Comment by samsolomon

I agree with the general sentiment—over-optimizing for design can both be a poor use of time and lead to less than ideal solutions.

I don't really agree that Figma is forcing designers into a box. The author feels like there's an ideal workflow—a quick sketch that gets translated into code. There's no ideal workflow. It completely depends on the delivery team.

That sketch to code flow probably works well with a small team that is used to working closely together. I've been working with most of the engineers on one of my delivery teams for five years. Frequently, I don't need designs at all! I can just write a JIRA card and because we are so used to working together many times they can pick up on the desired result.

Unfortunately, when the product org gets larger you get a lot of designers and engineers and delivery teams that don't spend a lot of time together. You need the clearest representation of those components—often documented down to the exact props that should be implemented. That is exactly how many enterprise software organizations are using Figma. Design and code components have props (for visual changes) that mirror one another.

Overall, Figma is geared pretty well to how many product orgs are delivering software.