Keyboard-first design tools arrive in Figma
For many designers, the mouse isn’t a convenience—it’s an obstacle. Figma’s latest accessibility update targets that problem head-on, bringing keyboard-only navigation and screen reader support to the bulk of its product suite. The changes come after extended feedback sessions with designers who rely on keyboards and screen readers as their primary navigation tools, including a dedicated group of alpha testers whose input shaped the final feature set.
The new capabilities address the most common pain points reported by keyboard-only users: moving between frames, selecting components, and adding new objects. Previously, these actions required a mouse or resulted in disorienting jumps—getting stuck at the top of the canvas, zooming into the wrong area, or landing on the wrong page. With these updates, Figma says keyboard-only designers can now participate fully in design sprints, co-creation sessions, and critiques without needing to switch to a mouse.
Pan, place, and select without a pointer
Three core workflows received the biggest upgrades:
Panning
The canvas can now be navigated with arrow keys. Pressing the Shift key increases movement speed, and new shortcuts offer finer zoom control plus quick access to the move and hand tools.
Placement
Most object types—shapes, text, frames—can be inserted using only the keyboard. Frame insertion uses a crosshair-guided view, and pressing Enter drops text at the center of the screen.
Selection
A new keyboard-based box selection tool appears for choosing objects without a mouse. Users position a pink cursor with arrow keys and press Enter to select a single object, or drag a selection box to pick multiple items at once.
These controls layer on top of existing keyboard shortcuts, which Figma says should enable end-to-end mouse-free design for most tasks. As one alpha user noted, nearly all barriers to contributing to the design process have been removed.
Beyond navigation
The navigation improvements are part of a broader push to make Figma itself and the products created within it more accessible. The contrast checker in Figma’s color picker already lets designers verify that text and graphic colors meet Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) standards. Another earlier addition allows designers to assign semantic HTML tags to objects, helping teams build products that work with screen readers.
Figma frames accessibility as an ongoing commitment rather than a one-time checkbox. The company says it will continue releasing focused improvements based on user feedback. For designers ready to try the new tools, Figma’s help center details how to enable screen reader support and use the new keyboard features.
