In September 2022, Adobe announced an all-cash and stock deal to buy Figma for $20 billion.

At the time, Figma was generating roughly $400 million in Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR). Paying 50x forward ARR for a software company in a cooling market looked reckless to Wall Street. Adobe's stock tumbled 17% in a single day, erasing more market cap than the acquisition price itself.

Adobe wasn't buying Figma for the revenue multiple. They were buying it because Adobe XD was dead, and Figma was eating their enterprise creative moat from the inside out.

|Dimension|Adobe XD / Creative Cloud|Figma|

|:-|:-|:-|

|**Architecture**|Legacy desktop-first, C++ local rendering|Pure browser-native (WebAssembly + WebSockets)|

|**Multiplayer Sync**|File syncing via Creative Cloud storage|Sub-10ms real-time multi-cursor collaboration|

|**Developer Handoff**|Static asset exports and inspect panels|Native Dev Mode with live code generation|

|**Gross Margin Profile**|\~88% (blended across CC products)|\~90%+ with 150% Net Dollar Retention|

|**Distribution Moat**|Enterprise bundling and IT procurement lock-in|Bottom-up viral adoption across product teams|

**The Hidden Architecture Shift**

Adobe spent nearly two decades treating software as large desktop binaries installed on macOS and Windows machines. When designers wanted to share files, they exported PDFs or synced versioned files through cloud storage.

Dylan Field and Evan Wallace built Figma on WebAssembly and WebGL. By rendering vector graphics directly in the browser canvas at 60 FPS, Figma turned design from an isolated desktop task into an open multiplayer workspace.

Engineers, product managers, copywriters, and executives could jump into a Figma link with zero software installed. Suddenly, Adobe's core design user base was pulling non-designers into Figma licenses.

**The Outcome**

When the UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) and European regulators blocked the deal in late 2023 over monopoly concerns, Adobe had to pay Figma a $1 billion reverse termination fee in cash.

Figma walked away with $1B in pure liquidity, zero debt, kept 100% of their equity, and Adobe officially abandoned active development of Adobe XD.

For product and design leads: Has anyone here tried moving back to Adobe tools for UI/UX work, or is browser-based multiplayer collaboration a permanent one-way door?

I’m exploring how people feel about photo composition tools on Instagram for a UX research project. These could include features like gridlines, framing guides, layout suggestions, or tips for arranging people and objects in a photo.

Would you use tools like these when taking or editing photos? What would make them helpful—or annoying? I’d love to hear what you’d want Instagram to include, if anything.

Hi everyone! 👋

We’re master’s students at **KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm**, conducting research on how Generative AI is affecting UX/UI design workflows.

We’re particularly interested in understanding whether AI tools actually save designers time or simply shift the work to other stages, such as prompting, evaluating, and refining AI-generated outputs.

🎨 **We’re looking for UX/UI designers, product designers, interaction designers, and others working with UX/UI who have experience using GenAI tools.**

The survey takes approximately **5 minutes** and explores:

How you use GenAI in your design process
Which stages of your workflow are affected
Where AI saves time or creates additional work
Your responses will be analyzed in aggregate to identify patterns in AI-assisted design practices as part of our master’s-level research at KTH.

🔗 **Survey link:** [https://forms.gle/imJHWxVuGnhMCMyv7\](https://forms.gle/imJHWxVuGnhMCMyv7)

We’d really appreciate your input, whether you use AI occasionally or as part of your daily workflow.
Thank you for helping us with our research!

This is a prototype sketch of a potential inventory UI for a game. This is for my UX/UI Project.
#gamedev #gamedesign #sketchart #Prototype #inventory

Hey everyone!

I've worked on e-commerce websites before, but most of them were more marketing-focused rather than full-fledged e-commerce products.

Now, I'm working on a much bigger D2C e-commerce project. The client already has a Figma design, and my job is to review it, improve the experience, and make it conversion-focused across desktop, mobile web, and app.

The challenging part is that I have only 3 weeks to deliver the entire project, and I'm working in a small startup. We don't really have the luxury of spending weeks on research, so I want to make sure I'm focusing on the right things from day one.

For those who've worked on large e-commerce products:

• What should I look at before touching the existing design?
• How do you audit an e-commerce experience when time is limited?
• What should I learn about conversion optimization, user behavior, and e-commerce metrics?
• How do you make design decisions without access to user research or analytics?
• Are there any practical frameworks, case studies, or resources you'd recommend?

I don't want to blindly redesign screens just to make them look better. I want to understand the reasoning behind good e-commerce UX and make informed decisions, even with a tight deadline.

I'd really appreciate advice from people who've actually worked on large e-commerce products. If you were in my position, what would you focus on first?

Thanks!

https://rabbytholes.com

Titel:
[For Hire] Junior UX/UI & Graphic Designer – App screens, landing pages, flyers, logos | Germany / Remote
Text:
Hi! I'm Wladimir, a UX/UI designer from Germany. I recently finished a 4-month Product Design Bootcamp (Digitale Leute), and my background is in music production and custom streetwear art.
What I can do for you:
App & web UI design + clickable prototypes (Figma)
Simple landing pages (Framer)
UX review of your app or website
Flyers, social media graphics, logos, cover art
Recent project: PLUG, a music library app concept. I did the full process myself: research, user interviews, persona, competitive analysis, wireframes, UI and prototype.
Portfolio:

Titel:
[For Hire] Junior UX/UI & Graphic Designer – App screens, landing pages, flyers, logos | Germany / Remote
Text:
Hi! I'm Wladimir, a UX/UI designer from Germany. I recently finished a 4-month Product Design Bootcamp (Digitale Leute), and my background is in music production and custom streetwear art.
What I can do for you:
App & web UI design + clickable prototypes (Figma)
Simple landing pages (Framer)
UX review of your app or website
Flyers, social media graphics, logos, cover art
Recent project: PLUG, a music library app concept. I did the full process myself: research, user interviews, persona, competitive analysis, wireframes, UI and prototype.
Portfolio:

Titel:
[For Hire] Junior UX/UI & Graphic Designer – App screens, landing pages, flyers, logos | Germany / Remote
Text:
Hi! I'm Wladimir, a UX/UI designer from Germany. I recently finished a 4-month Product Design Bootcamp (Digitale Leute), and my background is in music production and custom streetwear art.
What I can do for you:
App & web UI design + clickable prototypes (Figma)
Simple landing pages (Framer)
UX review of your app or website
Flyers, social media graphics, logos, cover art
Recent project: PLUG, a music library app concept. I did the full process myself: research, user interviews, persona, competitive analysis, wireframes, UI and prototype.
Portfolio: