Agree with almost everyone here. I was excited to see a refreshed UI for Figma. Visually it looks really nice. Nice for marketing assets, such as videos and so on.
But using it, goooooosh, it’s plain horrible. More than a week in and nothing feels intuitive. Still trying to find my fill, hug etc. Why are the constraints hidden behind a little icon and why does it open left from the sidebar? The toolbar at the bottom center sucks and is annoying. The gab from the rulers to the floating sidepanels is also annoying and distracting. Basically everything sucks from a usability perspective. Gonna revert back and hope they cancel UI3 and come up with a well tested UI4 for the next config.
I guess there’s no need for me to repeat what has been said before. I’m on the same page with most of the issues people have pointed here.
What I want to say is that:
First, generally I dislike the UI3 update, I’ve used it for a few good days and I couldn’t no more, far too many changes, too much frustration. Some updates might be justified, others don’t make sense at all (hidden features/actions/functionalities, floating panels, toolbar bottom-centre gets too much attention and space, etc).
Second, I was hoping I’d see an evolution of UI2 instead of the UI3 revolution. The good changes in UI3 got lost between too many bad ones and too much frustration; with an evolution approach all these changes could have been spread over many updates, the UI polished slowly, and the frustration avoided. Everyone would have been happy!
Totally feel you on the new Figma UI! Those gaps where panels can’t attach are such a hassle and do mess with your design flow. And yeah, the toolbar at the bottom can be a pain, especially if it blends with your design. It’s like they’re catering to newbies with the toolbar shift, but for power users like us, it’s a step backward. Fingers crossed they tweak it in the next update!
As far as I understand they wanted to align it more with FigJam (and Slides), but they really misunderstood their users/customer base.
FigJam is a tool catering to POs/Managers/Business Analysts/UX Researchers/(So, mainly non-designers)
Slides is a tool for POs/Managers/Business Analysts and makes Designers happy because they won’t have to use Powerpoint.
But Figma is a professional tool for (UI/UX) designers, with tools for handing off designs to devs and for Management/Other colleagues to comment and follow progress.
The whole UI3 redesign feels like someone decided that the floating bottom bar was the most important thing and everything else would have to adjust to that. But FigJam (still) has a top bar with the filename, the F menu, etc.
I had to switch back to UI2 because I have deliverables to hand over, with a deadline, and I was hunting for basic features.
I also find it a little more difficult to eye-scan the properties panel, not only due to the reorganization of options but also because of the input backgrounds and additional outlines around elements. However, I believe this perception may vary from person to person.
I agree, I preferred the older UI not only for the lack of being able to reoganize and snap things to the sides, but because a lot of things moved out of sight and take precious minutes to find- even when I know they have moved, my brain is struggling with the lack fo visibility on many tools, which have been nested into tiny areas. I would rather be able to collapse things I don’t need than have everything collapsed and not expandable to be always visible. (for example, the masking button, and things like Union, Subtract, etc boolean states.)
Please consider reverting to the older thinking of having everything easily accessible. I know the hot new trend is to have things as minimalist as possible but it hurts usability and accessibility, imo.
There is already a lot of necessary commentary here that is critical of the new UI so I won’t repeat much. But I agree, as it’s inefficient, cumbersome, and completely antithetical to getting work done (plus the irony of “Clearing the stage for your work” when it is literally on top of the work). These changes must not go though (or let us disable it indefintiely).
Figma really should listen to all this honest feedback.
I think they rushed it to get it (at least visually) ready for Config 2024.
But UI3 is simply not good, not well tested, not crafted with proper UX of actual users in mind. And it should be the absolute basic UX 1x1 that you simply don’t hide important information or actions from users and require them more clicks especially for labor intensive tasks.
I’m honestly flabbergasted that Figma did so many things wrong here.
Hiding width and height values, hiding Clip Content Checkbox, readability problems / color contrast issues, moving the toolbar to the bottom (why???), inefficient real estate with unnecessary paddings of panels, no dockable panels, … just to name a few that have already been mentioned here.
Did they focus too much on the visual presentation for Config?
I really hope they rework this based on the user feedback.
Please take your time Figma and let us reuse UI2 until then.
I really disliked it when Adobe started adding contextual menus right in the middle of the workspace, but you can turn those off. I want an unimpeded area to work, I really don’t like the toolbar being at the bottom in the middle. It is irritating and in the way. I harldy use the toolbar, usually keyboard shortcuts, so it’s feels in the way.
Also I am neurodivergent and I find the bits of designs leaking out between the edge of the toolbars and the edge of the tool very distracting. This is an accessibility thing. What purpose does it serve? You can’t move the toolbars away from the edge, which is what this implies, There is no point to it except for some aesthetic reason, which isn’t a reason to do something IMO.
Hello Figma.
Make a fully customizable element interface so that blocks can be undocked and attached. In the design settings, so that you can change the order of the blocks. For example, I want to put the color settings at the top and the font settings second.
Figma tries to design motorcycles (slides) and cars (web design) using the same manufacturing molds (UI design tool).
It’s going to be a disaster. Different tools require different designs and now the latest UI designs are not good for either.
I agree with everything said here. The biggest issue is losing the top bar and trying to “squeeze” everything into an already packed area. (right sidebar under an object properties)
Trying to push ACTIONS into property is not good design.
For me, no. There is a lot of going on the right side of the “properties” screen. Those are not properties of the object, those are actions. So please do not smush everything into one…
So yeah, Penpot just posted an article talking about how they explored more or less the exact same UI concept, and decided to keep iterating.
More or less echoes everything I said in my post:
“Floating sidebars practically result in a loss of space because they require margins that serve no practical purpose.”
“Another of our objectives was to reduce the cognitive load of the interface to promote focus on the designed artifacts. This option did not align well with that goal for various reasons, such as the designs blending more easily with the interface due to showing in the separator spaces, where they added no functionality and left it unclear whether we should allow interaction with the layers.”
“Additionally, there were other issues, such as the difficult positioning of the rulers”
I just learned Figma 3 months ago and was quite enjoying it.
I really hope they take all of this feedback to heart and don’t push ahead with the UI as is.
the new design. Unfortunately, it hasn’t met my expectations and I find it uncomfortable to use. The significant changes to many aspects seem unsuitable for a platform used by millions.
I believe it would have been better to implement improvements gradually or focus on features that users have previously requested changes for. The new design is highly distracting, and even the fields for entering data appear inactive due to the gray color, which adds to the discomfort.
I hope the new design will be reconsidered to better align with our needs as users and allow us to work with focus and comfort.
I have no idea what kind of Ux designers you have or what user research you have done.
But I’m about the 30th person in the company I work with hate it
I hope you will keep “switch to previous UI” button
