📰 3 THINGS TO CHECK OUT
Figma Takes on All of the Competition in the Age of AI
- Tech entrepreneur Alex Smith analyzes how Figma’s last updates, revealed at ConFig 2025, position Figma to directly compete with other leaders like Adobe, Webflow, and Canva by enabling users to create more diverse assets without leaving the platform.
- While these developments show Figma’s drive to evolve, some users worry that a potential IPO could compromise its user-centric values and turn it into the kind of corporate entity it once challenged.
- “With all of the new AI entrants into the UX tools space, many influencers have been proclaiming for months on end that 'Figma is dead'—I can assure you it is not yet on its death bed, but that is beside the point. Figma is expanding its competitive scope beyond new AI tools to challenge nearly all major design tools.”
Why I'm Not Worried AI Will Replace My UX Job
- UX data strategist Raluca Budiu draws from her two decades of experience to argue against AI replacing designers, noting that UX tools have always evolved, with AI simply being the next part of this progression.
- While AI can assist with tasks like usability testing and thematic analysis, it cannot replicate the skills essential to UX, such as empathy and critical thinking—a human touch remains central to the UX process.
- "As AI tools become stronger and more well-defined, our job is to figure out how they can help us build better products more efficiently and less expensively, and which of our current methods they can replace or augment.”
- Tech entrepreneur Allen Pike examines the evolution of chat interfaces, arguing that while they’ve popularized AI interactions, they often revive constraints of early text-based computing, making them inefficient for some tasks.
- Pike envisions a future AI could be seamlessly embedded into everyday applications, allowing users to access its capabilities through familiar interface elements rather than relying solely on chat.
- “Chat-based AI is powerful, flexible for power users, and easy to program. But it has many of the problems that early terminals had: it’s daunting, unintuitive, and an awkward way to do many kinds of work.”
💜 PORTFOLIO INSPIRATION
Kayla Rymer, a UX Academy graduate, brings a creative and thoughtful approach to her portfolio projects. In Helpings, she designs an app that fosters meaningful community connections by enabling users to coordinate shared meals—splitting costs and responsibilities. She also delivers a sleek website redesign for jewelry maker Maggie Anew, ensuring responsiveness by optimizing for both desktop and mobile. Kayla’s strong eye for branding and UI shines throughout her work, informed by her background in visual arts and design.
Got a portfolio you love that you’d like to share with our audience? Email your suggestions to hello@designlab.com.
💡 INTERESTING STUFF...
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Talent hits a target no one else can hit; genius hits a target no one else can see. — Arthur Schopenhauer, philosopher
🧪 FROM THE LAB
🎤TODAY 🎤: AI Prototypes That Win Stakeholders
Join us today, May 16th, at 1pm ET for “AI Prototypes That Win Stakeholders”, an hour-long innovative session hosted by Designlab mentor and AI expert Mel Hogan.
Unlock the power of AI-driven prototyping by learning to use Lovable.dev and Figma together to create interactive prototypes that streamline stakeholder approval and demonstrate the power of AI in design. Register here to attend live or receive a recording.
🚀 Courses Launching Soon
Advanced Figma (Launching 5/30):
- Perfect for: Experience designers wanted to become more efficient with complex Figma features
- You’ll learn: Proficiency with Figma’s auto layout feature, reusable components, and design systems
- How you’ll do it: Asynchronous lessons and projects supplemented by consistent feedback, and live peer sessions facilitated by expert mentors
- Next steps: Join our live webinar on 5/21 to learn more.
Prototyping in Figma (Launching 5/30):
- Perfect for: Experienced designers who want to leverage Figma’s more advanced prototyping features effectively
- You’ll learn: Rightsizing your prototypes, interaction design in Figma, making seamless animations, how to streamline developer handoff, and more
- How you’ll do it: Asynchronous lessons and projects supplemented by consistent feedback, and live peer sessions facilitated by expert mentors
- Next steps: Join our live webinar on 5/21 to learn more.
AI for Visual Design (Launching 5/30):
- Perfect for: Entrepreneurs, designers, marketers, or anyone wanting to gain proficiency with industry-leading generative AI tools
- You’ll learn: Prompt crafting, working with complex visual ideas such as branding and storytelling, animating with AI, and more
- How you’ll do it: Asynchronous lessons and projects supplemented by consistent feedback, and live peer sessions facilitated by expert mentors
- Next steps: Join our live webinar on 5/22 to learn more.
Design 101 (Launching 5/30):
- Perfect for: Marketers, educators, or other non-designers who create or collaborate on visuals. deliverables.
- You’ll learn: Foundational design principles that will have you designing better (and more effectively) fast
- How you’ll do it: Asynchronous lessons and projects supplemented by consistent feedback, and live peer sessions facilitated by expert mentors
- Next steps: Join our live webinar on 5/28 to learn more.
