Designer's Coffee #08: Figma Kills Drafts, AI Girlfriend, Depressed Product Design
June 2024 Edition
Kristina Volchek
June 19, 2024
Hey guys! 👋
Here is what’s on the menu this month:
Figma is squeezing all users into paid teams & kills free collaboration
Newest ChatGPT desktop app - your new AI girlfriend?
Make product design great again, or why we’re entering a depressed product design era
The human advantage against AI by Seth Godin
Some useful social posts & resources
🧨 Figma Kills Free Collaboration
Some not-so-well-announced news from Figma this month is causing quite a stir in the design community. Figma is changing how we use drafts, and it’s not looking good for collaboration.
If you’re like me, you probably use drafts to work with clients and fellow designers. Unfortunately, this kind of freeform collaboration is about to be a lot more complicated. Figma is moving all drafts under team accounts. This means you’ll need to invite people to your team to give them editor access, and here’s the kicker – you have to pay for those editor seats.
For freelancers or individuals, Figma’s pricing was already tricky. I’ve got a paid team plan with just one seat. But more than once, I’ve ended up accidentally paying for additional seats when collaborating on projects, simply because the billing system isn’t very transparent.
With this new change, many designers will be forced into paid plans or compelled to create unnecessary teams, both free and paid. Unsurprisingly, the reaction has been overwhelmingly negative. Here are some thoughts from the design community on Reddit:
“Their positioning of the change feels like an obvious masquerade for, “we closed to loophole that let free users create as many files as they wanted.” I don’t think this was ever intended as a product enhancement with user value at all.” by @wellmashed
“Nothing improves at all for the users, especially for single freelance designers with no team who are now forced to make a team just to use drafts. The only thing “improving” is the amount of money Figma will be getting by making this change.” by GadgetGirlOz
What are your thoughts on this update? Are you feeling the pinch, or do you see a silver lining? Let’s discuss it - reply to this email or comment online!
😉 Discover ChatGPT Desktop: Your All-in-One AI Girlfriend
ChatGPT launched its fastest, smartest, and most multimodal AI yet. The “o” in 4o stands for “omni,” which means “all” or “everything” in Latin. This is because ChatGPT 4o can handle various types of input like text, audio, and images all in one go.
Previously, ChatGPT needed separate models for each type of input, which led to a fragmented experience. Now, with 4o, everything is combined into one efficient model, making interactions faster and more seamless.
What’s interesting is the desktop version of ChatGPT 4o. It feels more human with animations that show it “thinking” and “talking” back to you. These subtle touches make the experience feel more like a real conversation.
On desktop, you can choose a voice for ChatGPT to talk to you. One of the options, called Sky Voice, sounds a lot like Scarlett Johansson, which sparked quite a bit of online drama. People started wondering if her voice was used without permission. OpenAI even made a statement about it:
“The voice of Sky is not Scarlett Johansson's, and it was never intended to resemble hers. We cast the voice actor behind Sky’s voice before any outreach to Ms. Johansson. Out of respect for Ms. Johansson, we have paused using Sky’s voice in our products. We are sorry to Ms. Johansson that we didn’t communicate better.”
I also enjoyed the small animation that visualizes the listening experience. It simulates active listening with subtle movements whenever you speak or type. While it doesn’t directly react to your voice, it adds to a more engaging and interactive conversation experience.
I decided to put ChatGPT 4o to the test by asking it to critique a screenshot of my own website. Since I’m familiar with its design, I thought it would be a good way to see how well ChatGPT handles design critiques. Honestly, I was really impressed with the detailed and accurate feedback it provided.
It was able to pick up on important aspects like the impact of headlines compared to body text, as well as branding and hierarchy. For example, ChatGPT noted:
“Typography: The text uses bold, sans-serif fonts for the headlines, making them stand out. The primary headline “I DESIGN FOR GROWTH.” is especially bold and impactful, drawing immediate attention. The body text is simpler and clean, ensuring readability.”
But this is just the beginning. There are many other exciting use cases for the newest ChatGPT, and I’m curious to see how the technology will evolve over the next year. Who knows, we might even get our own AI girlfriend soon!
What to read
My favourite articles, case studies, books and posts this month.
Watch or listen
My favourite YouTube tutorials, movies, podcasts and reels this month.
“The Human Advantage“ | Expert Seth Godin On Teaching Excellence
In this video, Seth Godin dives deep into the AI-human conflict, exploring how we can outperform AI (if it’s truly a competition). Discover where humans can excel and what it takes to stay ahead in this rapidly evolving landscape. How we can get better?
Free Resources
1. @Florian Boelter from Open Doors shared his ultimate tech stack for Product Designers in 2024
2. @Figma’s new update: Finally, you can create dividers in your Figma files!
3. @DesignSpells noticed an amazing Jitter favicon animation
Favicon indicates the video export progress in @jittervideo
designspells.com/spells/favicon…
— Design Spells (@designspells_)
2:30 PM • May 2, 2024
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That’s all for today! If you found the newsletter interesting, don’t forget to share it with your friends 😉. And if you have any cool links to share - drop them my way. 📮
See you next time!
Kristina
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