My recommendation is to learn enough front-end code (HTML/CSS at least, plus Swift/Flutter if you design for native mobile apps) to know how your design will be converted into a product.

I don't expect a designer to write code that will end up in the final product. But a designer who knows their design will translate to code, is way less likely to run into issues of feasibility and unnecessary complexity later on.

Adobe's Wireframe podcast is really good. Then there's the evergreen 99% Invisible, although it is a bit tangentially related.

I love that they started by recognizing the Figma+ effort and naming the developers. Those were very well made plugins and I hope Figma is working off of what they have already made.

I've tried a bunch and at this point, my notes are scattered all over the place. Every one has something lacking, though.

• Evernote: Dated editor, can get sluggish on mobile
• OneNote: Weird editor with freely-placed content blocks (can be as asset if you prefer it that way, but I don't)
• Notion: No native apps, start times and new note creation can feel slow
• Bear: iOS & Mac only
• Simplenote: Plain-text only, no local image support
• Google Keep: Too 'post-it'y, very weak organization capabilities

I would love to get to a point where prototyping in code is easy, but the reality is that it is not yet the case. For a team of designers, having to rely on a developer to prototype their designs just doesn't work in most scenarios. Being able to quickly mock the interactions and - more importantly - the motion design for a given interface has a lot of inherent value. That way, when it is time to hand over the design to a developer, you don't have to spend time explaining and/or documenting how things will work.

XD is much further ahead in the prototyping department than the other two. With Auto Animate and Voice prototyping, I find myself firing it up every now and then for some quick motion design experiments.

Agreed. It seems the creators were going for clickbait. I found a bunch more that are still alive, just with different names. Tez, for example, is exactly the same app it was, just renamed to Google Pay for consistency with versions in other countries.

Gallery (https://material.io/tools/gallery/) from Google might be something worth considering. I checked it out last year and it seemed pretty fast but very light on features. Not sure how much they have updated it since.

This is interesting. For a few years, it was Figma catching up to Sketch's design toolset. Now that they have done that and taken a lead on a number of other aspects, it is Sketch's turn to play catch up. Plus the competition from the new tools that seem to crop up every month. This is the best time to be a designer.

Same here. Can't wait to get rid of that limitation.