Figma Is a Tool, Not a Process

A tidy file is not the same as sound thinking. I have opened boards with immaculate naming, perfect auto-layout, and a component library three levels deep — for a project with no spine at all.

Tooling fluency is easy to see and easy to mistake for rigour.

What The File Cannot Tell You

• Whether the problem is the right one. No amount of variants answers that.
• What was rejected and why. The best decisions in a project are usually invisible in the final frames.
• Whether anyone will use it. A prototype is a demonstration, not evidence.

Process is what happens between the files. If it only exists inside one, it is not a process — it is a habit.

The Parts That Actually Travel

Write the decision somewhere the file is not: a doc, a ticket, a paragraph in the handoff. Files get archived, forked and abandoned. The reasoning is what a new person needs in month seven.

And leave the dead ends visible. A page of rejected directions with one line each has saved more of my projects than any component library.

The file is where the work is shown. It is not where the work happens.