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The thing that drives me most crazy in Figma is how you can preview any screen in prototype mode IF there are no connections/wires but if there’s even one, you can’t preview a specific screen unless it’s somehow chained to the starting screen.


As I design, I try out LOTS of ideas. I duplicate screens and tweak things over and over on the same page. But if I want to check out how an interaction works, suddenly the tool is fighting me. I either have to copy EVERY new idea into a new page, or figure out how to wire it into the main flow. These are just standalone ideas I may only try for two minutes and delete, these extra steps are slowing me down. Figma is supposed to make my workflow FASTER. XD and Sketch do not have this limitation.


I’ve reported this to Figma a couple times but the response has been basically, “yeah, that’s just how it works…”.


Does this drive anyone else nuts???

Yes it does. But, consider that Adobe XD behaves in the same way, if you do not wire screens, they are all exported, but if you wire just some of them, just those wired will be exported. The advantage XD has is multiple flows, so you can somehow manage this, combining wired and not wired screens in separate flows (and shareable links) or trying, as you would like, multiple separate interactions. But, even in XD, I would like to be able to literally select screens to export (user in control, not the app).

I believe that in Figma you have to move screens in separate file.

XD does have that limitation when you export, but if you just hit play while working in a file, you can preview any artboard in prototype mode.

I recommend creating a menu frame and have that be the starting frame of the prototype. Then create item buttons in that menu frame for all the screens in the flow. That way, stakeholders can go to those screens ala carte, or click through whatever flow you have depending on the where the flow actually begins. I started doing that while working with XD a few years ago, and I quickly realized it really helped stakeholders get their bearings. It also keeps them out of the actual file, and only in the prototype, making it easier for them to stay focused.

This sounds like a great solution!

I wish that the left and right arrows on the keyboard would still navigate through all the screens of the prototype, despite there being some prototyping connections on it.


I’d like to show some important interactions, but also enable all screens to be previewed without painstakingly connecting each one.


Now I need to do this in multiple pages - would prefer if I didn’t have to.

It seems like this might have been resolved?!? Over the past couple days I can preview any screen even if it’s not linked in the prototype! Am I dreaming?

It seems you can preview every frame on the page and skip them with the arrow keys only if no flows are existing. When using flows you have to either wire the frames together or use multiple flows.

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