Great design starts with great foundations. And when you're working on website design in Figma, it's not just about creativity—it's about how easily your work can come to life on the web. Whether you're designing for startups, SaaS, or eCommerce, following the right design practices will make sure your site looks great on every screen.
In this guide, we break down 10 best design practices to help you build clean, scalable, and launch-ready websites using Figma. And the best part? Once your design’s ready, you don’t need to write a single line of code—just publish it directly with figma.to.website. 🚀
1. Use styles, variables, and components for consistency
Want to make design updates across your entire project with just one click? Use Styles for colors, typography, and effects, and create Components for buttons, cards, and reusable elements. This keeps everything consistent and saves you hours of manual edits. If you're serious about UI design Figma tips, this is one of the easiest ways to stay organized.
2. Implement grid systems for alignment
A messy layout is a sure way to make your website design in Figma look unprofessional. Grids help keep everything aligned, ensuring proper spacing and a clean, structured design. Whether you’re working on a tech startup landing page or an eCommerce store, grids keep everything looking sharp across different screen sizes.
💡 If you're collecting UI design Figma tips to level up your workflow, start with mastering grid systems—they’re foundational to responsive and balanced layouts.
Common column grid settings:
- Desktop (12-column grid) → Count: 12, Gutter: 24px, Margin: 120px
- Tablet (8-column grid) → Count: 8, Gutter: 16px, Margin: 64px
- Mobile (4-column grid) → Count: 4, Gutter: 16px, Margin: 16px
ℹ️ Check out these tutorial videos to learn more about creating a responsive grid system:
3. Turn on auto layout for responsive design
If you're tired of manually resizing elements when tweaking your design, Auto Layout is your best friend. It makes your designs flexible and responsive, adjusting dynamically as content changes. No more misaligned buttons or awkwardly stretched images! If you're planning to publish your Figma design as a live website, Auto Layout ensures your website design in Figma resizes properly on different devices.
✨ UI design Figma tips often include this one: use Auto Layout early to future-proof your layout and reduce the pain of mobile adjustments later.
4. Use constraints for responsiveness
Need a button to stay anchored to the bottom of a card? Or an image to remain centered no matter the screen size? Constraints let you control how elements resize and reposition, making sure your design adapts well. This is a must-know for website design in Figma, especially if you’re working with multiple screen sizes.
✔️ Quick UI design Figma tip: use constraints in combination with Auto Layout to make your designs ultra-adaptable across all screen sizes.
5. Use variants for interactive components
Variants are a game-changer if you’re designing buttons, toggles, or dropdown menus. Instead of creating multiple copies of the same element, Variants lets you bundle all states (default, hover, active, disabled) into one component. This makes prototyping interactions way easier and keeps your design files tidy.
💡 Want more UI design Figma tips? Try combining Variants with smart naming conventions to keep your component library clean and scalable.
🌙 Bonus tip: You can also use Variants to manage light and dark themes across your website design. Even better—figma.to.website automatically detects these variant modes, making it super easy to publish a theme-aware site without extra coding or setup.
6. Prioritize accessibility (Contrast, readability, UI/UX best practices)
Your website design in Figma should be usable for everyone—not just those with perfect vision or the latest devices. Follow accessibility best practices like:
✅ High contrast between text and background
✅ Readable font sizes (especially for body text)
✅ Logical structure so screen readers can navigate easily
And here’s one of the most overlooked UI design Figma tips: test your color contrast early using the Stark plugin or Figma's built-in accessibility tools.
7. Use Figma plugins for speed & efficiency
Figma has tons of plugins that can supercharge your workflow. Need placeholder images? There’s a plugin for that. Want to turn any website into an editable Figma design? You can also find a tool that does that.
Some of these must-have plugins:
🔹 html.to.design (for converting existing websites and importing html into Figma)
🔹 Lorem Ipsum Plugin (for generating instant placeholders like images and fake data)
🔹 Iconify (for thousands of icons)
8. Organize your design files for collaboration
If your Figma file is a hot mess of unnamed layers, your developers (or future self) will hate you. Keep your files structured by:
📂 Naming layers properly (no more "Rectangle 129")
📂 Grouping related elements
📂 Using Sections to organize large projects
This is especially important if you’re handing off your Figma website to a dev team—or better yet, if you’re skipping the devs and publishing your design directly with figma.to.website.
9. Prioritize mobile-first design
Most users browse on their phones first, so design for mobile screens before desktop. A mobile-first approach ensures your design remains clean and functional when scaled up, rather than forcing you to cram everything into a smaller screen later.
A good trick? Start with a narrow 375px-wide frame in Figma and scale up from there. This way, your UI elements stay touch-friendly and readable from the get-go.
10. Use real content & data early
Placeholder text and random images only go so far. Using real content from the start helps avoid last-minute design disasters.
❌ "Lorem ipsum" headlines that don’t fit
❌ Product images that look weird in the layout
❌ Buttons with labels too long for their space
If you're designing an eCommerce site or SaaS platform, use real product names, actual copy, and sample data to make sure everything looks good before launch. A plugin like data.to.design makes this super easy—it lets you sync your product images, descriptions, and links directly from a database into your website design in Figma. No more manual copy-paste or messy placeholders—just real data, beautifully designed.
Designing in Figma gives you a powerful canvas
With that said, applying the right structure, styles, and workflow practices is what sets great websites apart. Remember: you’re not just designing for screens but also for users, developers, and performance.
🚀 Ready to design your website in Figma?
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