Figma Won By Speaking Developer. Now It Needs to Listen.
Figma succeeded because it was the first design tool built on developer logic. Flex containers, auto-layout, constraints. Designers were finally working in CSS concepts, making design-to-code translation nearly frictionless.
That was the right bet for 2015-2023.
But the workflow has inverted. Most new UI now starts as AI-generated code. Developers
