Figma Question

Inspiring

@Carlisle1500 To answer your question simply - yes, XD is dead. Adobe will likely provide a converter in the future from XD to Figma. For now you can Copy as CSS or SVG and copy into Figma. Or migrate your large files from XD to Figma easily here now (for a price $): https://magicul.io/converter/xd-to-figma

@thomashallgren

Community Expert

I've been an Adobe user, trainer, and endorser since 1986. I've seen Adobe acquire or merge with several companies. Yes, they killed a lot of stuff, but they also saved, cherished, and invented a lot of tools. You can't blame them for running their business in a way they think is necessary and profitable. Figma needs to grow in order to become profitable, and Adobe is in desperate need of a proper UI, wireframing and prototyping tool. You do the math...

Some points to note:

Figma is 100% web-based, but offers an off-line app and the use of off-line files.

Collaboration is a breeze; it's not required, but you'll quickly learn how easy it is.

Figma can already import XD files, and this option can be improved, if neccesary.

It has a richer feature set (with much more refinements) compared to Adobe XD.

The only XD feature Figma lacks, is the Repeat Grid's auto-fill/alternating content.

It has a similar approach for plugins, and most plugins will offer a Figma version.

Figma offers everything XD users been shouting and waiting for since many years.

The design approach is similar, with some differences in jargon, setup, and handling.

The interface looks similar at first sight but is far more efficient and more logical.

The vector-drawing will offer you a feature you'll wish in Illustrator: T-sections !

Will Adobe bring Figma down by "a slow lethal injection of Adobe bureaucracy" (as some one very rightfully and frighfully stated) ? Let's hope not. By acquiring Figma, they acknowledge they failed –again– and clearly seem to miss the vision and technologies for a new era of designing for digital media. Let's hope they eventually learned their lesson.

Inspiring

Adobe is a great company with great people. It's always better for them to acquire the winners in the marketplace. I would like to see Adobe adopt the Figma web-app development strategy for all the rest of their apps so innovation can happen cross platform more rapidly. The Mac/Windows parity problem has destroyed all progress in software for 25+ years. Native apps need to end.

@thomashallgren

Inspiring

The XD team is full of brilliant people. Unfortunately it's an Adobe product and as a result has been stuck for years. The innovation stopped in the end of 2017 when they started to build partiy with the Windows version. Figma beat them by going with a crossplatform web app development from the start. Can't beat that model. Apps built on operating systems don't work any more. Web apps are the future.

@thomashallgren

Inspiring

The browser is the operating system of the future. Check out Chrome books.

@thomashallgren

rayek.elfin

Legend

...and the day started out so well this morning.

What a mess. Bad news for Figma users, and bad news for XD users.

Obviously XD's development will end with the acquisition of Figma. And Figma's successful business model will be turned on its head and ruined by Adobe management in a few years time.

Chances are a new upstart company will provide an alternative to Figma that uses Figma's old successful business model, and after a decade or two or so Figma will but remain a pleasant memory.

I shudder at the thought of having to install the CC app to merely be able to open a Figma file. Or be dependent on the CC Cloud. Urgh!

I suppose it is time to look for alternatives if this acquisition pulls through. Adobe's history of acquisitions and their inability to respond quickly and innovatively to industry changes are reasons enough for me to avoid putting all my eggs in one basket.

And I won't be the only one, let me tell you: I foresee a small exodus of Figma users leaving or preparing to leave.

Let's hope this deal doesn't happen - but Figma's owners must be dancing in the streets now.

rayek.elfin

Legend

Well, I just checked Figma's forum to check the response of the Figma community. The avalanche of negative responses from users is hardly unexpected.

Too many services and software in the hands of one company that buys out any competition is just bad for customers in the end.

P

plainclothes19107418

Inspiring

What it means is Adobe has finally accepted their abysmal failure.

XD will wind down. Figma will receive lots of cash and a slow lethal injection of Adobe bureaucracy.

It's not a great time to be a user of XD or Figma, tbh.

C

Carlisle1500Author

Inspiring

@plainclothes19107418 What do you feel is wrong with XD? I liked the product enough to certify on it but it was great for prototyping. I did pages and voice prototypes but I wanted a tool to convert code to HTML but you don't want to give customers files they can steal though and so I accepted XD.

P

plainclothes19107418

Inspiring

I know I replied to this already … 🤔 🤔

Browse these forums. The stagnant requests for basic features (eg pages, style management, local library sharing, etc) and fixes for painful glitches (eg the mess of complex component states) look more like the community surrounding a beta product that never made it.

I think XD was a reasonable improvement 10 years when compared to people's crazy ideas of building web designs in Photoshop -- anyone remember that nightmare!? But when you compare it to Sketch (my fave) and Figma, it just never stacked up.

Long ago, I used Axure for prototypes. But now it's easy to move from a simple design proto for user testing straight to code with a proto backend. You don't need the fuss of XD's prototyping mess these days -- frameworks have made code quick and easy.

K

Kenneth Kawamoto

Community Expert

At least the UI of XD and Figma are near identical so the migration will be relatively painless 😀

Community Expert

Be careful: there are some very crucial differences in file-handling and editing. I teach UI design professionals to use either Adobe XD or Figma or both, and you really need to distinguish some jargon and approaches. But eventually the technical construction of the designs is very similar ! So that's why it's already possible to import XD files into Figma. Migrating Figma files to XD is not an option, since Figma has far more features and refinements which would be lost in the conversion.

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/08/25/figma-growing-inside-microsoft-testing-longtime-deal-with-adobe.html

Community Expert

FYI Multiplatform is less of an issue than it used to be. Depending on the environment you can create a Mac app as easily as a Windows app. Again, this is using the newer development environments. However, if one platform has a library that the other doesn't then it can cause major lag as it has to have feature parity.

The interesting part here seems to do with Microsoft's interests in Figma. They like Figma at Microsoft.

Another issue may be the Mac M1 architecture upgrades for the desktop tools. If that's the case then Figma's browser based environment would be less platform issues. But, running Electron apps has always been much slower than native apps unless somethings changed. In other words this move is baffling unless it's to consolidate customers.

I've tried Figma a few times and always returned to XD. But a lot of comments here seem to have people who like both.

It might be trivial, but Microsoft & Adobe maintain very strong relations with regards to cloud services. https://news.microsoft.com/transform/adobe-moving-its-cloud-services-to-microsoft-azure-microsoft-to-make-adobe-its-preferred-marketing-service-for-dynamics-365-enterprise/

Maybe Microsoft was also particularily interested in this deal because of the enormous cloud capacities and data management involved for these services. They're probably in it for the long run...

Wednesday Dessauer

Inspiring

My hot take without all the facts:

Figma & XD aren't well differentiated enough to make a clear path for running them in parallel indefinitely. When they say 'we will continue to supportt XD' while 'reducing our investment in XD' it sounds similar to what they've done with Adobe Dimensions since introducing the Substance Suite. The difference is that as the premium product, Figma would have to become a subscription (?).

I'm having flash backs of when Adobe acquired Macromedia. They mainly wanted Flash I think, but Dreamweaver replaced GoLive!, which I was actually using at the time. On the other hand, I had already jumped ship from Freehand to Illustrator, which was the survivor there. That precedent makes me think they would be pragmatic in siding with Figma (which the valuation shows that they acknowledge they can't out conpete) rather than contemplating killing it. I think it has a larger user base still, so not annoying them will be the major challenge.

I guess now we need to wait to see what the XD team say at MAX on their future roadmap, but I fear that 'continue to support' is just a stepping stone towards the fate of Adobe Muse which remained ignored for the years until they quietly shut it off with the fewest complaints.

Not only do I use XD, I have class loads of students and a growing catalogue of training resources invested in it. I'm ok with changing ship, as I say, I've done it before... but a little more clarity from Adobe on this would sure help me plan my future training and start building that out.

Wednesday Dessauer

Inspiring

Maybe I should add, when they do run out an app in favour of another, they have rolled in features. Like I think Illustrator got Freehands auttrace engine (?). So people here talking about a super app Adobe FigmaXD are probably not wrong. It's gonna upset the Figma purists, but I think they are already looking at jumping to Pen;or and others. Seems premature when honestly no one seems to know where this is headed yet.

Wednesday Dessauer

Inspiring

^Penpot #autocorrect

Earth Oliver

Legend

and if you're wondering why they're acquiring for 20B:

What a shame. Adobe had how many years to get XD right? So much for competition creating innovation at Adobe. Better to just consume the competition instead.

C

Carlisle1500Author

Inspiring

Figma has a great portfolio but Adobe needs to rebrand to Figma XD or XD Figma so we can ensure our investments last as long as possible. It's painful & expensive to remodel a business. If you rebrand to one of the above, we can smoothly add their portfolio and keep up with Adobe. Hybrid!!!