Saving Time with Figma Make: A Study

If AI saves your team time on prototyping, where does that time go exactly?

A new study involving 50 product designers and 50 product managers explored how access to Figma Make affected three standardised design tasks.

Among participants who completed the tasks, access to the tool was associated with approximately 20% shorter completion times, with larger gains among product managers.

Breaking news: AI speeds up workflows.

Okay, but it does raise a useful question about what we should do with that extra time.

There will always be pressure to fill it with more output. Another screen, another feature, another version ready for development.

I’d like to see teams use some of it to investigate the decisions behind those screens. Try a second onboarding approach. Put the prototype in front of users. Explore what happens when someone enters the wrong information, lacks permission or needs to undo an action.

These are easy things to squeeze out of a busy sprint. But the product’s ultimate success hinges on these quality controls. Faster prototyping could give them more space.

It also changes where a designer can contribute most. When more people can quickly make an idea tangible, helping the team question, test and refine that idea becomes increasingly valuable. And that’s where AI really can’t compare to a keen professional eye.

Discovering that an assumption is wrong before investing in development can be an excellent use of the time saved, especially for early-stage teams.

Are we making room for that learning in our workflows?