Figma reduces communication and duplicate work
Matthew Moore, Head of Design at Lime, on Figma vs. Adobe
Figma turns design review from a handoff into a shared workspace, which is why it cuts both confusion and duplicate effort. Instead of designers exporting screens into slides, then explaining changes over email or meetings, product managers, engineers, and writers can all open the same live file, follow the user flow on the canvas, comment in place, and even make lightweight edits themselves. That collapses several separate coordination steps into one place.
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The concrete workflow change is replacing export and email with live browser collaboration. Figma won adoption by making interface design multiplayer, while older tools like Sketch kept design files mostly inside the design team and pushed everyone else into screenshots, slide decks, and status meetings.
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This is also why Figma spread beyond designers. At Lime, product managers were comfortable editing files because moving from Google Slides to Figma was a small jump. FigJam pushed the same pattern further, giving PMs and engineers a simple canvas for planning and brainstorming without waiting for a designer to set things up.
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The bigger strategic point is seat expansion. Once the file becomes the place where decisions are made, Figma can sell into more roles than Adobe XD or legacy design software, and it starts to overlap with whiteboarding tools like Miro and visual communication tools like Canva that also win by making non designers productive.
The next phase is deeper ownership of everyday product work. As Figma adds more tools for brainstorming, specs, and cross functional collaboration, the company moves from being where screens are drawn to being where teams plan, debate, and ship products, which expands both usage and budget inside large organizations.