Screens were different a decade ago. They were thicker, wider, and tethered firmly to walls. While mobile devices and screens in our pockets existed back then, they were not yet as relentlessly hungry for our eyes as they are today.
Today’s digital displays are far more advanced than the technology available in 2007, yet many of the foundational tools graphic designers rely on to fill these screens with compelling digital interfaces have remained largely unchanged. In fact, a significant number of professionals still use Adobe Photoshop—an industry standard that established its dominance long before the arrival of the iPhone—to design the visual look of modern notifications and the layout of mobile application feeds.
Over the past few years, however, a crop of nimble newcomers has emerged with the explicit goal of wooing graphic designers away from Adobe’s brawny and heavily established graphics editor. The most prominent among them has been a specialized tool called Sketch, which offers many of the core features found in Photoshop but is significantly easier to use and purpose-built for the unique demands of digital interface design. The competition in this space has become so fiercely contested that Adobe was compelled to release a beta version of its own dedicated interface design tool, known straightforwardly as Adobe Experience Design CC, or Adobe XD.
To outsiders, this software rivalry might seem a little inside-baseball and perhaps even a bit boring. But when you consider that these tools are currently locked in a high-stakes battle for the absolute loyalties of designers at today’s most powerful and influential technology companies, the stakes become clear. Whichever application ultimately wins this war for developer preference will be used by these creative professionals to forge the digital products, applications, and interfaces of the future for years to come.
That ongoing melee escalated significantly as an interface design tool known as Figma took a major step toward the absolute center of the ring. The browser-based tool is specifically engineered to help designers build digital products collectively, allowing multiple individuals to collaborate in real-time as they draw, drag, and edit visual elements together on the screen. Although Figma officially launched its platform, it has already successfully converted major tech enterprises like Microsoft, Uber, and Slack into paying clients. Now, the startup has unveiled two crucial new features that should give established market competitors like Sketch and Adobe serious pause, while likely cementing its reputation among corporate adopters.
The first of these major enhancements is a feature called "code mode," which provides software engineers with seamless access to the underlying code that dictates a project’s visual look and feel. The second addition, known as "prototype mode," allows designers to rapidly build, present, and modify working, interactive prototypes of digital products. Both of these integrated modes operate directly from inside the Figma environment, a deliberate product choice designed to ease the traditional friction and professional tensions that so often emerge between visual designers and the code-minded engineers they must collaborate with to bring a product to life.
When it first entered the market, Figma immediately captured the attention of the design community with two foundational capabilities: live, multi-user collaboration and robust version control. Much in the same way multiple people can open and work within a Google Document simultaneously, numerous individuals can join forces on a single design project inside Figma. Tweaks, adjustments, and structural edits are saved instantaneously to the cloud, preserving a detailed, chronological record of every project’s developmental history and effectively preventing collaborators from accidentally overwriting each other’s hard work.
This real-time, all-in-one digital environment represents a massive boon for design professionals who have historically been forced to rely on cobbled-together workflows involving multiple disparate programs, clunky third-party plug-ins, and various cloud storage services. Under the old paradigm, a designer might meticulously craft a screen layout in Photoshop, save the file to the cloud using a service like Dropbox, and then share a direct link to that folder with their colleagues. Those collaborators would then be forced to download the file, make their changes, and go through the exact same tedious steps just to share their revisions back, creating a sluggish and inefficient feedback loop.
The shift toward a unified, live environment has fundamentally altered how creative teams operate day-to-day. As Trello product designer Adam Simms explains, the impact of real-time collaboration becomes immediately apparent during standard design reviews. Simms utilizes the tool to create and refine extensions for his company’s widely used project management application. Recounting his initial experience with the platform, Simms notes that he sent a preview link of his ongoing project to ten different developers, and all of them jumped simultaneously into a live demonstration of the design.
When those developers realized they were looking directly at the source files and that they had the ability to follow the presenter around on their screens, the entire dynamic of the review changed. It instantly transformed into an interactive feedback loop, enabling the engineering team to leave comments, ask questions, and raise concerns right as the designer was walking through the interface elements.
Despite the advantages of live collaboration, Figma’s appeal extends beyond its multi-user capabilities. Because it operates entirely as a browser-based application, it functions seamlessly regardless of whether a team’s members are using Apple Macs, Windows PCs, or Linux laptops. By contrast, Adobe XD is restricted to running on Windows and Mac operating systems, while Sketch remains strictly exclusive to the Mac ecosystem.
On the other hand, traditional heavyweights like Sketch and Adobe retain distinct advantages in other areas. Sketch benefits from a mature, rich network of third-party plug-ins developed over years by an active community, while Adobe enjoys deep integration with its sprawling suite of creative products and the immense historical weight of its design heritage.
Ultimately, the most salient takeaway from this competitive landscape is that market rivalry has successfully spurred all of these companies to actively address the persistent workflow issues that have bedeviled digital designers for years. Yet, the broader battle for the hearts, minds, and daily workflows of Silicon Valley’s top design talent remains in its early stages. Which specific features designers will prize most in the long run, and which software vendor will consistently deliver those capabilities first, is a question that the industry is still working out in real time.
