Leveraging the power of Figma for next generation of enterprise interfaces
Self storage Facility units
Introduction
Self Storage industry is a complex behemoth. It’s due to the fact that it caters to the needs of an individual and with a population of more than 300 million people in the US, the needs can get quite staggering. Every individual who comes to a self storage facility needs to have their requirements catered to. Whether it be for storing household items in between shifting homes, to complete climate controlled units storing medicines for servicing inaccessible areas, the facility providing the self storage services need to adapt to what the customers want.
The enterprise software that is created at Codeparva Technologies can certainly adapt to the increasing demands from our customers but we also focus on how quickly and effortlessly can our customers get to what they want from our software . This is why we take the User Experience and User Interfaces very seriously .
Self Storage Industry and User Experience
As it was mentioned earlier about the complexity of the self storage industry, the software that we are building here at CodeParva, is targeting an industry as a customer and not the general consumer. Generally when you take a look at the interfaces and the experiences of a b2b product , it’s not as inspired, sleek or welcoming as the ones you find in b2c products like Nike, Apple, Zara etc.. They are usually very dreary, cumbersome, difficult to navigate around and demands a high learning curve from its users. And coupled with the fact that the self storage industry has a wide variety of use cases and not to mention the fact the product that we are building is highly customizable and scalable , things can get messy and difficult, very quickly.
In order for us to deliver a pleasing experience along with a very high usability factor, we needed a software that could help us in iterating and course correcting at blazing speeds . And to build an interface rapidly with help of the Design System that lets us publish our components to any projects and help keep our features, files and flows organized in one place, there was only 1 option that worked for us — Figma.
Image credit to Figma
How Figma became the go to tool for designing
Initially the team was using Adobe XD and while it was fine and got the job done, there were a lot of issues. Some of which are:
- XD goes by Artboards whereas Figma uses Frames which, in my opinion, is much more flexible and allows you to do a lot more than the artboards like nesting frames. You can also set pages in Figma unlike in Adobe XD where you can only have multiple Artboards.
- Collaboration and sharing is much easier and better in Figma than in XD. This is a very underrated feature. Like how multiple editors can edit in a google Doc, it’s the same thing with Figma. Multiple editors can edit, comment, share in one file and that’s powerful.
- It’s an online tool and can run in browsers. One designer is even using it exclusively on the ipad. The versatility of this app speaks volumes to how it’s designed and engineered. There are of course standalone apps of Figma for Windows, MacOS and Linux but they all need internet connection, which is not a deal breaker.
- Creating and modifying vectors is easier in Figma and provides a lot more shapes.
The main thing with Figma is that the tool has several solutions integrated into it. You can do the following in Figma:
- UX and UI Design
- Prototyping
- Basic graphic design
- Wireframing
- Templates
And all of this is available right in your browser!
Now you must be wondering about how a software that is online only, can run in browsers and has all the features integrated into it, be any good or even perform as well as a standalone apps like XD and Sketch ( BTW, we didn’t go for Sketch since its too cost prohibitive as we would have to invest in Macs and the software itself is pricey compared to both Figma and XD). The answer is, unsurprisingly, is awesome. Unless you are dealing with a very heavy file with 100s of frames or pages, there is no noticeable slow down.
Another one of the bigger advantages is the fact that, because its an online tool, the file is always automatically saved. And that too on the cloud. No more hassles of losing work and saving files as Final1, Final2, This_time_its_really_Final and so on and filling up the disk. Sketch and XD users routinely fill their hard drives with 10s, maybe even 100s of GB worth of design files since UI UX is a very iterative process . And saving every step of the way is necessary in case something’s have to be reused from one of the files. In Figma you can use the Page feature to keep the iterations in just file. So, in my case, I have them like this:
- Initial Sketches
- 1st Iteration Draft
- 2nd Iteration Draft
…. and so on. The beauty of this system is that I can have the design source of truth in just 1 file. I can keep and refer to the sketches when I prototype and helps me to analyse and visualize the flow better.
Another important aspect of Figma is File versioning and it’s automatic and on-demand. At any time, a designer can create a named version and the description of a Figma file which can be done immediately after agreed changes are made to a design. The live file in the shared environment is not affected until changes are deliberately committed to the original. It’s also possible to restore any automatically saved versions to create a duplicate or overwrite the original.
Figma also has a very neat feature called Team Libraries which help in facilitating Design Systems . Design systems are needed to help build large interfaces rapidly using components, which is what Figma calls it. They are reusable and scalable objects which can be published from one file and the rest of the projects can access them and if needed, override them.
An overridden component can still have changes coming from the Master Component . Because of this, building interfaces can be quick, iterative and most importantly, more enjoyable since you can get creative without having the shackles of the tool hold you down.
Conclusion
With the arrival of Figma, the entire pipeline has been sped up. The amount of time saved due to the collaboration features where feedback and updates are instant, not having to worry about losing your work, saving files and making a backup, not needing to jump to another app for dev handoff and keeping everything in one place, is a dream come true for many UI UX designers. And all of this for free ($15/month for small teams) is a package with feature set that leaves its competitors far behind in almost every aspect.
If you like the idea and want to know more, doesn’t matter if it is the industry or the product, you can always connect with us. Visit Codeparva Technologies to know more about us.
