8,500 visitors are on site, 150,000 are participating virtually, and there are over 50 Config watch parties worldwide following the conference in San Francisco - all of them cheering on the new features of the collaborative design software Figma. 

At 9 a.m. on June 21, Config , the conference of the collaborative design software Figma , started with a keynote that promised great innovations.

Since the very first Config in 2020, this is the first edition to take place on site again after the pandemic - and with eight times as many visitors as then. One of the participants called it the " Coachella for designers ."

And so fog wafted through the huge hall of the Moscone Center in downtown San Francisco , helpers waved glow sticks towards the stage so that everyone could find their place, people with peddler's trays gave away stickers, tape or pins with the fantastic conference design by Creative Director Damien Correll, others handed out bags of donuts, which were also printed with the striking icons.

bridge between designers and developers

" Design needs to be a multiplayer process ," said Figma CEO Dylan Field, announcing that Figma now allows designers and developers to work more closely together.

Dev Mode is the name of the tool, which, along with the new variables and advanced prototyping, is by far the most important innovation.

A third of Figma users are developers, says CTO Kris Rasmussen, but they have not felt very comfortable with Figma so far because the application is too tailored to designers.

But now in Dev Mode, the late stage of the design process meets the beginning of development, and at this interface, designers and developers finally move closer together.

From now on, they can work in different modes in one and the same file. If the designers mark a file as " ready for dev ," the developers can jump in and easily access additional information.

You can see all previous versions and also directly see what has been added by the designer. At the same time, changes are now shown side by side, as well as a list of the edited layers and you can also view code snippets .

Responsive Design

Another innovation that was greeted with cheers are Variables , as Figma calls them instead of Tokens, as they have a more holistic approach.

With one click, designs can be adapted from mobile to desktop devices, switched to dark mode , from English to Japanese or German and back again, sizes and spacing can be adjusted - saving many work steps and a lot of time.

The font picker has been redesigned and advanced prototyping has been introduced. This supports the creation of dynamic prototypes and iteration. You work with fewer frames and can switch more easily between different tools and windows.

Of course, the topic of artificial intelligence was also touched upon. CEO Dylan Field said it is helpful for initial sketches, but after that you need good design, good designers and good teams.

But of course AI will also play a role in the Figma application in the future and so Field announced that Figma, whose acquisition by Adobe made waves last fall , is entering into a partnership with Diagram .

Tomorrow is the second and final day of the conference. We will be there and interviews will follow.
Event recap: https://www.figma.com/blog/config-2023-recap/