No more static prototypes

I have designed for apps that past 4 years as my primary focus but lately I’ve worked on a few websites projects and the established workflow isn’t working for me. 

Figma is great. I use it every day and I work pretty fast in it. If you’re using autolayout (which you should) then it’s easy to make variations of your design for different screen sizes. 

Where Figma falls short, in my opinion, is when you have to present the designs for both developers and stakeholders. 

Presenting your design requires a stack of static click-through prototypes, interaction prototypes for specific elements made in either ProtoPie or After Effects and a good amount of gestures and “Imagine that this moves like this…” conversations and to me it feels like a waste of time. 

I’m not trying to reopen the age old discussion of whether or not a designer should be able to code, as that’s an entirely different discussion. 

However, designing dynamic and interactive website using mostly static tools just feels wrong. 

I’ve been using Framer for creating templates and websites for the past 6 months and I figured, why not just use Framer to build my prototypes? It’s quick and easy to spin up a prototype and you can create interactivity and responsiveness in minutes. 

I’m used to designing for breakpoints with static images in Figma and it takes forever to create all these variations? 

Instead of just designing static mockups, with Framer, I can just build the interaction. It’s pretty cool – you get to see and feel how a website adapts in real-time across different devices. 

No more guessing games for stakeholders; they get to see the real deal, not just an image of it. 

This is super important because responsive design is a must-have these days, and Framer shows you exactly how your designs will look and work on various screens. 

What I really love about Framer is how it speeds up the prototyping process. It’s all about making things clearer and more effective. 

No more moments where your design gets lost in translation – the design literally speaks for itself. 

I’m still using Figma as my primary design tool as I work faster in it and it has a lot of time saving plugins, but I’m strongly considering moving directly to Framer for my personal work. 

If you\’re still hanging onto static design tools, give Framer a shot and bring your designs to life in a way that static images just can’t. 

So, here’s the takeaway: Framer is taking us from static ideas to dynamic experiences. It’s not just another tool in the toolbox – it\’s the future of web design. If you haven\’t tried it yet, now\’s the time to jump on board and see how it can transform your design process. 

Catch you later!