Twitter’s cross-functional bug bashes

Bug bashes can feel like a chore. With inputs taking place all across an organization, it’s hard to keep everything organized and streamlined. For Artem Artemov, a product designer at Twitter, he saw the opportunity to simplify the experience by building a customizable bug bash template in FigJam, Figma’s new online whiteboard space. The flexibility of the open canvas combined with the ability to pull in components make it simple for any team to spin up a bug bash.

1. Make it easy to get started

Typically Twitter bug bashes take place in a Google document. To document bugs, it required a written description of what was happening, plus links to visual screenshots. This process made it challenging to get a clear view of the bugs at a glance. But when Artem designed the new bug bash template in FigJam, it gave the entire team a way to see every detail they needed in a single place.

The bug bash template is custom-built to help people describe their bugs better, with inputs that keep everything clearly organized. By using text to annotate, stickies to denote browsers and screenshots for context, it’s easier to clearly communicate bugs. Gone are the days of dropping links into a Google doc, now all the relevant data is in one place.

2. Create a reusable bug card

The main input for the bug bash is the ‘bug card’ which is built as a component in Figma. Using auto-layout, the text layer scales according to the input making the bug card feel like a customizable form. Because Figma libraries are accessible in FigJam, bringing the bug card component into the jam file was as easy as dragging and dropping it in.

3. Synthesize the information

The goal of the template is to not only simplify a clunky process of spinning up and executing bug bashes, but also making it easier to consume the details. Once the bug card is complete, all of the details are dropped into the‘bugs’ container which is a dedicated space for all the bugs associated to the bash. This offers developers a centralized, visualized look at all the necessary information, making it easier to digest before transferring the bugs into JIRA.