Figma fatigue is real: 6 things I stopped doing (and my developpers are happier)
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I love Figma. I also have 34 tabs of Figma open right now and my laptop fan sounds like a Vespa. So, some things I stopped doing this year. Not a manifesto, just what worked for our team ✨
1. I stopped designing every state as a separate frame
Hover, pressed, disabled, loading, error, empty... times 3 breakpoints, times light and dark. That's how you get 400 frames for one form. Now: one component with variants for the states, and one page called "states" that shows each of them once. Developpers look at the component, not the screen.
2. I stopped making pixel perfect mockups for things that are mostly text
Settings pages, long forms, legal pages. I write the structure in a doc with the components named (TextField, Select, InlineError) and the developper builds it from the design system. If it looks wrong after, we fix it in the browser together. 20 minutes instead of 2 days.
3. I stopped naming colours by how they look
No more "Blue Light 2". Variables with modes: color/surface/card, color/text/secondary, with a light and a dark mode. When the code uses the same names (ours are CSS custom properties with the same path) handoff becomes almost boring. Boring handoff is the dream.
4. I stopped redlining spacing by hand
Auto layout everywhere, spacing from a scale (4, 8, 12, 16, 24, 32, 48). If a gap is not on the scale, it is a bug, in Figma or in code. Dev Mode shows the values, I don't draw little pink lines anymore. I miss the little pink lines a bit.
5. I stopped presenting finished designs first
I show ugly wireframes to engineers before I show pretty ones to stakeholders. Because the engineer will tell me "this list needs pagination, the API returns 10,000 rows" and the stakeholder will tell me "can the logo be bigger". Only one of these is useful in week 1.
6. I stopped trying AI "design to code" plugins on real work
Okay, I tried them. Three of them. The output looked like my design in a screenshot and was a disaster in the code: absolute positions, fixed widths, divs with click handlers, no focus states. Fine for a hackathon. For a banking app where people with screen readers need to move money? Boh, no. Maybe next year.
What did you stop doing? Tell me, I need more things to stop 🤌
Written by
Giulia Bellandi
Product designer in Milano ✏️ design systems, typography, and fighting for the 4px grid. Ex-agency, now in-house at a fintech. Pasta is also a design system.
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