Original text in Linkedin. Motiff stood out as the most intriguing company I encountered while exploring the vendor booths at the UXDX conference last month. It’s the most promising attempt I’ve seen so far at blending Figma-like design capabilities with AI assistance.

What sets them apart is their unconventional approach. Instead of solely relying on the typical ”guess what I want to design from my vague prompt” model, Motiff keeps you firmly in control while abstracting away tedious tasks like managing auto layouts and updating design systems.

I can’t fully comment on their design system integration, as it would require testing in a real production environment, but their auto layout solution is particularly clever. They allow you to design freely without being constrained by auto layout, only applying it temporarily when it’s genuinely useful. When you are done, you can automatically apply auto layout everywhere and call it a day.

Kind of an ”auto auto layout”.

AI aside, it’s impressive how quickly they have built a tool that already provides most of the Figma functionality, too. (Luckily, they have not ported over the new Figma UI.) The company is based in Singapore and the people I met at the stand had the kind of making-it-happen energy and deep knowledge of the product you don’t always see at booths like this.

Naturally, they’ve also built a Figma file importer. ”What about export”, somebody asked at the booth.

”We have no plans for that”, they answered confidently.

The evolution of UI design tools is a fascinating story. Sketch dethroned Photoshop by introducing proper vector tools, and Figma overtook Sketch with its emphasis on collaboration. The big question now is whether Figma will withstand the rise of AI-powered design tools or if the market is ripe for disruption yet again.

(The photo shows the results of a live demo of UI creations I was given at the booth.)