Dear Figma…

Please revert. It’s really unintuitive.

Simple functions are hidden under menu’s. Previously i did not need to search for anything at all…

Done. Please, if anyone else thinks being able to discover components in libraries by browsing (instead of only being able to search for them) is important to your workflow, please give the topic a vote.

im still struggling to parse out constraints and autolayout quickly. Yall tucked away important things like hug/filled/left+right/etc. Would love it you brought these things again to the surface more clearly.

With each of these big reveal “pull a rabbit out of a hat” Figma updates, it would be great if Figma could at least support their design direction and innovations with some robust user testing from their community of designers. Figma has proven time and again, that they put so much thought into how their product is accessed and used by different audience groups (i.e. educators)…it just seems obvious that Figma’s product team thought a little too much (by themselves) on this one before letting it off the leash into the design wild.

For future releases and there will be future version releases, Figma should consider several rounds of user testing from within the community…and from outside for new Figma users. Then they should show us why they arrived at a particular destination. There should be some form of advance notice and call to testing shown to the Figma community via their blog. This is pretty basic design 101 stuff and Figma clearly dropped the ball here.

Firstly, I appreciate your continuous efforts to evolve and enhance the platform. However, I’ve encountered a few issues with the recent UI changes that are affecting my workflow and overall experience.

1. Workflow Efficiency: The new layout has made previously seamless actions more cumbersome. Essential tools that were once easily accessible now seem buried, requiring more clicks to reach. This increase in friction slows down tasks that used to feel natural and intuitive, reducing overall productivity.

2. Visual Clarity: While I understand the intent behind modernizing the interface, the new design elements feel visually overwhelming. The added complexity creates unnecessary distractions and makes the workspace feel cluttered. Figma’s previous UI had a balance of simplicity and efficiency that I found really effective for focusing on the design itself without feeling overwhelmed by the tools.

3. Tool Placement & Discoverability: The relocation of certain core features, like iinsert specific example], has disrupted the fluidity of my workflow. This change adds cognitive load as I now need to hunt for familiar tools in unfamiliar locations. The previous layout was more intuitive, allowing for smoother navigation, and the new one feels like a step backward in this regard.

4. Customization & Flexibility: If these changes are aimed at broadening functionality, offering more flexibility for users to customize their tool placement could help. Letting users adjust the UI according to their preferences might strike a better balance between new features and usability.

Overall, the previous UI design was cleaner, quicker to navigate, and provided a more streamlined user experience. I hope these concerns can be addressed or considered in future iterations, as Figma has always stood out for its ease of use and thoughtful design.

Agree… I really tried to use the new UI but I really can’t. A lot of bad choices.

There is awesome features that’s not exist anymore like select multiple element and make it a multiple variants component. The way to find components/plugins is awful.

I’m still getting to grips with the new UI, but the most glaring barrier to my adoption is that the UI text and icons are far too small. My eyesight is not as sharp as it used to be, so it would be extremely helpful if the UI elements were enlarged and an option to adjust the size at the user level was provided.

I use the Mac app (so that I can hide/show Figma independently of the web browser), and I work on a 27" Mac Studio monitor. Clearly, the UI was not tested with these variables in mind, as I can barely read the interface (see attached).

Please fix it. In the meantime, I’ll return to the old UI, which is still on the small side for my liking, but at least I know where everything is.

Noticed an issue recently…

• Borders and dividers are all the same/similar color


• All of the different surfaces in both the left and right panels have the same exact same bg color.

As a result of the above, there is very little (if any) visual hierarchy within the UI itself to provide any visual affordance.

Left Panel:

Suggestions

Thicker draggable dividers

One easy way to remedy part of the problem is to make draggable dividers thicker than all other borders/lines. This has multiple benefits:

1. Making them thicker provides a better visual affordance that they can be dragged, eliminating confusion with nearby borders that aren’t resizable.


2. Making them thicker also makes it so much easier to interact with. Small lines are horrible for accessibility if you don’t have 1000% cursor precision at all times.

I completely agree with everything everyone has said. The new UI makes nearly every type of action harder and more cumbersome. The reorganized panels are so much less intuitive, and many actions require more clicks to complete them. That is like basic UX 101 - you try to eliminate steps and make tasks easier, not harder!

But the worst offender of all for me is the goddamn bottom positioned toolbar. Why? Whyyyyyyyyyyyy would you do that? It’s honestly shocking how badly they got it wrong.

I’ve always respected them for their ability to combine simplicity with efficiency, I’m not a designer. But as a developer I have to use it from time to time, but now it’s a complete bummer.

Everything you need is hidden, and what is garbage is constantly in front of you.

The right side panel automatically pops up when an item is clicked on, which is good if you are editing that item. However, many times I might be moving an item or commenting on an item and the item or comment gets covered up by the right panel. When this happens I have to stop my progress and move the page so the item doesn’t get covered up by that panel.

The new UI is so much off, starting with the prioritization of the most-used features and ending with its clutter. Of course, naturally, there’s some initial resistance to such radical changes, but the real issue is that some of these changes are hard to justify. Especially, considering there are many small things those are waiting for improvements for years—but remaining ignored for some reason.

Haven’t seen the new UI, but this is certainly a very insightful review. Thanks for taking the time, I hope that the Figma team is going to hear this

Hello. Old UX shortcuts are broken and no longer available in UI3. For instance, clicking on the text “Export” no longer adds a new export to the list - which is a bit strange because it means that I have to click this stupidly small button now to do one of the main purposes of even using Figma in the first place for many kinds of design. Please–reconsider adding more convenient hitboxes for common actions.

I 100% agree on all of this. I was excited to try this out, but my first impressions are not positive. As a long-time Figma user, I’ve grown accustomed to the simplicity of the UI and how it added a great deal of benefit to my design teams without blowing the bank (I’m looking at you Adobe).

This latest update is atrocious, specifically the right Design panel. Nothing about this makes sense. My life was made harder and less efficient.

I wanted to like it, but the readability of icons and things is far worse. I switched back as properties panel is a mess

New icons are terrible. smaller and less readable. On my retina monitor it is almost not usable, while I could work easily with UI2. Creating masks, components etc totally out of place. Navigation on bottom conflicting with the hidden task bar on windows. I need to be extra cautious not to trigger the taskbar, with the classic ui on top, there was no issue with it.

The same issue with windows taskbar.

I miss the old days when you could have a tool not change on you with what feels like a massive downgrade all over, even as a user that uses Remote Devices with Touch Interfaces.

This was not the way to solve that problem.

The underlying operation is not friendly to human operation and blocks the interface.

The shortcut keys for commonly used plug-ins are gone, which is very unfriendly.

The properties of the widgets inside the component cannot be associated with the current component and cannot be found in the component display, which greatly affects efficiency.

I totally agree with the above – the new UI is absolutely unfriendly to the users who work for several years with that interface. The right panel with the properties is hard to understand and I don’t find any logic with the new division of sections. Unnecessary revolution, to be honest.

The new version of Figma is so ugly, why change it to Sketch like interaction? Figma is already the most user-friendly product, and if you have to copy the interaction of a junk product, what did the designer and product manager think? And with this color, I don’t want to say. The UI is a piece of crap, and the rounded corners are simply used. It’s a piece of crap, and it doesn’t even consider how big the user’s screen is. Do you know how ugly it is to have a Docker bar at the bottom when opening a browser on Windows?

It was not a priority for me to update the interface. I think there are bigger issues to work on for Figma, but isn’t it also a matter of getting used to? I am not experiencing any major problems and/or frustrations yet.

I used the new UI for 10 seconds, absolutely hated main tools being moved to the bottom. WORST choice. Instant no from me. Also it not a fan of it automatically switching up the black ui to light. I reverted back.

Please don’t roll out!!

This new UI has been poorly designed and considered. The floating tool bar just adds more clutter (and you don’t seem to be able to move it), text is too small in the UI panels. Can’t find my assets easily by visual scanning. I could go on, but it’s all been said above and I just wanted to voice how bad this is.