Nathan on how complex components require comprehensive specifications rather than ill-advised assumptions, and how Figma can be used to guide engineers to reliably build such components.
I’m still amazed when designers schlep together a few pictures, publish a configurable Figma component, point their developer counterparts at the main component and say “Use Figma’s inspect tool.”
Things have changed. Components are more complicated. Designers are delivering to many different developers. Accessibility has risen to the fore. For design systems that scale, teams are finding it necessary to write down all the details again.
At work in our project to improve our component documentation across the component life-cycle, we’ve been following Nathan’s advice and using his plug-in to assist with the “specification” aspect.