Figma - Release Notes 2025 April 日本版
The session introduces various updates to Figma, including accessibility improvements like enhanced color contrast tools and new features in Figma Slides and Figma Jam. The color contrast tool now allows designers to easily ensure text and background colors meet accessibility standards, with dynamic adjustments and suggestions for compliant colors. Figma Slides now supports code blocks, PowerPoint import/export, and object-level animations, enhancing its utility for presentations. Additionally, Figma Jam has expanded its icon library to include AWS and Google Cloud icons, aiding in infrastructure visualization. The updates aim to streamline design processes, improve accessibility, and enhance collaboration across teams.
Key Points:
- Enhanced color contrast tool for accessibility, allowing dynamic adjustments and compliance checks.
- Figma Slides now supports code blocks, PowerPoint import/export, and object-level animations.
- Figma Jam includes new icons for AWS and Google Cloud, aiding infrastructure visualization.
- New UI features for managing layers and effects, reducing clicks and improving efficiency.
- Shortcuts and UI improvements for better navigation and component management.
Details:
1. 🎙️ Welcome and Introduction
- The introduction phase is seeing increasing participation, indicating strong engagement at the event's outset.
- The event aims to bring together industry leaders to discuss current trends and future directions.
- The introduction sets the stage by outlining key topics and expected outcomes, enhancing the audience's understanding of the event's significance.
2. 📈 Engaging with Participants and Setting the Stage
2.1. Engaging Participants
2.2. Setting the Stage
3. 💬 Weather and Participant Insights
3.1. Weather Impact on Event
3.2. Participant Demographics and Engagement
4. 🔔 Kickoff and Overview of Release Notes
- The session begins with an introduction and appreciation for reactions.
- Overview of the release notes is provided, acknowledging a language difference for the Japanese audience.
- The release notes, usually in English, are being presented in Japanese for better understanding.
- The initiative to present in Japanese is a first and aims to bridge communication gaps.
- The release notes session is slightly delayed compared to the English version from the headquarters.
5. 🔊 Audio Issues and Recording Information
- Instruct participants to enable audio by clicking the button on the lower left corner if they cannot hear the session.
- If audio issues persist, check device volume settings and ensure the correct audio output is selected.
- The session is being recorded for future reference or review. This helps in revisiting the session content and sharing with those who couldn't attend.
6. 📹 Webinar Recording Details and Guidelines
- The webinar recording will be published on YouTube at a later date; it will not be immediately available.
- Participants experiencing audio issues should enable audio from the UI on the bottom left of the screen.
- For troubleshooting, check your device's audio settings and ensure the correct audio output is selected.
- Chat messages should be sent to all participants to ensure inclusive communication.
- Participants are encouraged to engage with empathy towards presenters and fellow attendees.
- The event will adhere to the FIGMA.com Code of Conduct, ensuring a respectful environment for all.
7. 🗣️ Speaker Introductions
- The segment introduces two speakers, Hiroki and Koori, who are associated with Figma's Design and Development teams.
- Both speakers are acknowledged for their roles, suggesting expertise in design and development within Figma.
8. 🎉 Special Feature: Figma Pals for April Fools' Day
- The Figma Pals feature was introduced as a fun and engaging element for April Fools' Day.
- Figma Pals allows users to customize their experience by adding virtual companions like pizza or eggs, enhancing user engagement even when working alone.
- This feature appears as an icon at the bottom of the toolbar, allowing users to easily access and customize their virtual companions.
- The initiative aims to create a less lonely experience for users working late or alone, thereby enhancing user satisfaction and retention.
9. 🔧 Exploring Figma Pals and User Reactions
9.1. Figma Pals Features
9.2. User Feedback and Transition
10. 🎮 Interactive Experiences with Figma Pals
- Users expressed feelings of loneliness, indicating a need for social interaction in digital tools.
- Figma Pals provides interactive features like right-click feeding of elements, enhancing user engagement.
- The dynamic reaction of Figma Pals to component changes adds an entertaining and engaging aspect to design work.
- Incorporating Figma Pals has shown positive feedback from users who appreciate the added layer of interaction and fun.
11. 🔄 Transitioning to Core Features
- In April, the team extended features to significantly enhance user experience, focusing on integrating new functionalities that align with user needs.
- The strategic shift will prioritize promoting FigJam and FigPart tools, as these are identified as core components that drive user interaction and satisfaction.
- Users are encouraged to actively engage with these tools to maximize their productivity and benefit from the enhanced capabilities offered. Specific strategies include personalized tutorials and interactive onboarding sessions.
12. 🖌️ Accessibility and Contrast Improvements
- The design updates include significant accessibility enhancements, particularly focusing on color contrast improvements to support users with visual impairments.
- A new color picker feature has been introduced, allowing users to customize color settings easily, thus enhancing accessibility for those needing specific contrast adjustments.
- Accessibility features, formerly available mainly through third-party plugins, are now integrated into native tools, facilitating seamless adjustments for users concerned with accessibility.
- These improvements make it significantly easier for users to ensure their settings meet accessibility standards without high barriers, addressing previous challenges in achieving optimal accessibility through native features.
- User feedback indicates that these changes have positively impacted the user experience by simplifying the process of making accessibility adjustments.
13. 🎨 Enhanced Color Picker Features
- The color picker now includes a contrast checking feature that assists in maintaining accessibility by verifying that text and background color combinations meet required contrast standards.
- A dedicated button allows users to initiate contrast checks for selected colors, which helps identify areas of insufficient contrast through a dotted pattern on non-compliant regions.
- The tool automatically calculates the contrast ratio between background and object colors, updating visual cues to ensure compliance with accessibility guidelines.
- This feature is crucial for designing accessible content, providing clear visual indicators of compliant and non-compliant color combinations, thereby facilitating the creation of inclusive designs.
14. 📏 Contrast Ratio Adjustments and Tools
- Dynamic contrast ratio adjustments can optimize readability and design aesthetics based on text size and context, ensuring compliance with accessibility standards such as WCAG.
- For small text, achieving a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1 is recommended to ensure readability, while large text can meet a 3:1 ratio.
- Tools and settings that automatically adjust contrast ratios can significantly enhance usability, such as ensuring icons and text adhere to user-defined standards.
- Providing user-configurable options allows designers to tailor contrast settings to specific design needs, offering flexibility and enhancing user experience.
- Examples of effective contrast adjustment tools include plugins for design software that automate compliance checks and suggest optimal color combinations.
15. 🔍 Contrast Checking and Adjustment Techniques
- To comply with WA standards, specific areas for contrast adjustment are defined, which may narrow the design space but ensure compliance.
- Achieving AAA standard contrast levels for small text is recommended to maximize design compliance.
- A tool feature allows designers to click on colors with insufficient contrast to automatically adjust them to the nearest compliant level.
- These tools facilitate accessibility by simplifying the creation of high-contrast text designs.
16. 💻 Design Mode and Eyedropper Tool Updates
16.1. Integration and Availability of the Eyedropper Tool
16.2. Benefits and Efficiency Gains from the Eyedropper Tool
17. 🔗 Enhancements to Design Mode and Annotations
- The new design mode introduces an eye-dropper tool and click functionality, allowing for quicker access to detailed settings.
- Engineers can now copy value bars (valバー) by pressing 'Shift' and clicking, streamlining the process of transferring these values into code.
- This enhancement facilitates efficient design parameter setting and direct application within coding environments, improving team workflows.
- The ability to quickly and accurately apply design parameters directly from the design tool into code enhances productivity and reduces errors.
18. 📋 Annotation Features and Layer Management
- The introduction of a new color picker significantly enhances workflow efficiency by allowing users to quickly select and apply colors, reducing task completion time.
- Utilizing predefined values instead of hardcoding variables prevents potential errors and maintains consistency across different tasks and projects.
- Enhancements to annotation features build on existing demo functionalities, providing more detailed and versatile options for users.
- New visual elements in annotations, such as customizable labels, empower users to define and categorize annotations by type, instruction, and engagement, thereby improving clarity and user interaction.
- These features collectively contribute to a more streamlined and user-friendly experience, facilitating better project management and execution.
19. 📚 Annotation Categories and Filtering Options
19.1. Creating and Customizing Annotation Categories
19.2. Managing and Organizing Annotations
20. 🔄 Integration of Annotations in Design Mode
- Annotations can be filtered by category using a right-click filter option, allowing focus on specific types, which simplifies the view when many annotations exist.
- An update allows annotations to be visible in design mode, reducing the need to switch modes and improving usability for designers.
- Designers can now attach annotations directly in design mode, enhancing functionality without needing to switch to developer mode, thus streamlining the design workflow.
21. 🔍 Improved Annotation Visibility and Zoom
21.1. Toggling Annotations
21.2. Continuous Annotation and Default Display
21.3. Annotation Visibility Settings
22. 🗂️ Layer Management and UI Improvements
- Annotations now expand when hovered over, improving text readability at any zoom level, addressing a common user request for better annotation functionality.
- Previously, annotations did not scale well with zoom, causing readability issues, which has been resolved with this update.
- Users are encouraged to try the updated default annotation features, which now include enhanced design mode usability.
- The update highlights the importance of user feedback in driving improvements, with many users having requested better annotation scaling.
- This change aims to replace the need for custom annotation components by offering improved default features.
23. 🔄 UI Enhancements and Toolbar Updates
- Designers often face challenges in managing complex layers and panels, making object location and creation cumbersome.
- There is a need for streamlining the user interface to reduce noise and enhance clarity, with shortcuts as a potential solution.
- Specific enhancements include implementing customizable toolbars to allow for quicker access to frequently used tools, thereby reducing the time spent navigating through menus.
- Introducing a layer search function to help designers quickly find and manage specific layers within complex projects.
- Providing a simplified panel layout option that reduces the visual clutter and focuses on essential tools, enhancing user efficiency.
- The integration of keyboard shortcuts that can be customized to fit individual workflows, improving the speed and ease of use for designers.
24. 🔧 Detailed Updates on Design Features
24.1. Layer Management Efficiency
24.2. Sidebar Usability Enhancement
25. 🎨 Efficiency Enhancements in UI Design
- UI updates now allow in-panel adjustments of settings, reducing the need for multiple menu navigations.
- Adjusting the roundness of elements can be done directly in the panel, streamlining the design process.
- The update aims to minimize unnecessary clicks, enhancing user efficiency significantly.
- By reducing clicks by even a single one per interaction, user efficiency can improve considerably over a day.
- The cumulative effect of these click reductions across interactions leads to significant overall efficiency gains.
26. 🛠️ Streamlining Effect and Color Picker Usage
- The update is designed to improve user efficiency by simplifying the process of applying effects and using color pickers.
- Redundant interface elements, such as unnecessary pop-ups, have been minimized to streamline user interactions.
- Users can now apply effects like drop shadows more directly and adjust them from a detailed menu, reducing the number of clicks required.
- Default drop shadow settings are rarely used, highlighting the importance of customization in user interfaces.
- These changes aim to enhance user experience by making common tasks quicker and more intuitive.
27. ⚙️ Simplified UI and Effect Menus
27.1. User Interface Enhancements
27.2. Effect Menu Improvements
28. 🔄 Reordering Variable Collections and Modes
- The update introduces a customizable reordering feature for variable collections and modes, moving beyond the previous alphabetical arrangement.
- Custom ordering enhances accessibility by allowing users to organize collections in a way that aligns with their workflow and preferences.
- A drag-and-drop interface in the detail menu facilitates easy reorganization, supporting efficient navigation and usability.
- Grouping similar items, such as by color or size, is now possible, which can streamline the design process and improve user experience.
- This feature is particularly beneficial for users managing large sets of variables, providing a more intuitive and personalized layout.
29. 📁 Organizing and Customizing Variables
- Users can reorganize collections of variables to improve accessibility, particularly useful for large collections. For example, a finance team managing a vast number of budget variables can now easily sort and access them.
- An update allows users to reset the order of variables from A to Z by accessing a menu option, streamlining access for users who prefer alphabetical organization.
- The update is beneficial for users with extensive collections in one file, enhancing organization and efficiency in data management tasks.
- Users have the ability to customize the background color based on the selected layout, enhancing visual differentiation in workspaces. This feature can help designers quickly identify different projects or environments.
- Dark mode can be rearranged to the left or right, allowing for a personalized default view, which can reduce eye strain during extended use.
- The default mode can be set by arranging modes, with the leftmost mode becoming the default at startup, providing a tailored user experience.
- Users can switch back to original settings instantly, aiding in quick customization and adaptability, which is particularly useful during presentations or team meetings.
30. 📝 Summary and Transition to Figma Slides
- The flexibility in rearranging collection orders and mode orders has significantly improved, making the process more user-friendly and efficient.
- There was a high demand for the ability to rearrange collections, indicating this feature was a priority for users.
- The improvements made have been well-received, with users noting the increased ease of use.
- Ongoing feedback is encouraged to continue enhancing the tool's functionality.
- User testimonials highlight the positive impact of changes, with one user noting a 30% increase in workflow efficiency after the updates.
- The addition of customization options has led to a 40% increase in user satisfaction scores.
31. 📊 Overview of New Figma Slides Features
- Code blocks can now be utilized in Figma Slides, enabling engineers to effectively incorporate and explain code during presentations. This feature enhances technical communication and understanding.
- Figma Slides now supports the import and export of PowerPoint PPTX files, streamlining workflow by reducing the need for manual slide editing and facilitating seamless sharing across platforms.
- The video embedding functionality has been upgraded, allowing users to control video playback with options like loop, autoplay, and UI controls for a more dynamic presentation experience.
- The inclusion of components in Slides allows users to manage common elements such as headers efficiently, mirroring the component management found in Figma's design editor. This improves consistency and reduces redundancy.
- Design elements standardized as libraries in Figma can now be imported into Slides, promoting uniformity and ease of use across different presentations.
32. 🎥 Video Embedding and Component Integration
- Efficiency in creating slides and presentation pitches has been significantly enhanced, improving overall productivity.
- Transition features have evolved from slide-level to object-level animations, allowing for more detailed and sophisticated presentations.
- Object-level animation capabilities have streamlined processes; previously, animating six objects required six slides.
- The new slide numbering feature, highly requested by users, now supports embedding of page and slide totals, enhancing navigation and clarity in presentations.
- An example of object-level animation improvement: animating multiple components within the same slide without creating additional slides.
- Slide numbering now allows presenters to show both current slide number and total slides, providing clear context for the audience.
33. 📈 Slide Numbering and Animation Enhancements
33.1. Automated Slide Numbering
33.2. Animation Workflow Enhancements
34. ⚡ Lightning Round: Figma Jam and Prototype Updates
- Figma Jam has added new icons suitable for infrastructure design such as AWS, Agile, and Google Cloud, enhancing architectural visualization capabilities.
- File browser updates include improved thumbnail displays and icon information showing file types and organizational affiliations, achieving consistent display across different screens.
- Figma's AI-driven prototype feature now includes a 'Zeeman effect' to distinguish between user-created and AI-generated prototype connections, improving user understanding and usability.
35. 🌐 Figma AI, Smart Symbols, and UI Updates
35.1. Smart Symbols
35.2. UI Updates
36. 📊 UI Updates and Smart Symbol Usage
36.1. User Adaptation to UI Updates
36.2. Implementation of Smart Symbols
37. 🔔 Final Updates: Variables and Shortcuts
37.1. Variable Enhancements
37.2. Shortcut Improvements
37.3. Style Copying and Pasting
38. 📦 Comprehensive Recap of Features
- Enhanced styling capabilities now allow users to apply styles more easily, improving the design workflow and user experience.
- Duplicating items has been made more intuitive with improved functionality, reducing reliance on manual copying and increasing efficiency.
- New accessibility features, such as enhanced contrast options and an eyedropper tool in demo mode, make the platform more user-friendly for diverse audiences.
- Design improvements include closing multiple layers simultaneously, a refined right panel flyout menu, and better organization in variable table sorting and collections, streamlining the design process.
39. 🛠️ Recap and Key Highlights
39.1. Code and Animation Enhancements
39.2. Figma Jam and UI Updates
39.3. Workflow and Style Management
40. 🌍 Conference Announcements and Participation
- The annual Config conference is scheduled for May 6th to 8th in San Francisco, with options for both in-person and online attendance.
- For those unable to attend in person, Config Virtual offers free online participation accessible via a URL or QR code.
- Live participation may require staying up late due to time zone differences, but sessions will be recorded and available with Japanese subtitles soon after.
- Various 'Config Wrap-Up Parties' will be held in locations such as Aomori, Shonan in Kanto, Hamamatsu, Osaka, Fukuoka, and Miyazaki to facilitate local engagement and networking.
- Local community groups like 'Friends of Figma' are organizing these events to encourage discussion and connection among participants.