The reason what keep using Zeplin even if switch to Figma

This article might looks like suggestion to Designer or to Zeplin. But it’s a love letter💌 from A Japanese Product Designer.
(Sorry for my bad English :P)

From this year, many product designers began to switch design tool from Sketch to Figma in Japan too.
Switching to Figma might be going to one of new trend in 2019, I feel.
And they seems to stop to use Zeplin too since Figma has design spec function by default.

Some blogs and tweets mentioned like these.

“On Figma, doesn’t need to select / click EXPORT”
“It’s okay to use only Figma instead Sketch + Zeplin + Abstract + …”

These are fact. We can finalized our design works only Figma.
But I don’t stop to use Zeplin because Zeplin has COMPONENT function. This is a great / helpful / valuable function for not Designers but Frontend Engineers.
(I will explain what is Zeplin Component later.)

Sorry for my late notice.
Hi✋ I’m Daisuke. Now in charge of Design Manager of “Rakuten Travel” that is a largest online travel agency in Japan.

My team is in 7 global designers (from Japan, US, Canada and Korea) and we are working with around 40 frontend engineers and 30 product managers.

When we Designer discussed the best design tool for us in this January, we decide a direction: Figma is best tool for us. But we couldn’t switch our design tool at once. The reason is … Zeplin didn’t support Component function to Figma.
(But we can switch now because Zeplin implemented it from 2.3.1 on early March as faster as I expected 🎉)

Zeplin Component function is what we can register components. There are some benefits.

Benefit 1

We can easy to understand …

• which components are used in A design.
• A component is used in which designs.

Benefit 2

We can check components by list.
And can organize by using Section and Group.

This Component function is very very beneficial especially huge product / project case (like over a hundred pages).
Frontend engineer can develop based on component more easier.

In near future, almost design tool will implement own design spec tool by default. (Figma and Adobe XD already have it.) So I think Zeplin needs to …

• change more powerful tool instead of just design spec tool.
• publish more attractive / beneficial / effective functions for alive this design tool war.

But Zeplin Component is a function that can discriminate to other tools. So I have some suggestions.

Suggestion 1

Want to import components to over multiple Zeplin projects.

• In case of huge product, we use multiple Zeplin projects by one product. Now components that are registered on A project can’t straddle to other project. So we need to register component to each projects.

I don’t want to import same components asset each time to each projects.

Suggestion 2

Want to inform “responsive” behavior.

• We want to inform the behavior how change by each break points to engineers in responsive design. But we can’t it now so need to prepare the different material.

We can’t inform which is correct behavior to engineer.

At the same time not only Zeplin Component but I have other suggestions😛

Want to block to edit with permission management

• Sometimes someone unintentionally change screen order and add new section. I want to block this situation. It’s better to edit by administrator of each project.

Now everyone change screen order and add new section.

Want to switch to list view on Zeplin home screen

• Current Zeplin Home Screen become messy because each project can set each thumbnail image. It might be our fault, but list view is fine for us.

This is my Zeplin home screen capture.

Want to know Zeplin futures

• Because I really love Zeplin, want to know the development schedule, excited your plan and milestone of your futures.

I hope Zeplin will be more useful tool. So I keep saying …
Even if you switch to Figma, I recommend to keep using Zeplin !!

Regards,
Daisuke Hayashi