I am concerned. For background, I was part of a group of early beta testers for a new design tool called Project Comet. It showed so much promise to a designer stuck creating UI in Photoshop. I knew there had to be something better and this new app later called Experience Design (XD) seemed to be the future.

The early days showed so much promise. It was a stark contrast to what I had experienced all of my career working in digital design. It was clear that Adobe allowed this product team to go into startup mode and just run. There was a flurry of experimental development and as the testing opened to the public, there was a lot of buzz surrounding this product. Adobe seemed to be on the path to another indispensable design tool.

Unfortunately, even before the beta moniker was lifted, Adobe seemed to slip back into their old operating model. Slow, deliberate and incremental enhancements.

This is my concern. For years now, Figma has developed their brand and tools to be fun, forward thinking and iterative but not at the expense of being powerful and dependable. So much so, although XD was launched before Figma, today’s announcement concedes Figma’s position in the design community.

So, a few of my questions;

• What does the future of Figma look like in the hands of Adobe?
• Will Adobe kill off XD or try to merge the products?
• Will the resulting product remain in the browser?
• What are the potential benefits of this acquisition for designers?
• Will Adobe rename Figma? What?

What do you guys think?