I don't believe that the tooling for UX designers is mature and most designers aren't even aware of it. UX design, by its nature, involves managing numerous screens, multiple iterations, and a wide array of features.

The Need for Robust Version Control - For All Plans

A version control system is a tool that tracks changes to files over time, allowing users to save, compare, and revert to previous versions. For designers, this means never losing work, easily managing multiple iterations, and collaborating without confusion over file versions. Much like Git helps developers coordinate code changes, a version control system for design would streamline workflows, reduce redundant work, and ensure that teams always have access to the most up-to-date designs.

Currently, version control exists on Figma's enterprise plan and that's my gripe with it. Like it's counterpart git, it should be accessible to even the free plan to develop a habit of keeping track of changes, specially when working in a team. Learning it early is super important, like any other design skill.

The Performance Bottleneck of Web-Based Design Tools

Another key issue is that most modern design tools, including Figma, operate as web applications within a browser container. While this offers benefits like cross-platform accessibility, it comes with considerable performance trade-offs.

The 'native' apps rely on Electron.js, which runs on Chromium, causing performance bottlenecks. This leads to noticeable lag in interactions, slow file loading, and high memory usage, making it difficult to work efficiently with complex design files. This setup severely limits the number of processing threads the application can utilize and the amount of RAM it can consume. As a result, working with large files—especially those exceeding 2GB—becomes a gamble, with frequent slowdowns and potential crashes.

A key issue is that designers often lack exposure to better tooling, particularly in version control. Unlike developers, who learn versioning systems early, designers rarely encounter such tools in formal education. This lack of familiarity contributes to a lower demand for such solutions, even though they are crucial for managing complex design projects.