The case for designing in the browser
Most designers stop at Figma. Here's why I take my designs further and why the browser is the best design tool you're not using.
There's a moment in every web project where the Figma file looks perfect and the browser looks wrong. The spacing feels off. The typography doesn't breathe the same way. The hover states feel clunky. Most designers file that under "developer problem." I've stopped doing that.
The gap between design tools and the browser
Figma is exceptional for communication — it's where ideas become concrete enough to discuss. But it simulates the browser; it doesn't replicate it. Fonts render differently. Scroll behaviour can't be prototyped properly. Responsive behaviour requires workarounds. When you design exclusively in Figma and hand off to code, you're asking someone to translate between two mediums that don't speak the same language.
Designing in the browser closes that gap. When I move a project into code early — even rough, unstyled HTML and CSS — I start making better decisions. I stop designing things that can't exist, and I start discovering interactions that couldn't have been prototyped.
What this looks like in practice
I still use Figma. The early stages of a project — mood, direction, layout logic — are faster there. But as soon as the design direction is set, I move to the browser. I write real CSS, use real fonts, test on a real viewport. The design evolves in the medium it will live in.
The result is less back-and-forth, fewer surprises, and work that actually holds up — because it was never pretending to be something it wasn't.
The skill gap is the real barrier
The honest reason more designers don't work this way is that it requires comfort with code. That's a legitimate barrier — and it's exactly why I invested in learning to build what I design. Not because every designer should code, but because for the kind of work I care about, the two disciplines are inseparable.
If you're a designer who's curious about code, start with CSS. Not a framework — just CSS. Learn how the box model actually works, how type is sized, how spacing cascades. You'll immediately become a better designer, even if you never write production code.