Reimagining Figma's developer handoff

Figma launched Dev Mode in June 2023 (public beta at Config 2023, official release January 2024) to bridge the designer-developer handoff. Dev Mode transforms Figma into a developer-focused workspace, making it easier to inspect designs, export assets, and translate designs into code.

The asset selection panel was designed to simplify downloading images and icons. It streamlines how developers access and export assets from Figma's nested layer structures, making the handoff process faster and more efficient.

Usage was strong at launch with 31.4K weekly active users and 17.4M assets exported. But declining engagement told a different story: developers were finding workarounds because the export experience wasn't keeping up with how they actually worked.

Each solution was designed to keep developers in flow:

1. Download all: Grab every asset at once without interrupting momentum or manually selecting each one.
2. Global export settings: Set format preferences per asset type (image/icon) once and apply them across every export automatically.
3. Filter by asset type: Narrow the panel instantly to find exactly what you need without scrolling through nested layers.

Together, these three changes collapsed a multi-step, error-prone process into something that just works. Developers spend less time configuring and more time building.