How Component Variants Interact in Figma: A Guide

Design systems thrive on consistency, scalability, and reusability—and for UX/UI designers, Figma is often the weapon of choice. Among its many powerful features, component variants stand out as an essential tool for streamlining design workflows, keeping UI components organized, and ensuring every state of a button, input field, or dropdown is accounted for. But working effectively with component variants in Figma requires more than just knowing how to create them—it requires an understanding of how they interact.

TL;DR

Component variants in Figma allow designers to group similar components (like buttons in different states) into a single, manageable set. These variants interact through properties defined in the parent component, enabling smart swapping and dynamic changes. By using Variant Properties and managing interactions via Prototype Links, designers can simulate complex UI behaviors. This guide will break down the best practices for using and managing these interactions effectively.

What Are Component Variants?

Variants are a way to organize and group related components in Figma. Think of them as a smarter alternative to duplicating the same button in different states (default, hover, clicked, disabled). A single component set can house these versions, letting you switch between them using well-defined properties.

For example, rather than having:

• Button / Default
• Button / Hover
• Button / Pressed

You can combine them into a single component with a State property:

• Button (State = Default)
• Button (State = Hover)
• Button (State = Pressed)

This enables a cleaner workspace and faster iterations. But it also lays the groundwork for interaction—something Figma handles beautifully when variants are configured thoughtfully.

How Do Variants Interact?

The interaction of component variants in Figma relies on two main concepts: Variant Properties and Prototype Interactions. Here’s how they work together:

1. Variant Properties: These are custom attributes (like “State”, “Size”, or “Theme”) that define how your variants differ. Changing a property switches the appearance of a variant without replacing the component itself.
2. Prototype Interactions: These allow you to simulate user behavior (such as hovering or clicking) by transitioning between variants within the same set.

When combined, these tools let you quickly prototype functional-like components and user flows, without relying on external tools or messy component duplications.

Setting Up Interactions Between Variants

Let’s walk through a simple example using a button component with three states: Default, Hover, and Pressed.

1. Create a frame for each button state and label them clearly using a property like State = Default, State = Hover, etc.
2. Select all frames and click “Combine as Variants” in Figma’s right-hand panel.
3. After combining, go to the Prototype tab. Set an interaction from the Default variant to the Hover variant using a while hovering trigger.
4. Similarly, link from Hover to Pressed using a while clicking or on click trigger.
5. Use the ‘Back to Default’ interaction to handle hover-out events if needed.

This creates a seamless prototype experience that visually reacts to interaction—enhancing stakeholder presentations, user testing, and developer handoffs.

The Magic of Property-Based Swapping

Beyond prototyping, variant interaction becomes powerful during design iterations. For instance, let’s say you’ve created a form input field with the following variants:

• State: Default, Focused, Filled, Error
• Size: Small, Medium, Large

Now, inside a larger design file, you can access a dropdown in the “Properties” panel to flip through all valid combinations of states and sizes without detaching the component.

This way, your designs remain maintainable and efficient. You’re not duplicating layers—you’re just changing one dimension of your component thanks to how variants interact through these defined properties.

Nested Components with Variants

Things can get more advanced (and more interesting) when you use nested components that include variants of their own. For example, a card component could contain a button, a tag, and an image—all of which have their own variant states.

How they behave depends on the level of control you want:

• If the card needs to change when a nested piece changes (e.g., the button changes to a disabled state), ensure that the nested variants are exposed as properties in the parent component.
• Use expose nested instances from the right-hand properties panel to manage this behavior without breaking the component.

This creates modular interactions that scale across your design system, allowing for UI components that react as a unit—without giving up individual control.

Welcome to Variant Madness: Avoiding Common Pitfalls

While component variants are incredibly useful, it’s easy to overdo them or organize them inefficiently. Avoid these common mistakes:

• Too many properties: Don’t create more variant dimensions than necessary. This leads to high complexity and performance degradation.
• Confusing naming conventions: Stick with naming schemas like State, Type, or Size, with uniform values to keep everything predictable.
• Missing base variant: Always assign a clear “default” variant to help other team members know where to begin.
• Unlinked prototypes: Double check that all interactions between variants are functional and flow logically in your prototype.

Best Practices to Keep in Mind

To master the interaction between variants, keep these golden rules in mind:

1. Plan before you build: Sketch out the different types of interactions and states you’ll need before you create variants. Fewer surprises, more clarity.
2. Use variant naming conventions: Figma recognizes naming patterns like “Property=Value” which makes naming intuitive and filtering easy.
3. Leverage “Smart Animate”: In prototyping, use Smart Animate for fluid transitions between variants—like a button growing a shadow on hover.
4. Test in a playground file: Don’t experiment in production files. Use a “components playground” to tinker and explore different interaction patterns.

How Developers Benefit from Variant Interactions

Another huge payoff from managing variant interactions well is better developer handoff. Organized components make it easier for engineers to:

• Understand the different UI states and how they transition.
• Get clean, inspectable, property-driven components for easier coding.
• Validate which interaction triggers lead to which variants.

When variant properties match logical names used in code (e.g., “type,” “state,” “size”), the design-to-code gap narrows considerably.

Conclusion

Component variants in Figma aren’t just about visual design—they’re at the intersection of design logic, interaction, and reusability. By learning how these variants interact, you can design smarter interfaces, enhance prototyping realism, and streamline communication with developers. The beauty of Figma lies in its flexibility and intelligence, and mastering variant interaction is the key to unlocking both.

So, the next time you create a button, think beyond color and shape—think in variants. Your future self (and your teammates) will thank you.