Summary
A smooth design handoff and design-to-development process ensures your final product matches the original vision. This handoff checklist walks through everything you need to prepare in Figma files before sharing with developers—saving time, improving UX and UI quality, avoiding ambiguity, and preserving design system consistency across browsers and devices.
Why handoff matters
Even pixel-perfect final design files can fall apart without clear communication. By organizing your Figma design file, using proper file organization, and sharing specs, styles, and spacing clearly, designers help developers and the dev team build efficiently while reducing back-and-forth during the handoff process.
Pre-handoff checklist in Figma
- Organize frames and layers: Name frames and layers clearly in your Figma files. Group related UI components such as buttons, navigation, cards, or empty states, lock background elements, and maintain a clean workflow.
- Use components and styles: Create reusable components, component variants, and design tokens. Apply consistent typography, font styles, color palette, and grid styles to support scalability and building a design system.
- Layout grids and constraints: Apply auto layout, grid systems, responsive constraints, and spacing rules so developers understand interaction specs and how layouts behave across screen sizes.
- Label interactions and states: Clearly show hover states, active states, error states, modals, animations, and interactive elements using variants, annotations, or callouts.
- Export assets properly: Mark export assets and ensure correct sizes and formats such as SVG, PNG, or WebP for developer-ready delivery.
- Include documentation: Add sticky notes, annotations, or a documentation page with usage instructions, edge cases, accessibility considerations, and additional instructions or resources.
Sharing with your dev team
- Use Figma’s Developer Handoff or Dev Mode: Developers can inspect CSS, specs, design tokens, measurements, and download assets without extra design tools.
- Share the Figma link, not screenshots, and set correct permission levels for the development team.
- Walk through complex UX flows, prototypes, or interaction details in a quick collaborative session when needed.
Final outcome
A thoughtful design handoff checklist bridges the gap between static visuals and functional codebase. It reduces QA issues, speeds up agile development cycles, and ensures the final product is ready to build and matches the intended user experience.
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