Names are incredibly powerful. Learning the names of things is how we begin to communicate as humans. Names empower objects with purpose and meaning. It is no different in UI. Layouts will often require many divs and containers. When designing a layout, I’ve found it helpful to slow down and think about why I’m creating a new frame in the first place. Giving a UI element a name helps with my own understanding of what its purpose is. Not only that, but a well-named and organized layer list acts as its own documentation that both designers and developers will appreciate. #figma #uidesign #designtips
I’ll be honest. Huge fan of organizing things, but as a manager, naming everything is a time sink. I would name frames but not up to the micro components. Naming has it’s cognitive load, plus it distracts you with your current working canvas.
Figma should come up with auto-naming feature.
This reminds me of working in professional kitchens. ALWAYS label the food and organize the contents effectively. When working on teams - make it easy for them to jump in, find what's necessary, and not waste time on them asking you "where do I find x?" But to someone's point, this is for teams or for when someone else needs to jump in. If you are solo chef, and you know what you need and where it is - don't waste time on this because every second counts.
Ain’t nobody got time for that.
If your working on file by yourself, don't waste your valuable time naming layers. If your building a file to be used by multiple people, naming layers helps clears confusion. Don't name your layers because you think it makes you a better designer, it does not.
This is a prime example of something A.I. will be doing for designers very shortly. But personally, I don't name layers even if I'm working with multiple people. I tend to focus more on engineering annotations/documentation in dev mode. But if naming layers makes your team more productive and doesn't slow you down, I don't see an issue - to each their own.
But I love naming my layers "Frame 1476."
Agile Manifesto: Working software over comprehensive documentation. Simplicity--the art of maximizing the amount of work not done--is essential. Sometimes speed is much more important than naming layers. Over-engineering is one of the seven areas of waste in Kaizen and Continues Improvement.
With regards to name or not name, always remember this... you only start a design once, but you, or someone else will revisit that file dozens of times, likely over a large time frame. Invest a few moments during that first phase and it will pay itself back during respective iterations. It's why good design teams invest not just in this as a required practice, but also in a decent naming convention. If you don't grasp this as a fundamental ROI example, you have no business being in design. 😊
User Experience Designer
7moI'd be much more appalled by the use of groups than the lack of naming tbh