I wanted to share an idea that’s been on my mind: I think Figma could benefit from a dedicated design staging environment. Developers have staging to validate functionality before production, but designers don’t really have an equivalent space to validate design behavior at a higher fidelity.
A staging-like environment in Figma would let designers build and test more realistic flows, interactions, and states — something deeper than prototypes but lighter than full development. It could help teams surface UX issues earlier, experiment safely, and hand off work with more clarity. I also think it would make it much easier for developers to understand the design.
Right now, presenting prototypes in Figma can get messy, especially on bigger projects. For example:
– Sometimes the Figma UI can get in the way when sharing previews.
– Prototype links end up long and awkward to share.
– You usually need separate URLs for desktop, mobile, and tablet.
– There’s no true responsiveness, so everything feels rigid and hard to test across devices.
– For stakeholders who aren’t familiar with Figma, I’ve run into things like:
• "Oh, I forgot to set the Scaling options to 'Fit width', here's a new link"
• "Oh, the UI is in the way, just hide it. Don't know how? Here's another link" :D
I can imagine Figma Sites being a great foundation for this, not replacing what it is now, but adding an optional layer for teams who need a more realistic, unified prototyping space.
I know I would personally love this, as I’ve had to integrate other tools into my workflow to achieve it, but it’s hard to maintain since it’s not in the same ecosystem. Having one stable link, a clear name for stakeholders, and the ability to experiment without breaking anything (with updates only going live after hitting “Publish”) would make presenting prototypes much smoother.
Just my experience, but I feel this kind of environment could bring a lot of value to designers and stakeholders who want to see how a product behaves before it’s built :D