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Figma Config reminded me what a product conference is supposed to feel like.
There was a time when you'd watch a keynote and not know what was coming. You had expectations. You had excitement. And then they'd show you something that made you rethink what was possible. Apple used to do this every year.
Most conferences lost that. Especially in the last two years. The formula became predictable. Walk on stage, say "AI" fourteen times, demo an agent doing something nobody asked for, get applause.
Figma went a different direction.
Code layers. Treating code as a design material, right on the canvas. Motion design built in. Shaders you can prompt and apply without leaving the file. Not a slideshow of things that might work someday. Tools you can open and use.
The part that stood out the most: none of it felt like it was built to ride a trend. It felt like it was built because designers and product teams needed it. That's a different starting point. And it leads to a different kind of product.
Half the industry is building AI features because the bubble says they should. Figma built features that happen to use AI because the problem called for it. That difference matters more than people think.
Everything still needs to be tested. Keynote demos are not production workflows. But the direction is clear. They're listening to what the people using the tool actually need, not chasing what investors want to hear.
That's what brought back a feeling I haven't had watching a product event in a long time. Hope that the tools we use every day are being built by people who still care about getting them right.
Well done, Figma.
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Is it just me, or did design become fun again lately?
A year ago, everyone was panicking about AI replacing us. Now I open Figma and see that it took away the tasks we got tired of doing anyway.
I really don't miss doing the exact same manual changes every single day. The tools finish that setup quickly, so we can go straight to the thinking.
The changes I'm seeing are positive:
- More time for strategy.
- Faster testing.
- Less burnout.
It feels like we got our time back to focus on pure creativity.
What is the most boring task you let AI do for you now? Let me know in the comments🥷🏻
Great post. Hahha i ask AI to create bottle filter and it was boring nervous but anyway fun and had result)))
One thing product design has taught me so far...
You're not designing for yourself, You're not even designing for the founder.
You're designing for the people who will use the product every single day.
That's why user research isn't optional it's the foundation.
Every decision should come from understanding the people you're designing for, not from what you personally think looks good.
I've also learned that great products aren't measured by beautiful interfaces.
They're measured by growth,
Can users achieve what they came for?
Do they come back?
Does the experience create value for both the user and the business?
Because at the end of the day, every company wants to grow and every product should help make that happen.
One more thing...
AI has become part of my design process.
Not because it's replacing designers, but because it helps me think faster, explore more ideas, and challenge my assumptions.
The decisions still come from me, the empathy still comes from understanding people.
And that's something no tool can replace.
Still learning.
Still building.
Still becoming a better product designer and Builder every day.
-------
I'm Emmanuel Bliss
A Product Designer for Startups and Brands Ready to Scale | I Find the UX Gaps Hurting Retention Before They Hurt Growth
The brief for this logo was unlike most. The mark needed to communicate what the product does, animate across different AI states, and connect to an industry.
AI introduces a new kind of waiting in software. When an agent is thinking or processing, something has to hold the user's attention and signal that work is happening. Most products solve this with a generic spinner. We designed the brand mark to be that loading state, so every time Augie is thinking, the logo is working.
We went through a lot before anything clicked. Symmetrical, geometric shapes ended up being the answer because they can shift and animate without losing their identity. The gaps and proportions can change and the mark still reads as one coherent thing. That felt right for Augie, which works across a lot of different surfaces but stays as one coherent system.
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