Figma’s 2023 Handoff

For every person who felt like 2023 was the year AI ate the world, there’s another who will remember it as the first year, post pandemic, we were fully able to reconnect with our fellow humans. If these two ideas seem paradoxical, then you get the vibe. Despite its many tensions, 2023 reaffirmed just how much we need each other in order to make sense of ourselves and the world.

At Figma, we think a lot about what it takes to work together. Multiplayer is predicated on this notion. In a time when collaboration (even coexistence!) is all too often reduced to terms of optimized workflows and handoffs, creating a space where everyone feels valued can feel almost revolutionary. The term “handoff” is borrowed from American football, where it signifies one teammate handing the ball to another to carry forward the play. In product development, the term can sometimes take on a secondary, almost pejorative meaning—more of a lob over the wall than a pass into the end zone. That’s because for a long time, designers and developers haven’t actually been playing on the same field, or really even in the same game for that matter. Design and development are two roles that have historically approached work from different but deeply interdependent perspectives.

This is where the value of multiplayer truly changes the game. Having a shared space to work out ideas is critical when you need to solve a problem from different vantage points. Creating a space that feels like a home field for everyone requires an understanding of what each person needs to play their best. We thought a lot about what developers might want and need from a design tool when we launched Dev Mode

, our new tool that brings a developer’s-eye-view into Figma. As Software Engineering Manager Emil Sjölander explains, “Treating a handoff as an ongoing conversation, rather than a one-off baton pass, can increase iteration speed and, in turn, improve products.” In other words, making a space where handoffs take on a quality much more in line with their sporting origin. When you build to play to each other’s strengths, it helps level the playing field and clarifies the goal. “Dev Mode was designed with collaborative handoff in mind—that’s how we want teams to work,” says Joel Miller, a product designer. “We want to get rid of this handoff ‘wall.’”

And if that person on the receiving end happens to be a robot, maybe that’s OK, too? When we think of work as less linear and more iterative, then treating tools as a kind of collaborator doesn't seem so strange. Our new AI features in FigJam

aim to supercharge ideation to help make those moments of human connection (in work parlance, meetings) more meaningful. As Vice President of Design Noah Levin sees it, “At Figma, when we talk about lowering the floor and raising the ceiling, we mean creating products that are more accessible but also expand what’s possible.”

Making work more like play has a way of smoothing the edges, and eroding boundaries. It can also lead to its own set of challenges. For example, how many quarterbacks does one team need? How many set pieces can one team recycle before a play gets old? How do you foster new talent to push a game forward? Put very simply, it takes practice. And it requires a deep bench. It is in this spirit that we present our Figma 2023 Handoff, a year-end celebration of the big plays and deep learnings we plan to carry into next season.

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And with that, we pass the baton to 2024.