You open a Figma file to review a new flow, and within ten minutes you are doing arithmetic in your head. Is this grey on white actually readable? Is this the same blue as the button three screens back? Did anyone label the icons? A review is mostly this kind of small, repetitive checking, and doing it by eye is slow and easy to get wrong. The right plugins turn that grind into a pass that takes minutes and catches more.
This is a tools post, so it is opinionated about what each plugin is good at and, just as important, where it stops. None of these replace judgement, and none of them replace testing the shipped product with real people. What they do is clear the mechanical work off your plate so your attention goes to the decisions that matter. For the broader method these tools feed into, the UX audit guide covers the dimensions behind the checks.
A quick note on scope. Every plugin below is free to start, runs inside Figma, and is widely used by product teams, so you are not betting your workflow on something obscure. I have grouped them by the job they do in a review, not by popularity.
1. Stark, for accessibility you check as you design
Stark is the best-known accessibility plugin for Figma, and it earns the reputation. It checks color contrast against WCAG thresholds, simulates several kinds of color vision deficiency, and lets you set and review focus order on a frame. The contrast checker alone justifies installing it. It gives you the ratio and tells you whether the pair passes AA for normal and for large text, and low contrast is the single most common accessibility failure sitting in a design file.
Where it stops: Stark checks what is in the file. It cannot tell you whether a screen reader will announce your custom component in a way that makes sense, or whether the built page matches the mockup at all. Treat it as a first filter, not a certificate.
2. Contrast, for a faster single check
Sometimes you do not want the whole suite, you just want to know if these two layers are readable together. Contrast lives in the corner of the canvas and reads the ratio of whatever you select, updating as you nudge a color. It is the plugin you reach for mid-flow, when stopping to open a full panel would break your concentration. Pair it with Stark rather than choosing between them: Contrast for the quick gut check, Stark for the structured pass before handoff.
3. Design Lint, for consistency at scale
Inconsistency is a real UX problem, not a tidiness preference. When the same action uses three slightly different blues, or body text drifts between four sizes that were meant to be one, the product feels unreliable and quietly raises the reader's mental effort. Design Lint walks every layer in a frame and flags what breaks from your styles: detached text, off-system colors, missing fills. It turns a vague sense that something is off into a list you can actually work through. If you want the reasoning behind why this matters so much, our piece on cognitive load in UX design makes the case that small inconsistencies add up to a measurable tax on attention.
Where it stops: it finds drift from your system, so it is only as good as the system you defined. A file with no styles has nothing to lint against.
4. html.to.design, for reviewing the real product, not the mockup
The gap between the design and the shipped page is where a surprising number of UX problems actually live. The mockup says 16px padding, the build shipped 8. The design had a focus state, the code dropped it. html.to.design imports a live URL into Figma as editable layers, so you can review the thing your users meet instead of the thing you intended. For a review of an existing product, this is often the most honest starting point you have.
Where it stops: an import is a snapshot, not a running page. You still cannot click through states or feel the timing, so use it to inspect structure and spacing, then open the real site for anything interactive.
5. Similayer, for auditing by pattern
A thorough review checks every instance of a thing, not just the first one you notice. Similayer lets you select all layers that share a property: the same fill, the same font size, the same corner radius, the same component. Once you can grab every button of a given kind at once, you can verify the whole set in one move rather than hunting screen by screen. It changes an audit from spot-checking to actually sweeping the file.
Where it stops: it selects, it does not judge. Similayer gets every matching layer in front of you fast, but you still decide whether the pattern is right.
6. A11y Annotation Kit, for handing off what you found
A review that lives in your head helps nobody. The A11y Annotation Kit gives you a set of stamps for marking up a frame with the accessibility intent engineers need: heading levels, landmarks, reading order, alt text, focus order. It is how you turn a contrast finding or a reading-order problem into something a developer can build correctly, without a meeting to explain it. Annotation is the step most teams skip, and it is the one that makes the earlier checks stick.
Where it stops: annotations document intent, they do not enforce it. Someone still has to build to them and test the result.
The six at a glance
| Plugin | Best for | Where it stops |
|---|---|---|
| Stark | Contrast, color vision, focus order | Checks the file, not the live build |
| Contrast | Fast single contrast checks mid-flow | One pair at a time, no structure |
| Design Lint | Finding drift from your styles | Only as good as your system |
| html.to.design | Reviewing the real shipped page | A static snapshot, not interactive |
| Similayer | Auditing every instance at once | Selects, does not judge |
| A11y Annotation Kit | Handing accessibility intent to engineers | Documents, does not enforce |
A sensible stack is Stark plus Contrast for accessibility, Design Lint for consistency, html.to.design when you are reviewing something already live, Similayer to make the pass exhaustive, and the Annotation Kit to hand it off. That is roughly thirty minutes of setup that pays back on every review after.
Where plugins stop and a review begins
Here is the honest limit of everything above. These tools check the measurable, in-file properties of a design. They are very good at contrast, consistency, structure, and coverage. They are blind to the questions that decide whether a product actually works: does this flow match how a person thinks, is the primary action obvious under pressure, does the copy say the true thing, is the whole experience worth the user's time. No plugin answers those. A person who has watched real users struggle does.
So run the plugins to clear the mechanical work, then spend the attention you saved on judgement. And remember that a review of a static Figma file is not a review of the running product. The build drifts, states get dropped, real devices behave differently. If you are reviewing something that already ships, look at the live thing.
That last point is where an automated pass over the real URL helps. UXAuditPro gives you one free audit every month that scores all six dimensions, Navigation, Visual Hierarchy, Friction Points, Accessibility, Conversion Design, and Mobile UX, and surfaces your single most severe finding. Run the shipped page through the website UX audit tool for a fast outside read, then take your Figma findings and the audit together into the next sprint. If you want to see how automated coverage compares with the manual plugins above, our rundown of the best UX audit tools lays out the trade-offs.
Pick two of these plugins and install them before your next review. Contrast and Design Lint are the fastest wins. The rest you add as the work calls for them.
Related reading: Cognitive Load in UX Design: What Research Says (2026)