Why should you name layers?

“There are only two hard problems in Computer Science: cache invalidation and naming things” — Phil Karlton

One of your responsibilities as a professional designer is to ensure your designs are implemented correctly and successfully. That’s why naming your layers is crucial.

Of course, if you’re a freelancer handling both design and development you can do whatever you want with your layers. But if you collaborate with others, especially developers, here’s why it matters:

Developers are your friends.

It’s in your best interest to ensure developers interpret your designs accurately. By naming layers, you’re making their job a little easier and showing that you care about them too 🥹. And be sure they will respond with love too. As a professional designer, you can take it even further: meet up with your team/developers and establish naming conventions 📜.

Here’s an article on why naming conventions is important for devs.
And on this Figma file you'll find a good examples of using them.

Streamline the process

Not only devs, but also the whole team benefits from it. It enhances collaboration: from meetings and notes to edits and documentation. Whenever you need to reference a specific element/component, the proper layer naming will make it much easier and faster for everyone to get what you mean.

Or imagine new designers joining your team. Clear structure allows them to onboard quicker and make changes with confidence.

I’ll tell you more. I would recommend naming not only layers but also every screen on the page. Picture this: you’re in a meeting, explaining a complex flow to your team. Instead of stumbling over vague descriptions, you just say “Let’s jump to the screen number 26.”

Your design pages are a "Bible" for developers. It is the main source they rely on when it comes to implementation.

Design systems. Components. Prototypes.

Consistency is key here. Naming your layers ensures that components can be easily identified and reused across projects. Have you noticed that when you try to change an icon in your button component, the icon’s color changes too? That’s because the icons’ layer names in your icons set don’t match. As for prototypes, they will not work correctly if you’re using different layer names on the connected screens.

You might say, “But Dan, it’s so time-consuming and interrupts my creative flow. Also, it has no direct impact on the result 😭”… So, the conclusion:

Conclusion

Naming conventions isn’t just about the product; they shape your work environment and process for efficiency and comfort, which actually benefits the product. Of course, it will take some extra time and effort. It’s your job! (I agree with this guy here on that).

You can skip naming layers in the early design stages. But it needs to be done later on anyway, especially, before a hand-off.

I’m pretty sure there will be a native Figma feature, that will give you a list of options with some common layer names or even ready structures that will save us a lot of energy and time. And we’ll be shocked how we lived without it (as it was with auto-layouts). Until then, this is our reality.

Cheers 🎩

Resources

https://help.figma.com/hc/en-us/articles/360038663994-Name-and-organize-components
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naming_convention_(programming)
https://getbem.com/introduction/