Figma failed me. And how I dealt with it

Hi all,

I wanted to share some highlights on a recent article I wrote about using product development as a tool for customer research.

I've been working on a project with the goal to make it easier to understand qualitative data. For reference, qualitative data is mostly transcribed user interviews and excel data.

The product, Leapfrog, is a smart whiteboard with AI/semantic interactions built into it. The target audience are user experience research teams. It helps teams to understand user interviews at scale with semantic analysis.

It's been quite a journey to land on a collaborative whiteboard. The initial product was much more focused on a rigid control. It was only after months of my own user research that I understand that ux experts want freedom in their way of thinking.

Now with the whiteboard established, building the actual semantic interactions into a traditional prototyping tool, like Figma is HARD. There is little to no solution to make a high-fidelity prototype. You can Woz a lot of it, but that still leaves quite a gap between the actual experience of using a smart whiteboard.

In the end I just started building. Best decision in the lengthy trajectory. It's great to be able to build something, put it in front of users, and see the reaction. Without feeling like I am missing something.

Low fidelity testing can be great, but it is not always the answer. Lesson learned, sometimes Figma just isn't good enough.