Prototype presentation in wrong order

It’s hard to say why it could be the case without specific examples.

I have this same issue showing some very simple linear flows and I think I may have just figured it out by chance. The way you navigate between screens in a prototype flow can change the order in which they appear.

If you use your arrow keys to navigate left/right through a flow, Figma ignores any “interactions” that you may have set up. Figma will simply show your screens in the order in which they appear in your artboard starting with the first row of screens and going left to right. Then the second row of screens and going left to right. And so on. The layout of your artboards is driving the order.

If you have interactions set up and stick with the default to navigate to the next screen “on click”, then you actually physically need to click on the prototype rather than use you arrow keys to navigate. If you physically click the screen to advance to the next one, then Figma will follow the interactions you set up.

This has been really annoying for me and took waaaay to long to figure out through trial and error. The behavior makes sense given that a lot of users are probably doing complex prototyping, but I only need to put together and share linear flows covering specific use cases most of the time so this def a hassle and I expect it will cause a lot of confusion with stakeholders trying to navigate a prototype using arrow keys.

There is one workaround but it requires a lot more effort to maintain. You can set your interaction to navigate on “key/gamepad” and then select the right arrow key as the trigger for that navigation. If you do that, then you’ll be able to navigate through a linear flow as expected. You would also need to set up a “back” interaction triggered by the left arrow key…

Now I’m looking for a way to disable navigation through prototype using arrow keys so that my stakeholders don’t get confused by this…

This thread helped solve this for me:

How do you keep Prototype without a flow starting point? It is impossible right now as Figma automatically add a Flow Starting point whenever I add interactions within a prototype. Am I missing something?

Deeply stupid. The arrow keys should always go through the frames in order of linear arrangement. The flows are there for if you want to go in a diff order (following a user journey, which could skip frames or go back or whatever). And yes, I’ve checked frame alignment. They’re perfect.

Adding a flow start means that using my arrows becomes highly arbitrary. Completely idiotic. Remove flow start = linear arrow key flow. Add flow start = wonky effing mess that my users can’t navigate in a linear manner with arrows.