah revert this “update”

Fully support a more accessible Figma. Fully do not support removing/remapping existing shortcuts to new ones, arbitrarily and without warning. Don’t feel like this was thought through enough. 

Hey everyone — thank you for flagging this and for describing how the shortcut behavior is affecting your workflow. We completely understand how unexpected changes like this can be frustrating, especially when they disrupt familiar design practices.

I’ve shared your reports and feedback with our product team to ensure they’re aware of how these updates are affecting your workflow. Your notes are helpful for us to better understand the issue and evaluate next steps.

In addition, we’ll keep the Accessibility at Figma article in Figma Learn updated as new information and shortcuts become available. Thanks again for your patience and for taking the time to surface this.

As a Figma user with a Spanish keyboard, I’ve run into serious difficulties with this update. I used the Bring Forward and Send Backward shortcuts every single day to move layers around. I’ve tried the new shortcut, but it doesn’t work for me because on a Spanish keyboard, to use “[`” or “]” you also have to press Alt Gr, so Ctrl + ] is not possible. When I try Ctrl + ], it actually zooms the page instead.

Please remember that even if there are fewer of us affected, those who use these shortcuts do so for a reason. You should design for all users, not just the majority. Consider the keyboards that simply cannot perform the new shortcut. If the old one doesn’t conflict with anything else, please bring it back. It’s a shortcut I relied on every day, and now I can only do it manually.

​@Tom Reem Thanks for the update, and I’m glad to get some confirmation that the product team is now aware of this issue. And it really is a big issue when a workflow you’ve used for many years just does something completely different. It’s like riding a bike that all of a sudden turns right instead of left when you turn the handle bar.

We would definitely appreciate an update on this as soon as there is any. 

​@Tom Reem Thanks for the update, could you please just revert the update and let us all use cmd+alt+up/down as it was. No one asked for the rotation hotkeys.

It is time to start searching for a new app and stop paying for this software. This shortcut override is insane. You NEED to let people choose their shortcuts! 
Your main target are UX/UI Designers who works all the time thinking about the USER END and Figma just ignored, completely, their users.

I can guarantee you that there are millions more users with non english keyboard layouts than people having issues with accessibility. With the new shortcut there is no way to use on most non-english keyboards. 

Just add a fucking toggle for people who need it or let us map our own shortcuts. 

Plz change back!!

Have been CMD+OPT+Up/Down for years!

With my non-US keyboard I have no shortcut anymore. 

Just switch them

[ ] rotates objects

up and down arrow moves the layers

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The fact that they made this change without telling anyone is all we need to know about how figma cares about their users - they don’t.  And they clearly don’t test.

This was reckless and bush league - you *never* modify an existing keybind to be a new function without offering customization.  It doesn’t matter if it was the lesser used shortcut.  This has completely ruined my morning and something I had promised to deliver I now can’t, because they have completely fucked with my workflow.

Your entire product team should feel shame for being so lazy.

You guys should be embarrassed that you didn’t communicate this *at all*.  Your update is devoid of any details, full of self congratulations, and bereft of any mention of changing existing functions.

You have actively harmed your community for some self important fluff.  

Infuriating change. Figma should never silently remap hotkeys with no user notification, I thought I was going crazy. I know the bracket hotkey exists but this felt much more intuitive for layer manipulation, especially within an AL frame. Can this be reverted?

Agreed, I don’t understand the logic here — how is it intuitive for rotating clockwise/counter-clockwise to map to up/down arrows? At the very least, shouldn’t this be left/right arrows?

Either way, huge +1 that longstanding hotkeys should never be silently changed. Really poor experience here. Hoping this gets reverted so the team can be a bit more thoughtful about the decision here.

I'm glad this post already exists. There's nothing worse than changing established shortcuts that you constantly use when working with a layout. If you compare the frequency of layer reordering with the need to rotate a layer, I'm sure the result would be unfavorable. Who even thought of reassigning the most frequently used shortcut to a rare action and ruining the user experience?

Same. This isn’t just muscle memory getting irritated. It isn’t intuitive to think brackets have a relation to layers.

Plz!

For anyone struggling with this issue using a non-US layout on a Mac, you can create custom shortcuts in the Keyboard section in System Settings. For a Finnish layout, I used option-cmd-Ä/Ö, seems to work so far.

This workaround obviously does NOT mean that this issue should not be fixed by the Figma devs. Moving a shortcut like this behind a key that does not exist on international keyboards is beyond arrogant.

Honestly, one of the worst if not the worst changes I’ve experienced in Figma in 3 years of usage.
IF you do something in the name of Accessibility, give us the option to choose.
The fact that we cannot change shortcuts unlike many editing software (Cubase, for example) is just frustrating and lackluster. 

Next time, the minimum is a popup that tells us “Hey! We’ve made a few changes!”

0% thinking about the user, 100% doing what the f you want..

I agree, revert it or let users customize shortcuts!! These were one of the most important shortcuts that I use. Plus, for me the new shortcuts to bring back/front doesn’t work. SUPER annoying. 

Hot fixed?