How Figma Sites prioritises superficial qualities of web experiences.A tough pill to swallow: I still get excited whenever there’s a new design tool to play with.Over the past few years, I’ve been repeating the same mantra in my head: “expertise over tools, outcomes over outputs”, as a way to focus on the substance of my work as a designer, rather than succumbing to the immediate gratification of producing something “tangible”.Yet, when Figma announced Figma Sites during the Config 2025 keynote, I was intrigued. A new toy truck, in my sandbox?Figma Sites seems like a natural progression for Figma’s product lineup. While website builders aren’t new, I see how Figma Sites could be particularly attractive to those with little experience in web publishing or development.The process of setting up pages in Figma Sites almost mirrors the process of creating prototypes in your typical Figma Design files. To explore what Figma Sites is all about, I decided to create my résumé. I kept its overall structure simple with just two pages: “Home” and “About.”Most of the content is static text, with links, images, and article cards linking to my Medium stories.I decided to keep the structure of my résumé simple. Screenshot: Kristina Gushcheva-KeippiläAs I was setting up the pages, I was mindful of the content I was adding to my workspace. In other words, the purpose that each element serves on the page. Here’s a text box (”a heading”), and this one’s an image (“can I add alt text?”), and this element will be my top navigation (“wait, how do I specify that this is navigation?”)… Huh.In the announcement post, the Figma team highlights responsiveness and expressive interaction of sites built with the tool. Efficiency, coupled with the speed of publishing live content, are the key selling points. “Build responsively”, “build faster”. Accessibility of content, however, is not mentioned once throughout the post.Well, what’s up with that?Here’s my résumé — built and published with Figma Sites.Frontend development is far from being my forte. However, I know that semantic HTML is the foundational prerequisite for accessibility of web content. This is not a concept that Figma concerns itself with, however.Before publishing, Figma didn’t alert me about untagged elements, missing alt text, or page structure issues.I later discovered the Accessibility section hidden in the Design toolbar, offering options for adding tags, alt text, and ARIA labels to elements. Despite carefully assigning these attributes to elements in Figma, there was no meaningful change in the live pages.Counterintuitively, even with proper tags, Figma wraps all content in generic <div> elements, compromising the accessibility of basic content blocks.That’s a lot of <div>s. Screenshot: Kristina Gushcheva-KeippiläEmily Lawes summarised the full extent of the issues in this LinkedIn post.Yes, Figma Sites is in beta. Sure, Figma will get plenty of feedback and (maybe) take the steps to address the criticism. Nevertheless, disregarding key aspects of web accessibility even in a beta product launch speaks volumes.Simultaneously, Figma continues to expand its AI capabilities — a juxtaposition that I find particularly amusing, granted that Figma Sites fails to meet the baseline of generating usable web content.Prioritising superficial qualities of web experiences (read: appearance, motion, fast delivery) over intentionality and inclusivity, and contributing to populating the web with an abundance of quick-to-create yet inaccessible content is not the future I want to see.I can’t help but imagine the possibilities: Figma Sites could encourage people to explore accessibility and inclusive design principles through its product offering. With in-line guidance, intuitive tools for specifying semantic roles of elements, and publishing restrictions, it could ensure adherence to essential principles for making the web accessible.Needless to say, my enthusiasm has waned. Is it naïve to believe that products like Figma should foster environments for creating ethical and inclusive content, just as tech professionals are accountable for the impact of their work?To me, Figma’s message is clear: design means quick and rapid production. Efficiency over meaningful considerations, regardless of implications.Big thanks to Adrian Roselli for covering the accessibility of Figma Sites, and inspiring me to write this story. If you want to learn more about the basics of accessible HTML, check out MDN Web Docs. Also, this post by Pavel Samsonov is great.Kristina Gushcheva-Keippilä is a design generalist who loves to make sense of complex things. Kristina writes about inclusive design, being autistic at work, and thinking in systems.Links and referencesFigma: Config 2025 keynotehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5q8YAUTYAykFigma: Publish your designs on the web with Figma Siteshttps://www.figma.com/blog/introducing-figma-sites/MDN Docs: HTML: A good basis for accessibilityhttps://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Learn_web_development/Core/Accessibility/HTMLFigma Learn: Improve the accessibility of your sitehttps://help.figma.com/hc/en-us/articles/31242789265431-Improve-the-accessibility-of-your-siteEmily Lawes: LinkedIn post on Figma Siteshttps://www.linkedin.com/posts/emilylawes_accessibility-figma-a11y-activity-7326207820545028096-0RUN/?utm_source=productpicnic.beehiiv.com&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=figma-dreamweaverAdrian Roselli: Do Not Publish Your Designs on the Web with Figma Sites…https://adrianroselli.com/2025/05/do-not-publish-your-designs-on-the-web-with-figma-sites.htmlPavel Samsonov: Figma Dreamweaverhttps://productpicnic.beehiiv.com/p/figma-dreamweaverFigma Sites: when accessibility is an afterthought was originally published in UX Collective on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.