Stepping into the world of software design can feel like walking into a bustling workshop filled with tools you’ve never seen before. Among the most talked-about names you'll encounter are Figma and FigJam. Often mentioned in the same breath, they can confuse an aspiring designer. Are they competitors? Do you need to learn both? If you have to pick a path to start your career, which one leads to success?
The short answer is that it’s not really a choice between two separate paths, but rather understanding how two different stages of the design journey complement each other. For an aspiring software designer, the question isn't "which one?" but "when and why?" Let’s break down the roles of these two powerful tools to help you navigate your learning journey.
Figma: The Craftsman’s Workbench
Think of Figma as your primary workspace, your digital drafting table. It is a professional-grade interface design tool built for creating high-fidelity user interfaces (UI) and user experiences (UX). This is where the detailed work happens.
When you see a sleek mobile app screen with perfect typography, pixel-precise icons, and interactive buttons, it was almost certainly created in a tool like Figma. It allows you to build complex design systems with reusable components, create realistic prototypes to test user flows, and prepare your designs for handoff to developers.
For an aspiring designer, mastering Figma is practically non-negotiable. It is the industry standard for UI/UX design. Potential employers will expect you to be proficient in creating wireframes, mockups, and clickable prototypes. Your portfolio, the key to landing your first job, will be built largely upon work created in Figma. It is the tool where you demonstrate your understanding of visual design principles, layout, and interaction.
FigJam: The Team’s Whiteboard
If Figma is the workbench for detailed execution, FigJam is the messy, creative whiteboard where ideas are born. FigJam is an online collaborative whiteboard designed for brainstorming, ideation, and planning.
Before you place a single pixel in Figma, you need to understand the problem you're solving. FigJam is perfect for this early stage. You can use it to create user journey maps, sketch out rough user flows with simple shapes, organize research notes with sticky notes, and hold brainstorming sessions with your team. Its strength lies in its simplicity and collaborative features, making it easy for anyone—including product managers, developers, and stakeholders who aren't designers—to jump in and contribute.
While Figma is about precision, FigJam is about exploration and consensus. It helps a team align on a vision before the heavy lifting of detailed design begins.
The Verdict for the Aspiring Designer
So, which path should you choose? The reality is that a modern software designer’s workflow involves both. You might start a project in a FigJam file to map out the user's path and brainstorm features, then move that foundational thinking into Figma to start building the actual screens.
However, if you are at the very beginning of your journey and need to prioritize what to learn to become job-ready, Figma is the clear priority. The core hard skill of a UI/UX designer is translating concepts into usable, beautiful interfaces, and that happens in Figma. You can pick up the basics of FigJam in an afternoon, but mastering the depth of Figma’s features—like Auto Layout, variants, and interactive prototyping—takes dedicated study and practice.
Real-World Application: The Early Code Institute Approach
This prioritization is reflected in real-world training programs designed to get students job-ready. Take the Early Code Institute, an accredited tech training school based in Abuja, Nigeria. Their mission is to transform aspiring tech enthusiasts into professionals through practical, hands-on training.
A look at Early Code Institute's UI/UX Design curriculum reveals a clear focus. Their program is designed to take students from beginners to advanced professionals, and they explicitly base their technical training on industry-standard tools. Students at Early Code Institute are taught to use Figma for everything from creating low-fidelity wireframes to building high-fidelity, interactive prototypes and design systems. This intense focus on Figma underlines its critical importance in the job market.
Interestingly, for the brainstorming and user journey mapping stages—the "FigJam territory"—their curriculum mentions using tools like Miro. This reinforces the idea that while the function of a digital whiteboard is crucial, the specific tool is secondary. The non-negotiable skill, the one they build their primary design curriculum around, is expertise in a powerhouse design tool like Figma.
Conclusion
Don't get caught up in a "Figma vs. FigJam" battle. They are teammates, not rivals. For the aspiring software designer, the path is clear: pour your energy into mastering Figma to build the core skills that employers demand. Use FigJam (or any whiteboard tool) as it was intended—a space to think freely and collaborate before you start the detailed work of design. By understanding the distinct purpose of each, you’ll be well on your way to becoming a versatile and effective designer.