The time came for changes and our design team started raising the topic again about how we should consider moving away from Sketch. This is not the first time this question came to mind, but this time seems like it was serious. Last summer we considered changing Sketch to something else, but at the time the decision was made that it is not worth the hassle. We decided to wait until this tool will catch up as some of us honestly believed in the future of it.

是时候进行更改了，我们的设计团队开始再次提出有关应该如何考虑脱离Sketch的话题。 这不是第一次想到这个问题，但是这次似乎很严重。 去年夏天，我们考虑将Sketch更改为其他名称，但当时决定不值得为之烦恼。 我们决定等到该工具赶上来，因为我们中的一些人对它的未来深信不疑。

For Telesoftas designers it is a second revolution — the first big one was a long time ago a move from Photoshop to Sketch. At the time it seemed like an enormous deal and the progress of something revolutionary. Now this time we can call it the second design revolution and the next big change.

对于Telesoftas设计师来说，这是第二次革命-第一个重大革命是很久以前从Photoshop转到Sketch的。 在当时，这似乎是一笔巨大的交易，而且是革命性的进步。 现在，这一次我们可以称之为第二次设计革命和下一个重大变化。

Sketch的史前史以及为何需要进行更改 (Prehistory of Sketch and why the change is needed)

Most of the team got used to Sketch and it was a really praised tool at the beginning of transition. We were excited about how easy it is to use, sharing with others tips and tricks, shortcuts. What I liked about Sketch at first was symbols and how you can have nested symbols inside. It helped to save many hours; we improved consistency and sped up the entire workflow. However, while working on bigger projects I saw serious performance issues when Sketch started crashing often. Some work got lost and it was a tedious process which tested your nerves.

团队中的大多数人都习惯了Sketch，在过渡初期，这是一个非常受好评的工具。 我们很高兴它易于使用，并与他人分享提示，技巧和捷径。 首先，我喜欢Sketch的地方是符号，以及如何在其中嵌套符号。 它有助于节省许多时间； 我们提高了一致性并加快了整个工作流程。 但是，在处理较大的项目时，当Sketch开始经常崩溃时，我看到了严重的性能问题。 一些工作迷失了，这是一个繁琐的过程，测试了您的神经。

Collaboration was really a pain and for that you have to use plugins, other services to be in sync with other designers. It was not working perfectly and sometimes we were resolving conflicts when we tried to push designs to the service cloud from the plugin. That when a design tool requires so many other services to be functional at its minimalistic level is outrageous. For design sync we used Plant, for sharing designs with clients or PMs Invision, for creating animations Principle and for sharing with developers Sympli. Sometimes also Anima to create smart adaptive layouts. Since Sketch is the industry-standard tool the missing product features created a lot of opportunities for new businesses to arise.

协作确实很痛苦，为此，您必须使用插件和其他服务才能与其他设计师同步。 它无法完美运行，有时当我们尝试将设计从插件推送到服务云时，我们正在解决冲突。 当设计工具要求许多其他服务在其最低级别上起作用时，这是令人发指的。 为了进行设计同步，我们使用了Plant，与客户或PM Invision共享设计，创建动画Principle以及与开发人员Sympli共享。 有时也可以通过Anima创建智能的自适应布局。 由于Sketch是行业标准工具，因此缺少的产品功能为新业务的兴起创造了很多机会。

Some services I found useful, but it adds up initial monthly costs to be expensive. Sketch 99$ per year since obviously people need updates. Invision team license costs about 300$ per year. Plant goes about 144$ per year and Sympli 108$ per seat. Since we need a lot of seats Sympli by itself costs a fortune as designers and developers need that access. It is not only the pricing issue, but the entire workflow going back and forth feels not right and counter-productive.

我发现某些服务很有用，但初期的每月费用很昂贵。 每年草绘99美元，因为显然人们需要更新。 Invision团队许可费用约为每年300美元。 Plant每年大约花费144 $，Sympli每个座位花费​​108 $。 由于我们需要大量席位，因此，Sympli本身会付出巨大的财富，因为设计师和开发人员需要这种访问权限。 这不仅是定价问题，而且整个工作流程来回走动都感觉不正确和适得其反。

为什么Sketch落后 (Why Sketch fell behind)

The principal problem I see for Sketch is that it relied too much on the plugins who supported the tool. Some plugins were fantastic, and I am thankful for the community that helped when creating interesting solutions. However sometimes I had a feeling that some plugins should have been a native product feature instead. It felt stupid that you have to use all these plugins to achieve some results. This might be the reason while it was lacking to create some additional features, because plugins fill up the holes.

我看到的Sketch的主要问题是，它过于依赖支持该工具的插件。 有些插件很棒，我感谢社区在创建有趣的解决方案时提供的帮助。 但是有时候我感觉有些插件应该是本机产品功能。 愚蠢的是，您必须使用所有这些插件才能获得某些结果。 这可能是因为缺少插件而无法创建一些其他功能的原因。

At the moment I see that product tries to catch up and incorporates native functionality while replacing some plugins. It is good to see prototyping functions improving, auto layout, symbol and style management, cloud development happening, so I am grateful.

目前，我看到该产品试图赶上并合并本机功能，同时替换一些插件。 很好的是，原型功能正在改进，自动布局，符号和样式管理，云开发正在发生，所以我很感激。

团队希望的草图 (Sketch for teams hope)

While we monitor Sketch blogs, email newsletter we got excited again for 2020 upcoming Sketch for Teams, cloud and promised collaboration functionality. It was last year and at that moment I believed that these new updates will help to catch up with XD and Figma. From my point of view they are miles away from Sketch in terms of functionality and experience they can offer. We got new Sketch for team updates; we got the cloud, but eventually we were disappointed at the realisation of these features. The Sketch cloud appears to be slow, the only thing we replaced was Plant, but prototyping, collaboration is still lacking.

当我们监视Sketch博客和电子邮件通讯时，我们为2020年即将推出的Sketch for Teams，云和承诺的协作功能再次感到兴奋。 那是去年，那时我相信这些新更新将有助于赶上XD和Figma。 从我的角度来看，它们可以提供的功能和体验与Sketch相距甚远。 我们获得了新的Sketch以进行团队更新； 我们有了云，但是最终我们对实现这些功能感到失望。 Sketch云看起来很慢，我们唯一要替换的是Plant，但是原型，协作仍然很缺乏。

Unfortunately Sketch for teams didn’t match up with the high hopes we had, so we started investigating others alternatives on the market to make a move. I was really a fan of Sketch and enjoyed it to the fullest, but as I mentioned before other tools seem to be miles away from Sketch. So we listed up requirements and went to look for a replacement. The goal — one tool for all that can replace everything we currently use.

不幸的是，Sketch对于团队并没有达到我们的期望，因此我们开始研究市场上的其他替代产品以采取行动。 我确实是Sketch的狂热者，并且非常喜欢它，但是正如我之前提到的，其他工具似乎离Sketch千里之外。 因此，我们列出了要求，然后寻找替代品。 目标-一种可以替代我们当前使用的所有功能的工具。

工具与作业研究 (The Research Of Tools And Homework)

I started by researching “Framer X” and tried to do some small project with it. Before that of course I spent some time on YouTube and articles to understand more about it. The main value from this tool is that you do designs with real components, everything is fully functional. For example integrated maps, video players, forms are working like a real product. At some point I was amazed by how interactive and real prototyping and designing can be. It has its “Store” where you can download components and by combining your designs with various components you can have usable designs.

我首先研究“ Framer X”，然后尝试用它做一些小项目。 当然，在那之前，我在YouTube和一些文章上花费了一些时间来了解更多有关它的信息。 该工具的主要价值在于您使用真实的组件进行设计，所有功能都可以正常使用。 例如，集成地图，视频播放器，表格的工作方式就像真实的产品一样。 在某些时候，我对交互性和真实的原型设计能如此惊讶。 它具有其“商店”，您可以在其中下载组件，并将您的设计与各种组件组合在一起就可以使用可用的设计。

But again feels like coming back to the same problem when relying too much on the outside plugins rather when having complete product. I can not say that this tool is easy to use. For example if you want to have hover functionality you do need to got to code editor. The main idea is in the long term you need to have good command of React to be able to master it.

但是当过于依赖外部插件而不是拥有完整的产品时，再次感觉又回到了相同的问题。 我不能说这个工具易于使用。 例如，如果要具有悬停功能，则需要转到代码编辑器。 从长远来看，主要思想是您需要对React有很好的掌握才能掌握它。

After my research for this tool was done I couldn’t see much value for it being as a design tool that can replace everything. I can see it more as a prototyping solution rather than comfortably designing. It has scored little at our criteria table so this tool is the first to drop out. However we wanted to give a shot anyway as it seems interesting what they can offer. I believe it can have some bright future in the long term, but not at this moment. While waiting for other scores to come in after that I jumped on researching Figma additionally, as I didn’t have much knowledge about this tool in general.

在对该工具进行了研究之后，作为一个可以替代所有工具的设计工具，我认为它没有太多价值。 我可以将其更多地视为原型解决方案，而不是舒适地设计。 它在我们的标准表中得分很少，因此该工具是第一个退出的工具。 但是，无论如何我们都想尝试一下，因为它们所提供的功能似乎很有趣。 我相信，从长远来看，它可以拥有光明的未来，但目前还没有。 之后，在等待其他分数出现时，我又跳上了对Figma的研究，因为我对这个工具的了解并不多。

然后Figma出现了 (And then Figma came along)

After my Framer research I started digging up for the investigation of Figma by downloading an app and by my surprise, it is free. Almost everyday I am using heavily one tool named “Miro” for organising workshops, collaborating with clients, with teammates, and organising research. The multi-player experience at some extent felt very familiar to me of Figma. I even started feeling that it can replace my beloved “Miro” tool and our one tool for all dreams would be even more beneficial.

在对Framer进行研究之后，我开始通过下载应用程序来开始对Figma的研究，令我惊讶的是，它是免费的。 几乎每天我都会大量使用一种名为“ Miro”的工具来组织研讨会，与客户，队友合作以及组织研究。 Figma的我在某种程度上对多玩家游戏体验非常熟悉。 我什至开始感觉到它可以替代我心爱的“ Miro”工具，而我们为所有梦想而设计的工具将更加有益。

The tool felt minimalistic, but at the same time it has everything you need. It has smart components, smart layout which is working even better than in Sketch. Prototyping and animation are also advanced, even vector design felt so good that I started questioning if it can replace Adobe Illustrator. I was like a kid driving a Ferrari, excited to use Figma and I dug even deeper into their YouTube channel to watch everything they got.

该工具看起来很简单，但同时它具有您需要的一切。 它具有智能组件，智能布局，其性能甚至比Sketch中更好。 原型和动画也很先进，即使矢量设计也是如此出色，以至于我开始质疑它是否可以代替Adobe Illustrator。 我就像驾驶法拉利的孩子一样，对使用Figma感到很兴奋，我甚至更深入地研究了他们的YouTube频道，观看他们获得的一切。

Figma的插件和社区 (Figma’s plugins and community)

Another discovery which I made was the plugins. Strangely these plugins felt like a pleasant addition to the existing flow rather than completing product’s missing features like it was in Sketch. As a product, Figma at this moment felt complete. As I did my research for Figma at our point system, it was in the first place, not to mention the experience and feeling I had with it. I tried to be as unbiased as possible when researching tools, but I quickly fell in love with it.

我的另一个发现是插件。 奇怪的是，这些插件给现有流程带来了令人愉快的添加，而不是像Sketch中那样完成了产品缺少的功能。 作为产品，Figma此时感觉很完整。 当我在我们的积分系统上对Figma进行研究时，它是第一位的，更不用说我的经验和感觉了。 在研究工具时，我尽可能地保持公正，但是我很快就爱上了它。

Collaboration felt like on another level like I had a similar experience with Miro. I knew this tool for some time before and how people were praising it, but now I only understand how good it is. It is the closest to being our dream “One tool to replace them all”, by going with it we don’t need Invision, Sympli, Plant, Anima and even Miro. Also seems like a suitable solution to do presentations with it.

协作就像在另一个层面上，就像我在Miro上经历过类似的经历一样。 我在一段时间之前就知道这个工具，人们对此也赞不绝口，但现在我只知道它的优点。 这是最接近我们梦想的“一个可以全部替换的工具”，通过它，我们不需要Invision，Sympli，Plant，Anima甚至Miro。 也似乎是使用它进行演示的合适解决方案。

决定时间 (Decision time)

Everyone has completed their research and something unexpected happened. Adobe XD at our point system was almost equal like Figma, as I started going deeper it seems like it has almost everything. Additionally it has one benefit. It plays well in our already existing Adobe subscription plan and works well with other Adobe products. From my own experience I was using it when it came out a couple years ago and gave a try. I had a really different experience since then and XD definitely went a long way. It even has a collaboration feature which is in Beta, but as we tried out it was decently working fine.

每个人都已经完成了研究，并且发生了意外情况。 我们的点系统上的Adobe XD与Figma几乎一样，随着我开始更深入，似乎它几乎具备了一切。 此外，它还有一个好处。 它在我们现有的Adobe订阅计划中可以很好地发挥作用，并且可以与其他Adobe产品很好地配合使用。 根据我自己的经验，几年前，我尝试使用它。 从那时起，我经历了一次与众不同的经历，而XD无疑走了很长一段路。 它甚至具有Beta中的协作功能，但是在我们试用后，它的运行情况还不错。

It was time to do a presentation, since we live in the interesting “Corona” times all presentations were done remotely. I had a long presentation prepared with extensive research about it which I used present mode and Figma I presented with Figma. At the moment seemed like I covered most concerns everyone had about it, but it had some minor things which were not working as well as Adobe XD. I can admit XD is a decent competitor, its animation and prototyping are better. This was visible easily in the example where we did simple hover effects. In the Figma it was easy as you have to create a hover state somewhere and you use overlay to make it happen. While in XD with states it did this with just a couple clicks as these states really seem useful and beneficial.

是时候进行演示了，因为我们生活在有趣的“ Corona”时代，所有演示都是远程完成的。 我进行了长时间的介绍，并准备了广泛的研究，并使用了现成模式，并且使用了Figma和Figma。 目前，我似乎已经涵盖了每个人最担心的问题，但是它有些细微的问题无法像Adobe XD那样有效。 我可以承认XD是一个不错的竞争对手，它的动画和原型制作都更好。 在我们执行简单悬停效果的示例中，这很容易看出。 在Figma中，这很容易，因为您必须在某处创建一个悬停状态，然后使用overlay使其发生。 在带有状态的XD中，只需点击几下即可完成操作，因为这些状态看起来确实有用且有益。

Everyone now had concerns and in the point system they were equal competitors. Now half the team were vouching for XD and other half were still vouching for Figma. The camp has split up into two parts and after endless discussions we made the decision that we go back to the research phase one last time. This time we research each other’s tools. We also know the pains of both tools. XD doesn’t have pagination and with Figma the frames can be messy sometimes and hard to work with it. The next day we had a usual catch up coffee break where we discuss non-work related topics, but even then the flames between XD and Figma appeared again. It was a sign to make up minds faster.

现在每个人都有顾虑，在积分系统中，他们是平等的竞争者。 现在，一半的团队正在为XD担保，另一半还在为Figma担保。 训练营分为两个部分，经过无休止的讨论，我们决定最后一次回到研究阶段。 这次我们研究彼此的工具。 我们也知道这两种工具的痛苦。 XD没有分页功能，使用Figma时，框架有时会很杂乱，很难使用。 第二天，我们有一个例行的补习茶歇，在那里我们讨论与工作无关的话题，但是即使如此，XD和Figma之间的火焰仍然出现。 这是更快下定决心的标志。

回到绘图板 (Back to the drawing board)

The next day in the evening I gave XD a try. Launched the tool and started doing some simple designs. It felt like a nice tool to do landing pages or simple mobile apps; it didn’t look like it could manage large SAAS products. I can consider that as a tool it is good, simple, minimalistic, has all features you need, and they are growing fast. In a couple of years it surpassed Sketch, but behind there is corporation Adobe which has all the resources needed to get work done.

第二天晚上，我尝试了XD。 启动该工具并开始进行一些简单的设计。 感觉就像是登陆页面或简单的移动应用程序的好工具； 它似乎无法管理大型SAAS产品。 我可以认为，作为一种工具，它很好，简单，简约，具有您需要的所有功能，并且它们正在Swift发展。 在短短几年内，它超越了Sketch，但背后是Adobe公司，它拥有完成工作所需的所有资源。

In the meantime, my colleague Liudas has jumped to the Figma’s webinar where they talked about intro to “Figma”. They introduced Figma from all perspectives, showed use cases, for example you can have easily fully scrollable maps in prototype mode. During this webinar we got a sneak peek preview about some future updates coming to place. Apparently they are working under improving prototyping features and I assume they even will catch up to Adobe XD. By looking at the current situation and future again, we are sure that Figma is the most appropriate for us. This Webinar might help a little bit for everyone else to make a definite decision.

同时，我的同事Liudas已跳至Figma的网络研讨会，在那里他们谈论了“ Figma”的介绍。 他们从各个角度介绍了Figma，并展示了用例，例如，您可以在原型模式下轻松地完全滚动地图。 在此网络研讨会期间，我们对即将进行的一些将来的更新进行了先睹为快的预览。 显然，他们正在改进原型功能，我认为它们甚至可以赶上Adobe XD。 通过再次审视当前形势和未来，我们可以确定Figma最适合我们。 这次网络研讨会可能会对其他所有人做出确定的决定有所帮助。

Another meeting happens, but this time evenly we come up with a decision that Figma definitely will be our next design tool. One of things we agreed also was that if a particular project has a need for more advanced prototyping or animations it can be done in XD. Also we still have Adobe subscription so it is not going away, but the default one will be Figma.

召开了另一次会议，但是这次我们平均做出一个决定，即Figma肯定会成为我们的下一个设计工具。 我们还同意的一件事是，如果特定项目需要更高级的原型或动画，则可以在XD中完成。 另外，我们仍然有Adobe订阅，因此它不会消失，但是默认的订阅是Figma。

结论 (Conclusion)

We made a choice, so what is next? It will be a big change, since we at Telesoftas are like community and a design tool we chose as these values as us — community first. It is a change in our design workflow to be more collaborative, more open to everyone else and life will be easier. Now we have an overview of all projects that are happening and in a need can jump in for help. It is important that designers have ownership of the project, we include clients and developers in early stages to be involved as possible, without collaboration like Figma has now before it was hard to do. Involving everyone in the early stages and having open design culture makes it easier in the future to get user centred decisions.

我们做出了选择，那么下一步是什么？ 这将是一个巨大的变化，因为Telesoftas就像我们的社区一样，我们也选择了作为我们价值观的设计工具-社区优先。 这是我们设计工作流程中的一个变化，它变得更加协作，对其他所有人更开放，生活将会更加轻松。 现在，我们对正在执行的所有项目有了一个概述，有需要的人可以寻求帮助。 设计师拥有项目的所有权很重要，我们必须在早期阶段就将客户和开发人员包括在内，以便尽可能多地参与其中，而无需像Figma以前那样难以进行协作。 在早期阶段让每个人都参与进来，并拥有开放的设计文化，使将来更容易获得以用户为中心的决策。

设计工具的未来 (Future of Design tools)

Last year’s 2019 design survey covered that Sketch is still number 1 among all and Figma behind. However, the answer to which tool you are most excited to try out next year was Figma, so it says a lot. Not sure what the current situation is, but feels like either XD or Figma should surpass Sketch, especially when pandemic kicks in with remote work needs. I can think of it as an evolution, change is necessary to keep up with the design world and I think this change is good. Even though there was a moment when I enjoyed using Sketch a lot with all the plugins. We don’t know what the future holds, what is the next big thing in the design tools world. My guess would be something more with AI and Development related.

去年的2019年设计调查显示，Sketch在所有设计中仍然排在第一位，而Figma在后面。 但是，明年最想尝试使用哪种工具的答案是Figma，所以说明了很多。 不确定当前情况如何，但是感觉像XD或Figma应该超过Sketch，尤其是在因远程工作需求而引发大流行的情况下。 我可以将其视为一种演变，为了跟上设计世界的步伐，有必要进行更改，而且我认为这种更改很好。 即使有一段时间我喜欢在所有插件上大量使用Sketch。 我们不知道未来会怎样，设计工具世界中的下一件大事是什么。 我的猜测可能与AI和开发相关。

成帧器更新 (Update on Framer)

I was doing research at that time for Framer X, now they launched framer for web and the company did some changes. It looks like they’re focus is to be the best interactive prototype tool, which at the moment seems like a competitor to Protopie or Axure and not for regular design tools. Now I am sure it was good decision to ditch this tool at first, however if we are talking about interactive prototyping only it is a good tool for that.

当时我正在为Framer X进行研究，现在他们启动了针对Web的framer，并且公司进行了一些更改。 看起来他们的重点是成为最好的交互式原型工具，此刻它似乎是Protopie或Axure的竞争对手，而不是常规设计工具。 现在，我相信首先放弃这个工具是一个不错的决定，但是，如果我们谈论的是交互式原型，那么它就是一个很好的工具。