My review of Figma's plugin experience 6 months after launch

Introduction

Welcome to the first in what I plan to be a multi-part review series about Figma plugins! For the past year and a half since I discovered it, I’ve been a big Figma proponent. It’s a powerful design tool with a robust set of features (even at the free membership level) that’s made digital design more accessible to the masses than ever.

When Figma announced the launch of plugin functionality in August 2019, I was excited by the possibilities it introduced in my favorite design tool/environment. It’s now been 6 months since plugins launched in Figma, and as the dust begins to settle, I thought it would be helpful to share my experiences with Figma plugins so far.

The Plugin Browsing Experience Could Be Better

The top-level browsing experience for Figma’s plugins is comprised of a sortable data grid of plugins, with each entry containing the plugin name, plugin logo, the plugin’s publisher, the plugin’s publish date, the number of plugin installs, an option to install the plugin, and a link to the plugin page for more info.

When Figma plugins launched, this UI made sense because only 40 plugins had been vetted in beta by that point, so there weren’t too many plugins to peruse. Six months later, that number has ballooned to 430 available plugins, and the data grid that previously made sense now feels tedious to scroll through. The only reason I know the number of available plugins on Figma is because I counted them all manually just now, but I think it would be useful if Figma’s plugin browsing page provided that number just to contextualize how many plugins we’re working with.

s page for browisng all plugins

Off the top of my head, here are three changes that I think would make the plugin browsing experience in Figma more intuitive and informative:

  1. Add the option to view plugin descriptions from the browsing page, whether as a modal or an expandable section in the existing data grid. It’s very difficult sometimes to tell what a plugin does based on name alone.
  2. Add some sort of categorization or tagging to plugins to make it easier to filter through them and chunk them instead of being faced with one massive list of hundreds of plugins to choose from.
  3. Add a card layout mode to the plugins data grid that matches the Featured plugins layout. The card versions of each plugin entry can feature a screenshot depicting the plugin’s functionality in action, or some similarly informative cover image, as well as a short description.

Accessing Plugins Can Take a Few Steps

I’m not in love with Figma’s browsing experience for plugins, nor am I enamored with the way plugin access has been integrated into Figma’s UI in the design editor itself. Indeed, my first point of friction while using some Figma plugins has more to do with Figma’s multi-step plugin UI than anything else.

Plugins can be accessed by right-clicking within the design workspace in Figma, and hovering over the ‘Plugins’ menu item. Depending on your screen size, it can require two to four clicks to select your plugin of choice. This floating menu behavior is determined by screen height, so if you have a taller browser window you’ll have less steps to contend with. Still, even a handful menu interactions seems like a bit much to me.

It also doesn’t help when a plugin’s name starts towards the end of the alphabet, which puts it at the bottom of the list of installed plugins. In the case of plugins like Unsplash or VisualEyes, I’ve had to navigate through four floating menus before being able to access those plugin options. This perfect storm of circumstances means that using these unfortunately named plugins might quickly become tedious if you need to access them often via the plugins menu for whatever reason.

Although browsing and using Figma plugins is still not the most intuitive experience yet, the value they provide is still worth the occasional inconveniences. This brings me to UI element that minimizes the need to use the right-click menu to access plugins repeatedly – persistent plugin windows.

Persistent Plugin Windows Save Time

At a bare minimum, when you run a Figma plugin after selecting it in the right-click menu your desired change will be reflected in your design workspace, but there’s sometimes nothing more than a brief notification at the bottom of your screen or an alert modal to tell you if the plugin ran successfully or not.

However a large number of Figma plugins go beyond this basic functionality by using persistent plugin windows that eliminate the need to tediously re-use the right-click menu to access those plugins. These windows can obviously be used for a variety of things, from plugin interaction to plugin reporting.

This persistent window behavior also makes it easier to iterate upon design ideas and to refine plugin settings if the first try was off the mark. This makes plugins that offer persistent windows more forgiving than the plugins that provide no UI to facilitate repeat interactions.

The one potential downside I’ve found when it comes to these persistent plugin windows is that you can only ever have one of them open at time. This is probably a good decision given Figma’s already scarce real estate – your screen would quickly become gobbled up by more than two or three plugin windows. But this means that you have to be better about planning your repeat plugin interactions in chunks so that you can minimize the amount of plugin switching you have to do. Sometimes that’s not a practical way to structure your workflow, though.

Plugins Can Be a Bridge to Surprising Functionality

I continue to be surprised by the new ways that Figma plugins manage to transform what was already a formidable design tool into an incredibly powerful one. From animation to 3D capabilities, Figma’s community has already pushed the limits of what I thought it was capable of doing, and those limits only continue to expand.

Going back to the point I made earlier, that’s why I think Figma’s plugin browsing experience could be improved. It’s unfortunate that people are potentially missing out on the incredible possibilities that Figma plugin developers have facilitated simply because it can be tedious to click through every single plugin to see its description page.

What I’m excited by is the breadth of plugin tools that are being created for Figma. The plugins that are being released don’t just address visual or design considerations – they also explore realms like project management, animation, image manipulation, workflow streamlining, task automation, and so much more!

More than any other design tool I’ve encountered, Figma is positioning itself to be a total solution for digital design – a true integrated design environment that combines designing, prototyping, and developer hand-off in one place. Plugins are a piece of that puzzle, and they’ve proven to be a game-changer, especially if you take into account the nearly 300 plugins that have been released since Figma’s initial 40 beta plugins launched 6 months ago.

Clearly plugins have been a hit – this is further reinforced when you consider the install numbers. Unsplash, the most popular Figma plugin, currently has 103,000+ installs. The second most popular plugin on Figma, Microsoft’s Content Reel, has 76,000+ installs. That’s a lot of user interaction in half a year.

Figma Plugins Are Worth a Try

Despite my various friction points while using Figma plugins, I’m really happy to have them in my life, and I think you will be too if you have yet to give them a try. Whether you think you’ll be a sparse plugin user or a power user, Figma plugins definitely have something for everyone – from the purely utilitarian to the delightfully frivolous.

The next additions to this writing series will feature my reviews for individual Figma plugins based on my personal experiences with them. I don’t plant to review every Figma plugin out there considering there are now hundreds of them. Instead, I’ll be focusing on the plugins that catch my eye. If there’s a plugin you think I should review, let me know. Happy designing!