Nobody cares how good you are at Figma
Read time: 7 minutes
1 million views.
That’s the number I reached on a reel about creating UI designs.
The content I post about Figma always outperforms my design thinking and problem solving content.
So it didn’t surprise me when a new designer booked mentoring with me and told me she’d been spending the past few weeks learning Figma as her first step in ‘becoming a designer’.
Repeat after me:
Being an expert in Figma doesn’t make me an expert in design.
The best designers aren’t solving problems in Figma.
The best designers are using Figma for what it should be used for -
A tool for communication:
• Communicating how you proposed solving a problem.
• Communicating how a design should look and work
• Communicating how a user will interact with the features
On the surface, sure, there’s nothing wrong with the Figma obsession.
But the issue arises when people substitute becoming Figma experts over doing the real design work 👇🏽
Solving user problems and creating better experiences.
Being an expert in Figma doesn’t make you an expert designer
Figma is a tool, a tool for communicating your design thinking and solutions.
The same way the camera is a tool for a photographer. The best camera equipment in the world won’t turn a bad photographer into a great one. Quality comes from skill, not the tool.
Just like the quality of a design comes from the designers skill with solving problems, not how good they are at using Figma.
You can be a Figma expert yet still fail to solve a user’s problem.
Your primary goal as the designer is to solve problems within the context of the business and the user.
Figma simply helps you articulate and visualise your proposed solution.
Are you hiding behind your Figma visuals?
One word:
Dribbble.
The stunning designs featured on Dribbble can make any designer feel insecure.
But often, that’s all they are: Stunning designs, with little substance.
This obsession with crafting beautiful designs risks losing the core purpose of design:
To create an impact with our design solutions.
Don’t get me wrong. I’ve been guilty of this myself.
Failing to truly understand and solve the user problem and using my polished UI design to hide behind.
The worst part?
It often works.
Beautiful visuals grab stakeholders attention, they evoke emotion and can be very impressive. Even when the design doesn’t move the needle on metrics.
Why do you think metrics are so important to hiring managers in portfolios?
Metrics don’t let you hide behind pretty designs.
They expose the truth on whether your work truly had an impact.
How to check you’re not hiding behind your visuals?
Test your work by articulating your solution in words. If you can’t clearly explain how it solves the problem, you might not be solving the problem.
Where did our Figma obsession start?
Think back to your first job as a product designer.
What were you tasked to do?
Chances are, you were executing.
Early in our careers, before we have learned the skill of solving problems, we start our design journey by executing solutions from other designers.
By executing, I mean taking solutions that others had already defined and bringing them to life through wireframes and visuals.
And where does that execution work happen?
In Figma.
We spend hours perfecting screens, tweaking components, and adjusting layouts.
This early experience plants a seed: Figma feels like the heart of the design process.
Add to that the incredible marketing by Figma and other tools, and it’s no wonder we see the tool as central to our design work.
Life without Figma
Don’t get me wrong, Figma is very important for designers, before you think I hate Figma and they don’t collaborate with me in the future (joke).
It is important in improving our workflow.
It saves us time, enables collaboration, and streamlines handoffs to engineers.
Here’s how:
It saves us hours
Thank you components and design systems for removing the most tedious part of my job.
It allows us to collaborate
You new designers reading won’t know the days where we had to close files to let someone make a change and create branches and merge back to the master (the pain of this memory).
It improves handoff to engineers
I used to spend DAYS creating specification documents to explain how features need to work so engineers knew how to build them.
Without Figma, we’d be creating wireframes and UI designs in Adobe… or Canva (no shade intended).
Let’s be honest, our lives weren’t the same after we finally figured out how to use Auto Layout and Variables.
My concern is simply that our obsession with the tool is setting the wrong example for new designers, existing designers, stakeholders and companies.
Why does this matter?
We are becoming pixel pushers, not problem solvers
This focus on UI and visuals risks reducing how others perceive the value of design, and therefore the value of our skills and our job.
Is it teaching others, and sometimes even ourselves, that we’re just pixel pushers?
We do so much more than arranging things on a screen in a pretty way.
We have developed this incredible, transferable skill set, where we can:
• Break down problems and identify actionable solutions
• Take complexity and bring simplicity
• Navigate ambiguity and bring clarity
These skills go beyond visuals, they go beyond Figma.
They have the potential to add value at every level of the business, from strategy to execution.
Yet, we’re being boxed into the ‘visual creators’ rather than the ‘problem solvers’.
I want to break the misconception that designers only solve problems through visuals, Figma, or UI. Design is about solving problems regardless of the medium.
The takeaway: Stepping into your full potential
Businesses and stakeholders don’t always come to us to solve complex problems.
A big reason for this is because they see us as executors and focusing on visuals reinforces that perception.
By showcasing the depth of our skills and the value we create beyond aesthetics, we shift how design is valued. This opens doors to:
• better career opportunities
• more impactful projects
• more leadership positions
• higher pay
Time to claim the value our skills deserve.
P.S.
I opened up my mentoring slots this week 🥳 I am only taking 5 designers this quarter for long term mentoring.
Send me an email saying ‘mentor’ at ari@ari-ux.com if you're interested in hearing more.
