Please make Dev Mode Annotations visible by all roles, not just Full Dev Mode seats. This can become costly for users needing context but not all the other dev-mode features.
Here’s the scenario:
We have a dashboard, with cards showing a customer’s account status. This status can be mapped from multiple back-end statuses, to show just one front-end status. For example, any of the following could be mapped to a single status known to the customer as “Completed”: canceled, terminated, sold, complete, etc.
This is something that the developer needs to reference, but then also the PM needs to reference in writing tickets (who doesn’t need full dev-mode access), the QE needs to reference for testing automations, and various other individuals on our team. Placing it in a comment makes it less clearly attached to the specific piece of the design, and requires us to keep documentation dispersed among different tools (Jira, Confluence, Figma etc).
Simply making Dev mode annotations visible to viewers would make for far less duplicate documentation or added dependency on other documentation tools for a designer and team.
We’ll pass this onto the Dev Mode team for future consideration.
This is also a major impediment for our team in using the native annotations in Figma, since we also need the other roles (PM, PO, QA etc.) to see annotated content- and function-related but not technical data.
Other impediments with the annotations we have are:
Thanks for chiming in and providing additional feedback, @Mikka_Wild_adesso!
I’ll make sure the Dev Mode team also has eyes on those topics.
+1 for making dev mode annotations visible to all roles. This could happen through a link to the annotated Figma design, or by making the dev mode annotations exportable to a PDF file that includes both the design and annotations.
My team is currently unable to use the dev mode annotations because of this limitation. Instead we have resorted to using the AnnoDot plugin to create annotations outside of dev mode because they can be exported to PDF. This serves our purpose, but discourages the dev team from adopting dev mode because we’re missing out on a high-value feature.
Thanks for considering this request!
The new annotations and measurements feature is really great and helpful, but it’s basically useless because visitors can’t see it without a full seat.
This is especially problematic when you’re working on projects with hundreds of people, as it’s pointless to pay for a full seat for everyone who only needs to glance at screens and concepts occasionally.
So, please add the option to set annotations and measurements visibility to „everyone,“ even for visitors without a full seat.
I was going to praise how neat the new Annotation feature is, when I realized the content is only visible to Dev Mode accounts. Are you serious?
I understand you want to limit creating annotations to certain seat types, but viewing annotations should be a viewer-level feature. Come on Figma, there are better ways to convince your users to pay for a subscription. This is such a crooked move.
I was so happy to see annotations in the Editor view this week, but the value quickly disappeared after realizing that only other editors or team members with dev mode could see them.
Another misstep by Figma, who have got into a pattern of releasing much requested functionality, only to lock making it actually usable behind paywalls that are just too high for the majority of businesses.
The developers who have dev mode on our team get great value from it, but we have so many other team members (PM, QAs, stakeholders, etc) who review designs. Paying an extra $25/mo/person just for them to see the annotations is extortionate.
Please Figma, review this policy. At the very least, allow members with the new “Colab” role to be able to see annotations.
I came to this forum as a first time poster.. just to say this. I understand access but the trust of useful features being blocked behind paywalls is concerning. The success of these types of prototyping tools was that they are able to be shared with “non” designers. Also as someone else said.. devs are expensive.. they already need a lot of tooling.. their time is expensive.. asking an engineering manager to pay for a historical “design” tool is laughable. The engineers that use dev mode would just write their own code so now they are paying to see my specs. Please don’t be so greedy, it’s showing. To make this post productive.. if you won’t consider making annotations open to all.. could you at least visually treat “comments” similar to the way you’re approaching annotations.
I’m frustrated because I just spent time annotating and understanding this new feature.. I expected to lead a mtg with my team using this new feature.. only to realize it was not available to the team during the demo.
Please allow annotations to be visible for all. My team is having a hard time to explain all the changes to PM/PO/Stakeholders.
I was so excited when I saw the popup announcing this feature. I immediately started adding annotations with notes/questions for various stakeholders across my file. I sent them the link to the file, waited for feedback…
...and very quickly realized that none of them could actually see the annotations I’d left because they require a full seat to view.
So now I have to move all the details from the annotations into the old annotation components I was using, which aren’t as elegant or adaptable as the Figma ones, but at the very least can be seen by all the people who need the information in them, none of whom have or need the rights of a paid seat.
Figma, PLEASE make these annotations visible to anyone with access to the file. If you want to paywall creating them, sure, but without the ability to be seen by the majority of the people in the file they’re absolutely useless.
Hey All, thank you for flagging this!
The team confirmed that this isn’t expected behavior. Anyone with a Full or a Dev seat and at least can view access to a file should be able to view measurements and annotations.
Our team is working on a fix, and we’ll provide an update as soon as we can.
wdym? others can’t see my annotations? that’s cruel!
+1 for annotaions for everybody! It’s core feature, but it’s stupid to buy dev for it.
I just spent an hour adding annotations to my designs and circulating specs with my team, only to learn that my team couldn’t see them. If annotations are solely for me, then this should be more clear in the Figma interface. My managers have View seats, and do not need Edit or Dev seats.
As of this moment, I am completely confused about who sees annotations, what seat they need, and what the intent is. The annotations button appears in the regular interface view, which leads me to believe that it’s unrelated to Dev mode’s annotations.
This is very frustrating.
@dvaliao Thank you. Is the feature request a link that people can track and/or vote on?
I just spent an hour adding annotations to my designs and circulating specs with my team, only to learn that my team couldn’t see them. If annotations are solely for me, then this should be more clear in the Figma interface. My managers have View seats, and do not need Edit or Dev seats.
As of this moment, I am completely confused about who sees annotations, what seat they need, and what the intent is. The annotations button appears in the regular interface view, which leads me to believe that it’s unrelated to Dev mode’s annotations.
This is very frustrating.
I just did this same exact thing and now I regret doing it. It was by accident that I discovered they were only viewable to editors and PAID plans. Figma, please come up with a different marketing strategy for your subscription service, as limiting your new features is lowering user opinions of your product.
+1 for annotations viewable to all!
The more you implement dubious functions, the less trustworthy you are. Soon it will be impossible to open a link without a subscription. What is happening after the merger with Adobe is some kind of nightmare.
And yes. I completely forgot. Also implement a creative cloud and then the product will definitely become the same as all the others.
I totaly agree with the fact that annotation is the most greedy functionnolity we have see so far. We understand you need to consolidate your business model, but such a thing, knowing how bad the comments work (you can”t copy pas them along with a screen for example), I, like many others here, need this functionnality to be visible for standard viewers. this is a functionnality for communicating more clearly on our daily changes.
We already pay a lot for a seat. This is not asking for this feature to be used by free members, juste we ask to make them VISIBLE.
So please figma team, make an urgent update to let everyone use this feature.
Hey All, thank you for your honest feedback!
We’ve updated this topic into a feature request and edited the title for clarity. We’ll pass this onto our team for future consideration.
please make the future quick this time, please.
The new annotations and measurements feature is really great and helpful, but it’s basically useless because visitors can’t see it without a full seat.
This is especially problematic when you’re working on projects with hundreds of people, as it’s pointless to pay for a full seat for everyone who only needs to glance at screens and concepts occasionally.
So, please add the option to set annotations and measurements visibility to „everyone,“ even for visitors without a full seat.
I concur with this. The feature should be able available to all. As Product Owners, BAs and Dev need to be able to see annotations. Not all have edit role. Can we please get this included for reviewer role?
+1 for annotations viewable to all! Especially for PM, PO and QA roles!
as all the others.