Annotations are a great idea, but I think it would be beneficial to allow them to be added without being in dev mode. When something is marked for dev its already a finalised design. Adding annotations before marking as dev mode would save time and allow annotations to be added as we go along.
Hi @Adam_James2, Thanks for sharing your thoughts on annotation! I can see how accessing annotate from Design Mode might be beneficial for your use case.
We use voting to understand what our community is most interested in, which helps us prioritize our actions. So, we’re really looking forward to seeing how the rest of the community responds to your idea.
Your contribution to our community is greatly appreciated!
Thanks,
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As a designer, I would find it super logical that annotations would also be in designer mode. I even think it is necessary that annotations are also visible in viewer mode. You also want to use annotations to explain functionalities. This can be to other stakeholders such as developers. The result is that if this is not the case, we as designers also have to create and maintain the designs with our own components that we use as annotations. That is inconvenient.
As a team, we have the following components to explain designs to customers, managers, developers and other colleagues.
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+1!!! I think of behaviors/requirements as I am designing, and find it frustrating that I have to switch to Dev Mode → add an annotation → switch back to design mode every time i want to add an annotation. It also annoys me that I have to switch to dev mode to read my annotations. I want to be able to add annotations while i am designing.
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Hey Figma friends! I just wanted to share the idea of having the annotation feature into the design mode as well. This features works very well in collaboration with the devs, but when we need to share design to POs or BAs or anyone that doesn’t have a dev mode seat can be a bit of a bummer. Think about it!
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Please add annotiations in Design Mode too. It is more than necessary.
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It’s a huge mental effort and a waste of time that as a designer I have to switch between DesignMode and DevMode in order to add the annotations. And I cannot add all the annotation at once, I cannot keep in mind all I want to say. So, I add them as I need to comment on something. Makes no sense to switch between modes.
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+1 to this. I need to make notes on all my comps so I can keep my thoughts straight while designing, and communicate certain functionality to our product team as we work through behavior. Generally speaking these are NOT handoff notes for devs (we usually add those later in the process). Currently I have to rely on a clunky system of annotation components that I’ve created, but i’m unable to connect them to actual design components in any way, so if the layout changes I need to rearrange all my annotations too.
Yep this is a +1 for me! Everybody should be able to see the annotations, only designers / dev’s should be able to add/change.
Yes please add annotations to Design mode. We have stakeholders (other than dev) that also need annotations. They are also of great use when one design “takes over” working in another designer’s file. Our design team has been using a plugin called “Anno-tation” that is a great tool, but is a bit slow to add to the canvas. It would be amazing if something like this was native to Figma.