Why use Feature Flux?

Why would someone choose Feature Flux over Figma? After all, Figma is the do-it-all design tool. Well, Feature Flux isn’t a design tool, so there’s that…

There are problems around the product design process that Figma simply doesn’t address. Such as...

Design Feedback.

Gathering stakeholder feedback at larger organisations.

If you’re a small, inward-facing product team then Figma is a great all-around solution. You can design, present and gather feedback without leaving the tool. But what if you’re part of a larger organisation? What if you’re a product manager who runs several teams? Suddenly Figma loses a lot of its collaborative power. And here’s why.

Being part of a larger organisation means that not everyone involved in the decision-making process is a designer or product manager. We only need to look to stakeholders in sales, marketing, executive roles, project management, and of course our end-users, to see that the simple retort of ‘Just use Figma’, isn’t so simple after all.

How comfortable are your stakeholders when giving feedback inside a design tool? In many cases, the answer is not very. When your work-life is dominated by Google and Microsoft, design tools can be intimidating.

You can think of Feature Flux as a buffer between your design software and non-technical stakeholders.

How does it do this?

By making it easy to share interactive designs in a more traditional-feeling presentation format. All you need is a link to your project and Feature Flux takes care of the rest. No more screenshot hell or layout inconsistencies. You can seamlessly transition from Figma to stakeholder presentation without bothering your design team.
You can add onscreen prompts to ensure feedback is relevant and where you need it.
Stakeholders won’t need an account to leave feedback.
You can choose to show or hide comments made by the internal product team. You might now want the CEO to be influenced by your thinking.

And assuming you are part of a larger organisation, this usually leads to another objection.

Learn more about design feedback

Stakeholder presentations

Product managers have used Powerpoint for years. It ain’t so bad…and it’s free!

Turn to the product manager sitting next to you (or look in a mirror if this is you). Now ask the following question, ‘Do you like working with Powerpoint?’ You’d better be quick to duck!

If you work at a larger organisation then it’s probably safe to say that Powerpoint is the presentation platform of choice. And who has the job of updating stakeholders and gathering feedback? Sorry product manager!

So, what are some of the issues faced here?

Content gathering. Design presentations consist of screenshots, and lots of them. These often need to be adapted to fit the objectives of the presentation. Powerpoint’s editing capabilities are minimal at best.
Being dependent on your designer(s). If your designer is the gatekeeper to Figma, you’d better make sure they’re around when you need the latest designs. Things can get tense fast when you have a 3 pm meeting and they’re nowhere to be seen.
The time it takes to annotate each screen. Context is key for any presentation, especially when they’re asynchronous. Creating copy can be a time-consuming process.
Gathering feedback. Collecting and collating feedback is no fun. Whether you’re running a real-time presentation or sharing it asynchronously, feedback can hit you from multiple sources. These sources might include Slack, email, notes scribbled on paper or any other format deemed acceptable by the stakeholder. In short, it’s a real pain.
What happens when designs are updated? Stakeholders need to know what’s going on, so that means to wash, rinse, repeat 🙁Sorry, there are no shortcuts with Powerpoint.

How does Feature Flux help with this?

It integrates directly with Figma. This means your designs are pulled directly into Feature Flux. As product people, we know that software is designed, built and tested screen-by-screen. But unlike many whiteboarding tools out there, we believe design collaboration should work the same way. One-screen, one design, complete focus.
No more copy and paste! Each design is automatically added to its own screen in Feature Flux. This helps in a few ways:

The team can quickly discuss and give feedback on a screen-by-screen basis.
Screens can be linked using hotspots, making it easier to give contextual feedback.
The presentation is pre-built, meaning you only need to share a link.
If designs are updated, so is the presentation, with no extra work.

Learn more about design presentations

Design control

Version control, or, ‘Is this the latest design?’

Figma has version control, so why do I need Feature Flux?

Figma does indeed have version control, but it’s only helpful to one team member. Yep, the designer. What about everyone else? How can they know on a day-to-day basis, which are the latest designs?

Imagine you have to give an update to a group of stakeholders. Before you can prepare anything you need to ask the inevitable question, ‘Is this the latest version? Did we make any changes?’

Why? Because Figma isn’t inclusive software. The sole gatekeeper is your designer and if he isn’t on hand, you have a problem. Working from outdated designs is never going to end well.

Feature Flux allows the whole team, even non-designers to have access to the latest designs at every stage of the process, making it a more inclusive environment.

Learn more about design iterations

Design snapshots

But Figma lets you comment on live designs!

It does, but unfortunately, there is only one upside to this. Making live design edits while a presentation is being given. There’s no denying this can increase agility for inward-facing teams. But there’s a flipside…

Let’s say you share a Figma presentation link to the sales team (which they’re already uncomfortable with). You shared the same link with marketing and the CEO. It’s unlikely they’ll all leave feedback on the same day or at the same time. And here lies the problem. Figma design documents are live, always. Whatever the designer is working on within those files, is reflected in the presentation. If sales gives timely feedback and the designer implements their suggestions, that means that marketing and the CEO will be commenting on a different version of the original designs.

The problem here is obvious, not everyone will be giving feedback on the same designs or in equal conditions.

Feature Flux solves this in a very simple way. We take a snapshot of your designs at that moment in time. This means that everyone is looking at the most recent, coherent version of your designs and can give fair feedback. Once the feedback has been implemented, you can resync with Figma, create a new version if you choose, and take another snapshot of your designs.

Stakeholders will no longer have to give feedback on outdated designs.

So, I hope you can see by now that Feature Flux is anything but a Figma competitor. It’s a fantastic addition to a great design tool.

If you work with several product teams where changes are continual, Feature Flux will let you answer the question of, ‘Is this the latest version?’ with a resounding yes! And that will be true for each subsequent version.

And if you work with stakeholders outside of your immediate product team, Feature Flux makes it easy to create interactive presentations, that you can share with the click of a button and have all your feedback in one place.

So instead of asking why should I choose Feature Flux over Figma, a more appropriate question might be, why wouldn’t I want to make life easier for myself and my team?