The most important part of the design handoff process is making sure developers have a clear and unambiguous understanding of what exactly they need to work on.

Figma dev mode offers a ‘Ready for dev’ label, which can be attached to sections or frames on the Figma canvas. Its purpose is to tell devs what to work on, but how effective is it at the handoff stage?

Let’s find out.

‘Ready for dev’ designs in Figma dev mode

Most designers working in Figma treat the canvas as their creative sandbox and as a blueprint for developers at handoff. But a single, shared file that serves two very different purposes isn’t ideal. Designers have to tell devs what designs to build, where to find them, and what changes should/shouldn’t be included, which leads to confusion.

To avoid confusion and provide devs with stable requirements, there needs to be a clear line between the sandbox and the blueprint. In other words, you need to separate the prototyping and iterating happening on the canvas from the actionable coding work being given to devs.

Figma dev mode attempts to do this with its ‘Ready for dev’ button. This lets designers add a label to sections or frames on the canvas that are ready to be implemented. Devs can find these by opening the file and clicking Ready for dev in the sidebar. This displays all designs marked ‘Ready for dev’ in a list, hiding everything else.

However, there are four problems with this:

1. Just because a feature or screen is ready for dev doesn’t mean you should work on it

Labeling bits of your Figma canvas as ‘Ready for dev’ isn’t the same as assigning a piece of work to a developer. People don’t just jump on random work; they do what they’ve been told needs doing. Developers in particular are task-driven and rely on structured assignments. Work doesn’t get done just because it exists.  

2. Figma’s ‘Ready for dev’ label doesn’t tell you what’s important

Even though the dev can pull up a list of only designs marked ‘Ready for dev’, that list could be long. A single design file could have loads of sections that are ready to build. How does the dev know where to start? Which designs are most important? How should they prioritize the work? It’s a little bit like devs trawling through their backlog for things to do instead of starting a sprint with defined tasks and a clear direction.

3. ‘Ready for dev’ designs aren’t ‘locked’

The ‘Ready for dev’ label in Figma doesn’t stop designers from editing the design after they’ve marked it ready. Designs remain live, rather than being frozen for handoff, which means they can change while devs are trying to code them. This can lead to scope creep and rework, weakening the integrity of your entire design-to-dev process and potentially derailing timelines. Frankly, unless the design is locked, it’s a bit like the handoff hasn’t happened at all.

4. Loss of version history

Some designers will try to get around the problem of needing to edit a design that’s been marked ready by duplicating the frame to a new page. That way, they can continue iterating without interrupting the flow of a dev who’s already started to code. However, this erases the change history of the frame, making it impossible for designers and developers to track iterations, compare past versions, or revert changes.

In effect, with Figma’s ‘Ready for dev’ label, the separation between the designer’s sandbox and the developer’s blueprint isn’t strong enough. It’s because it doesn’t give devs clear and unambiguous instructions on what they should work on—the cornerstone of an effective design handoff.

This is why, instead of a label on the Figma canvas, it’s much better for developers to receive locked designs in a separate space where they manage and track their development tasks, namely, Jira.

Locked designs in Figma for Jira Pro by CollabSoft

Jira is where a developer’s tasks live. It doesn’t make sense to ask them to go looking for work in a design tool. It makes even less sense that once they’ve found something to work on, the requirements change.

This is why, once a designer is ready to hand over their work for development, they should make a Jira ticket and attach the design to that. A Jira ticket defines what a dev needs to do, and linking Figma files to Jira tickets enables them to view designs without context-switching. This keeps things simple and clear, eliminating the cognitive overload that could come from navigating to Figma and having to scour through a long list of dev-ready designs.

Figma offers a free Figma for Jira app to facilitate a handover within Jira. However, the app comes with two challenges:

1. Devs need to be logged in to Figma to view designs in Jira. This is an unnecessary step if the whole point is to keep devs working in Jira. It’s also an expensive one, since devs need Figma licenses.
2. Just like those marked ‘Ready for dev’, any Figma designs linked to Jira aren’t locked for editing. They’re live and could change at any time.

CollabSoft’s Figma for Jira Pro solves both problems by enabling devs to view ‘locked for editing’ Figma designs in Jira without Figma accounts.

Our app lets you pin a specific version of a Figma design to your Jira ticket. Once the design is pinned, changes made in Figma won’t automatically propagate to Jira. The designer would have to update the pinned version.

This is great for both designers and developers. A designer can continue to iterate on the same Figma frame without their edits reflecting in Jira before they’re ready, and a developer can be confident that they’re coding a finalized design. It allows for another Figma to Jira handoff later, with a new design that you lock in again.

The other key benefit is that developers can view, inspect, and download Figma designs without logging in to Figma. It means designs load faster, because you don’t have to load a lite version of Figma within Jira. Most importantly it means your devs don’t need Figma licenses. They can drag and zoom in on the design, scale it to the original size, and download it in a range of formats, including SVG. They can also open an information panel that contains additional details. All of it from inside Jira.

For bigger handoffs where designers want or need input from other stakeholders, Figma for Jira Pro has a sister app: Figma for Confluence Pro. This enables designers to create design documentation in Confluence and share Figma frames on Confluence pages with full context. Just like the Jira app, designers can pin specific versions of designs to pages, and Confluence users can view, inspect, and download them without logging in to Figma.

Conclusion

Our approach to handing off dev-ready Figma designs in Jira and/or Confluence acknowledges a fundamental truth: designers and developers have completely different needs and ways of working.

Designers need a flexible space to explore and iterate on designs. Developers need clearly defined specifications for the build, which includes a reliable set of locked snapshots of the designs.

Slapping a ‘Ready for dev’ label on a section of your Figma canvas, then expecting your devs to log in to Figma dev mode and find it, might be nice and easy for designers. But it isn’t a great way of managing a Figma handoff or collaborating with devs because it doesn’t provide them with a clear view of what they need to work on.

The free Figma Jira plugin is a way of respecting developer workflows and enabling designs to be linked to actionable development tasks. However, it still makes devs log in to Figma, and doesn’t stop linked Figma designs from being edited after they’ve been marked as dev-ready.

CollabSoft’s Figma for Jira Pro can help you save a ton of money on Figma licenses by enabling devs to view, inspect, and download designs without logging in to Figma. It also ensures a full separation between designers' in-progress prototypes and developers' blueprints for coding by letting you add locked-in designs to your Jira tickets.

If you want to make your Figma handoff process more effective, and fairer on your devs, try Figma for Jira Pro for 1 month.