Hello, this is designer Lee Sang-hyo. Not long ago, I went on a tour of Figma's headquarters office in San Francisco. In this article, I will write a review of my visit there. It proceeds with the table of contents below.
What is Figma?
How did you get there?
What could you do if you went?
Something that impressed me (Office)
Something that impressed me (Figma)
What is the meaning of your visit?
Outro
1. What is Figma?
www.figma.com/design
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Figma is a cloud-based real-time collaboration tool that is being used by most IT companies as of 2023. It is mainly used in UX design, but can be used in various forms such as presentations, brainstorming, work roadmaps, illustrations, and emoji creation. As a product and platform designer, I use it almost every day. In addition to design, we manage the educational curriculum, conduct real-time online workshops with actual students, or even when writing a book is also useful. To put it simply, it is a tool like Google Docs in the design world. Now, there is so much related content that you can find out about Figma with just a little search.
However, there seemed to be a lot of content about the use of Figma, but not much about the actual use of Figma. Coincidentally, I was traveling to San Francisco this time to tour Figma's headquarters office, and I thought it would be good for many people to learn more about Figma through writing. So I started writing on the flight back to Korea.
2. How did you get there?
San Francisco is famous as a center of IT. I am a designer and a person in the IT industry, but I have never been to the United States, so when I decided to go on a trip to the United States, I really wanted to visit Silicon Valley IT companies and feel the atmosphere. So, while I was making a list of Silicon Valley companies I always wanted to work for, the first thing that came to mind naturally was Figma, a company that made tools that I use almost every day. The Figma office was also in San Fran.
After doing a little more research, I found out that Figma does not operate an office tour program. However, I really wanted to use this travel opportunity to visit Figma, and I did everything I could to add my Figma-related history (sending emails or DMs to relevant people, getting referrals from acquaintances, etc.). As a result, I was able to schedule an office tour with the help of wonderful and grateful people. (Thank you, Hyung Joo, who arranged this office tour, and Clara, who took time out of her busy schedule to conduct the figma office tour!)
3. What could you do if you went?
Office Tour
I was able to talk about various things during the office tour with Clara, a Figma employee, for a total of about 3 hours. I prepared a lot of questions, but when I actually got there, I was a little nervous, so it's a shame that I couldn't come up with many questions. Still, it was great to be able to share Figma-related stories directly with Figma employees and at Figma headquarters.
Suggestion of features I personally want from Figma
I intentionally did not ask about design tokens, components, or Korean language bugs. We asked and suggested many things that we thought were globally important.
a. Figma Design System Analytics Advancement
I thought that with the current state of the design system library analytics provided by Figma, it would be difficult to know how and to what extent a component is being utilized. If this function is advanced, I think it will be a very useful function for designers in charge of design ops or design systems who want to develop a better design system based on data (organizational or higher plans).
b. Advanced prototyping
Figma already provides quite powerful prototyping features. If you make good use of smart animation or custom easing functions, you can not only do prototyping, but if you apply it further, you can create cool motion graphic designs. However, I thought it was a bit inadequate for professional use at the moment. Even if I create a design in Figma, if I feel that more complex animation functions are needed, I move it to After Effects. I thought it would be great if Figma could be advanced enough to be used as a standalone professional motion tool, or to be able to independently implement prototyping that is truly close to the real thing.
c. Simultaneous Editor More
Currently, 200 editors + 500 viewers can access one figma file at the same time. Although we already support a large number of simultaneous connections, it is difficult to prepare a large-scale Pig Jam workshop for more people. It would have been nice to have been able to use Pig Jam more actively when preparing for last year's Figma Korea meetup, but it was disappointing that Pig Jam could not be utilized properly for online participants, as many more people (1100+) applied to participate than expected. I told you because I thought it would have been better to support more people.
Receive goods as a gift
Figma sells a variety of goods through a separate website (https://store.figma.com/). However, in Korea, finding official Figma goods is like picking a star in the sky. There is no Korean office or dedicated person. As a result, even if you need goods for a community event, you must request them directly from the United States, and you must also consider overseas delivery time and returns. During my visit this time, I was happy because they gave me a lot of basic goods.
Have lunch at Figma Catering
The San Francisco office seemed to provide a buffet meal service to executives and employees, along with snacks available at all times. At lunch time, Figma employees from various places gathered in the cafeteria area to eat food, and I was able to eat with them. I was hungry after a long tour(?), so I was able to eat a variety of & delicious dishes. I was able to see dogs waiting for their owners to eat, and there was fruit dessert and coffee, so I didn't have to go out for food. More than anything, it was nice to be able to have a leisurely meal and talk about figma in a casual way.
If you apply for the Seoul Config Watch Party, we will distribute official Figma goods to those selected offline. Watch Party applications will close soon, so hurry apply! (~Until June 11th)
4. Something that impressed me (Office)
The figma office was really figma-like. Since it occupies three floors of a high-rise building, the space is quite spacious and colorful, and traces of attention to branding can be seen throughout all office spaces. It was fun for the eyes. There was also Scrabble on the wall that anyone could participate in, and it was fun because it had figma components, industry terminology, and actual member names written on it. I felt like everyone was creating the office interior together, so I thought it would fit well with Figma, where ‘collaboration’ is an important value.
Witty could also be found in the conference room names. The name of the conference room used when big decisions such as investments are needed is BOARDROOM - BIGMA, and it is more memorable because it was Lorem / Ipsum conference room, which is the starting word of the English placeholder. And I saw a lot of rainbow graphics symbolizing diversity. When Config is held in June, rainbow graphics can be seen on the Figma loading screen, and Office also matches well with the product. Even though a lot of primary colors were used, it didn't look out of place at all and was cool.
It is said that every team has a separate budget to create team-specific goods! There were figma goods and artwork created by various teams all over the office, and it was very interesting. From my perspective as an outsider, I thought it was meaningful welfare from both a team building and external branding perspective.
I had forgotten, but Figma was a silver YouTuber, and I could see the listing in a corner of the office. We are uploading tips, guides, and conference videos on how to use Figma well through YouTube. I am also subscribing because I can watch quality educational content.
Another impressive thing was the bookshelves visible throughout the office. Employees can donate books at any time if they wish, and there were so many books in so many different categories.
It was nice to be able to bring pets to work, so I could see dog owners and dogs in the conference room together. The dog food bowls(?) visible throughout the office were also cute.
5. Something that impressed me (Figma)
Internal facilities and members
The daily work scene does not seem to be much different from that of Korean companies. However, I remember the fact that most office desks were motion desks. In addition to Clara, who conducted the tour, the staff we met along the way were very friendly. It was nice to meet Justin, Darren, and Emma, who unexpectedly ran into each other during the tour and greeted me warmly :)
Figma was conducting a mixed work schedule between home and office. I was surprised that more people than expected gathered during lunch time. I thought the total number of people was about 600, but you said that there are that many people in San Fran alone, and that there are about 1,100 people working globally (various parts of Europe, Singapore, Japan, New York, etc.). There were a lot more members working than I expected.
Various Jobs
You said that the Designer Advocate job at Figma is to promote Figma and make suggestions to various customers based on design expertise. Since there are many people who were originally designers, I was curious and asked if there were still opportunities to do 'design' at Figma even though their jobs had changed. They say it happens often! Clara, who guided me, said she designed the jira widget that I often use at work(!).
He was surprised when I told him that in Korea, the title of ‘platform designer’, a person in charge of design systems, is commonly used in the industry (in addition to the job of product designer). In English-speaking countries, there seem to be more titles such as ‘Design Ops’ or ‘Product Designer - Design System’ for the same role.
Education & Collaboration
They say they are putting a lot of effort into not only design but also education and collaboration. Figma's driving force comes from real-time collaboration, and I was immediately convinced when I heard it because it is a very useful tool when conducting classes for a large number of people, even if they are not designers. Since my main job is a designer, I didn't have a chance to hear about Figma's education-related roadmap, so it was nice to hear about it this time.
6. What is the meaning of your visit?
As we talked, I learned that I was the first Korean to visit the Figma office. However, it seems like there have been a few requests for office tours from overseas (though not many) besides me. It's a little disappointing that I'm not the first overseas user of Figma to visit, but it was personally more meaningful because I was able to increase my virtue and feel like Neil Armstrong.
I learned that Figma's design advocate role is to serve as a host who mainly prepares for Figma's design conference, Config and Schema. He said he is having a busy time preparing for the 2023 Config, which will start soon, so I also shared the Seoul Config Watch Party page that I am currently working on at Wanted. They were so amazed that they shared it within Figma.
They say they are hosting a casual podcast about design on Spotify! The title of the podcast is It Depends. It's in English, but if you're curious, it might be a good idea to take a look. Link
Outro
Since Korea is a country with a large time difference from San Francisco (-16 hours) and little official support for Figma, I think it is difficult to attend Figma-related events in Korea. Nevertheless, this Config seems worth checking out. There seemed to be quite a major update this year as well, and detailed information about it was provided in this Config They say you can check it here. It's a difficult time, but why not watch it together? Haha, I’m looking forward to June 22nd.
