Figma's rising cost of collaboration

📰 3 ARTICLES 

From Olympic Heartbreak to Adobe Leadership

• Chris Lambert, Adobe’s Head of Business Strategy, shares the inspiring story of how his experiences as an elite athlete, including the heartbreak of injury during the Athens 2004 Olympics, shaped his resilience and performance mentality in the corporate tech world.
  
• He emphasizes preparation, adaptability, and overcoming adversity as key traits to his success, helping him shape his attitude toward his athletic career and, later, how he approaches his leadership role at Adobe.
  
• “I feel like corporate life often needs cut-through. If I can’t give a go or no-go on a deal or a big decision, then do I really know it well enough? It’s very much the sport mentality. If I’ve got to run a qualifying standard, I have to finish in a certain place in a race. I’m either physically capable of it or I’m not. If I am, awesome, now I’ve got to deliver. If I’m not, I’ve got to prepare more.”

Figma and the Cost of Collaboration

• UX Growth Specialist Rosie Hoggmascall does a deep-dive into Figma’s price strategy, highlighting frustrations with unclear billing and hidden settings, emphasizing that additional charges are often focused on a key feature of the tool: for collaboration.
  
• Figma's complex upgrade flow comes with confusing CTAs and dark UX patterns, all of which can cause a consumer to lose trust in the product: despite being the favorite tool of the author for over five years, she’s now looking elsewhere for her design needs.
  
• “If collaboration is one of the competitive advantages of your product, price in a way that allows users to do that 10X. Paid users should feel like they’re getting the best deal: i.e. they can collaborate even more. Gating collaboration is a risk to growth.”

If I Was Starting My Career Today: Thoughts After 15 Years in UX

• UX designer Andrii Zhdan offers insights from his 15-year journey in UX design, sharing practical advice for aspiring UXers around mastering tools, building a strong portfolio, and understanding how to prepare for interviews, citing these as some of the main strategies for success.
  
• He highlights the key areas that designers who are young in the field should focus on, including challenging yourself with your project work, being sincere when interviewing, and approaching learning openly and continuously.
  
• “It doesn’t matter how many years you have been in this profession; what matters are the challenges you met in the last few years and the lessons you’ve learned from them.”

💜 PORTFOLIO INSPIRATION

Nina Moldawksy, a UX Academy graduate, brings her passion for game design and flair for whimsy to augmented reality game “Invisible Garden”. She combines strong user research and the concept of gamification to create an app where users can collect virtual plants while learning about how they grow and thrive in the real world. And in her redesign for a small community theater’s website, she breathes new life into the existing desktop design while also introducing responsive optimization for mobile.

Got a portfolio you love that you’d like to share with our audience? Email your suggestions to hello@designlab.com.

💡 INTERESTING STUFF...

• Typeface Inspo From A Little Bit of Everything
• Networking, Marketing, and the Art of Facing Fear
• Crossing the Sun in Spectacular Detail
• Why You Should Have a Brag Document

Art is the only place you can do what you like. That's freedom. — Paula Rego, visual artist

🧪 FROM THE LAB

🌟 Learn More about AI for Visual Design

Are you looking to better leverage the most popular and powerful AI tools into your creative workflow? Our AI for Visual Design course will give you everything you need to become a more efficient and innovative creator.

Attend our webinar session this Wednesday, August 14th, at 12PM EST to learn more about the course format, learning goals, mentorship and support structure, and more. Hosted by a member of our Admissions team, we’ll also have a live Q&A where you can get all your questions answered.

Sign up for the event even if you can’t attend and receive a recording for later.

🎤 Upcoming Design Events

August 13th 1PM EST: Turn In-Depth Interviews Into Your UX Superpower

August 19th 1PM EST: The Future of UX is Embracing AI

August 29th 1PM EST: Using UX Thinking to Solve Everyday Problems

🚀 Learn More About UX Academy

Join our next live informational webinar this Tuesday at 6PM EST to learn more UX Academy, about our award-winning career change bootcamp. Hear about program details, including curriculum, mentorship, our student community, and more, and participate in a Q&A hosted by a member of our Admissions team to get all our your questions answered.

Most of our students start out with UX Academy Foundations, our beginner-friendly and flexible online course where you’ll learn the fundamentals of visual and UI design. Work through hands-on projects, gain proficiency in Figma, and be supported through 1:1 mentorship with an experienced industry professional.

Already have design experience? Apply directly to UX Academy and jump right into one of our upcoming cohorts.

Regardless of your experience level, we encourage you to join a webinar to learn more!

‍