TLDR - I am very confused about the interface changes within Figma design files, and Ill get over it, which I’m sure someone out there is banking on.

I love Figma. I religiously use it.

I build there, I doodle, I graphic, I make visual recipes for meal prep, flows, graphs, reports, mood boards.. I have replaced a huge amount of apps or processes to Figma based ones. I like it.

If you haven’t seen Figma have made announcements and rolled out updates which bring some awesome new tools to beta, new features and interface updates. Some pretty cool stuff.

but…

Why the fuck did they have to move everything around?!

So I cant speak for every user, but I am irked, though, mainly confused. My active zone for years now, as with many other tools has been canter mid-top screen. That’s where their tool navigation was, that’s where I am working, that’s where my cursor is all day every day.

My assumption is that they have repositioned their main tool navigation to align with trends, there's a lot of new tools with a main navigation on the lower part of the screen, whether nocode, editors, online tools etc. It’s a vibe, sometimes it works. I love an experiment and a lower nav, mainly for the purpose of mobile operation though, is routed in different UX reasoning.

But the chosen destination, was and still generally is the dead-zone of my user experience with anything. While looking for tools and settings I am, with Jakob’s law, going straight on up there to the top left without thinking. From blender to Photoshop to Notion to VSC. Left - Top Left.

Additionally, why mess around with the right tool bar?

My biggest irritation and the cause for this ( cry for help ) is the auto-layout button.

A staple in Figma for anyone designing interfaces, interactive components, responsive layout design. When you make a frame, its just a box until its not, something you have to click every time, was initially a large button that lived happily in the right panel. Though now, has been reduced by NINE TIMES the interactable area.

In addition this cute lil new baby button is further from the users active zone and brings in my point around Fitts’s law, target acquisition, this cute lil mother fucker is the size of my cursor?!… Bring back my big button. cries

As soon as my app updated I noticed immediately that I was at least 5x slower in the app, something I had an efficiency for and have spent time becoming effective at has been momentarily handicapped by these updates, as I know it has for many others out there.

Generally these are more progressive spread out updates, or changes of less drastic variation so its something that you can go “oh cool” and then change in 5 minutes, though this main toolbar? I already know next week I'm still going up top screen to add an arrow.

Again, we are user, therefore we are human, therefore well get over it. - me

Moving away from rant and back to serious questioning, what am I missing here?

These interface updates do literally nothing productive or progressive. With these two alone, never mind the rest of the little rejigging that went down it breaks several primitive laws of user experience. I personally agree that these can absolutely be broken if there is a purpose , though I struggle to see one.

All of this aside:

• Everyone fucks shit up at all levels, let them experiment!

• There’s the case for stop crying and use shortcuts ( I use many, but I'm not a maxi so I still like my clickies thanknyou. )

• I will absolutely get over it

• It could be an intermittent step towards new layout updates / mobile editing or something. I do not know.

So my main curiosity and questions that I hope someone will take the time to approach:

— Why would they do this?
— Is there a progressive / helpful reasoning that I don’t perceive?
— In larger companies, where they have teams around user experience / satisfaction / how do these decisions get made to just throw “my” ( The users familiarized and habituative ) toolbars and navigations around the place, Jackson Pollock style.
— What else am I missing or haven’t considered in this thought
— Any other thoughts or resources for further reading / exploration

Excited for Figma's roll outs and think the new aesthetics of the workspace are gorgeous. I already knew I was a sub-niche...

The fact that this has frustrated me also interests me, and this is not what I thought today would be but it’s allowed a great opportunity to take a real dig into long term UX and core user profile understanding, which is perfectly timed considering the launch and coming launches of experiences I am actively working on.

[ Insert CTA here I guess, I know how this works but this space if for my rambles.. ]
If your curiosity is peeked you'll find most on WarpCast

If you got this far, thanks for reading but also go touch grass. DM’s are always open. Until we meet again.