User Interface

71 posts

figmaDec 2, 20182 min readCurated summary

Introducing Overlays | Figma Blog

Figma’s Overlays feature makes prototypes more realistic by allowing content to appear flexibly above existing screens. Designers can position modals, sidebars, tooltips, and dropdowns, stack multiple overlays, and add interactions without rebuilding entire frames. The release aims to reduce repetitive prototype setup and better support interactive user flows. ## Simple Overlays - A destination frame can be designated as an overlay after creating a prototype link. - Overlays can be positioned relative to the device for modals and action sheets. - Designers can manually position overlays relative to triggering objects, such as for tooltips and dropdowns. ## Multiple Overlays - Multiple overlays can be layered simultaneously. - This supports complex flows such as multi-step purchases and confirmation dialogs. - Creating stacked overlays follows the same process as creating a single overlay. ## Interactions on Overlays - Designers can use “swap” interactions within overlays. - Swapping changes the overlay’s content without dismissing it or replacing the entire underlying frame. - This enables interactive states such as button hover effects inside an overlay. ## Additional Controls and Shortcuts - Back and Close actions can be selected directly on the canvas while dragging connections. - Holding Option while hovering over a destination frame quickly selects a swap connection. - Swap links can create more flexible Back behavior by returning to the last navigated frame rather than simply showing the preceding frame. Overall, Overlays extend Figma’s existing prototyping tools and make layered, interactive interface patterns easier to build and test.

User Interface Figma Prototyping Interaction Design+2

figmaNov 13, 20182 min readCurated summary

How to set up your Pages in Figma | Figma Blog

Figma Pages can organize design files in ways that match a team’s product, process, or design-system needs. The article emphasizes that there is no single ideal workflow; Pages provide flexible separation for responsive designs, app features, process stages, and atomic design components. ## Platform or Screen Size - Create separate Pages for Android, iOS, desktop, or other responsive breakpoints. - Use frame presets and constraints to build platform-specific layouts. - Each Page can contain its own prototype, making platform-specific user testing easier. ## App Feature - Organize Pages around major product areas such as profiles, home screens, or other features. - Designers can work independently while still referencing the broader product. - Separate prototypes allow teams to test individual feature flows. ## Design Process Stage - Use Pages to show progress and distinguish exploratory work from finalized designs. - Possible structures include: - Thumbnail, wireframes, designs, and archive - Documentation, staging, and ready for review - Sitemap, wireframes, mockups, QA, and marketing screenshots - A “Done” Page helps developers identify which designs are ready to build. - Early ideation and brainstorming can remain separate from polished work. ## Atomic Design Method - Dedicate Pages to atomic design levels: - Atoms, such as typography and icons - Molecules, such as buttons - Organisms, such as complete pages - Consistent Page naming improves Team Library search. - Components can use simpler names like “selected” or “hovered,” since their Page already identifies them as buttons or other component types. Ultimately, teams should choose a Page structure that reflects how they design and collaborate, rather than follow a universal template.

User Interface Figma Design Systems Prototyping+2

figmaOct 10, 20182 min readCurated summary

Introducing Smart Selection - speed up your design explorations | Figma Blog

Smart Selection is designed to reduce the repetitive work involved in arranging and refining multiple objects in Figma. It lets designers adjust spacing, position, and size directly on the canvas, helping them explore ideas faster while preserving familiar design workflows. The accompanying Tidy Up feature automatically organizes uneven selections into consistently spaced layouts. ## Smart Selection - Works automatically on selections or groups of three or more objects with uniform spacing. - Pink handles between objects let users adjust the spacing of all items at once. - A ring control allows objects to be rearranged quickly. - Selecting an item’s pink ring enables resizing by dragging its edges. - The feature is implemented as a direct canvas interaction rather than a separate tool or object type. ## Tidy Up - Tidy Up converts messy arrangements into evenly spaced groups suitable for Smart Selection. - It shifts selected items closer together while maintaining consistent spacing. - Unlike a traditional distribute command, it ensures spacing is even and compact. - It is useful for organizing tables, toolbars, and large sets of screens. - A layout containing 20 screens, for example, can be aligned in one action instead of manually correcting 19 separate gaps. - The command is available through the right sidebar, with shortcuts: - macOS: `⌥⌘T` - Other platforms: `Ctrl-Alt-T` ## Future Development - Figma planned to add support for two-dimensional grids. - The team invited users to provide feedback through the in-app help button or Spectrum. Smart Selection and Tidy Up are intended to replace tedious manual resizing, moving, and spacing adjustments with fast, intuitive canvas interactions, allowing designers to spend more time exploring creative possibilities.

User Interface Figma Design Tools Interaction Design+2

figmaSep 19, 20182 min readCurated summary

Figma Feature Highlight: Component Overrides | Figma Blog

Figma’s component overrides let designers balance consistency with contextual flexibility. Designers can customize individual instances—such as changing text, colors, effects, or visibility—without detaching them from the original component. This means updates to the parent component continue to propagate while preserving each instance’s unique changes. ## Balancing Consistency and Flexibility - Design systems rely on reusable components such as lists, avatars, buttons, and status bars. - Real interfaces still require variations based on context, including different text, colors, and interaction states. - Overrides avoid rebuilding these variations from scratch or breaking instances away from their shared component. ## How Component Overrides Work - An instance remains connected to its parent component after properties are changed. - Parent-component updates continue to flow into the instance. - Customized properties remain distinct in that particular instance. - Overridable properties include: - Colors, fills, opacity, and blend modes - Text and type alignment - Strokes and styles - Effects such as shadows and blurs - Visibility ## Practical Design Examples - **Information lists:** Create one cell component, then override the text in each instance with unique data. - **Button states:** Use one button component and alter its background, opacity, shadow, or other properties for hover, pressed, or inactive states. - **Address books:** Reuse a circular avatar component while overriding its fill with different profile photographs. - **Creative compositions:** Multiple flipped and duplicated instances can be combined into effects such as a kaleidoscope. ## Creating a Kaleidoscope - Convert an illustrated frame into a component. - Duplicate instances to the right and below, flipping them horizontally or vertically. - Place a final duplicate in the remaining space to form a 2×2 arrangement. - Edit the original component and watch the changes appear across the connected instances. Component overrides are most useful when a design system needs reusable foundations without eliminating meaningful variation. Use shared components for structure, then apply overrides for content, states, and context-specific styling.

User Interface Figma Design Systems Prototyping+1

figmaJul 23, 20181 min readCurated summary

#FigmaTip Roundup 9.0 | Figma Blog

This #FigmaTip Roundup presents practical shortcuts and component techniques shared by the Figma design community. The tips focus on arranging objects efficiently, creating mirrored component variants, and customizing spacing adjustments. Together, they show how keyboard shortcuts and reusable components can speed up common design tasks. ## Arranging Multiple Frames - Use **Cmd + `** to pack selected objects vertically. - Use **Cmd + Shift + `** to pack them horizontally. - Combine these shortcuts with Figma’s alignment commands to quickly reorganize several frames or objects. ## Creating Mirrored Components - To make a flipped, reusable component: - **Option-drag** the original component into a new empty component. - Press **Shift + H** to mirror it horizontally. - The mirrored component remains linked to the original, so changes made to the source component are reflected in the flipped version. ## Customizing Spacing with “Nudge Amount” - Figma’s **Nudge Amount** setting controls how far objects move when using the arrow keys. - Adjusting this value lets designers choose more appropriate spacing increments instead of relying only on the default nudge distance. - This is useful for making precise or larger layout adjustments more efficiently. These techniques provide quick ways to improve layout organization, maintain consistent component variations, and fine-tune spacing directly from the keyboard.

User Interface Figma Design Systems Keyboard Shortcuts+1

figmaJun 19, 20183 min readCurated summary

How one designer motivates others to build more ethical products | Figma Blog

Cat Noone’s work argues that accessibility should be treated as a product requirement, not a limitation added at the end of development. Through three apps— Iris Health, Stark, and Lyra—she designs for people often excluded by “typical user” assumptions. Her conclusion is that ethical, inclusive products emerge when teams understand diverse users and build accessibility directly into their workflows. ## Accessibility as a Product Priority - The article cites an estimate of 57 million disabled Americans, with 54% active online—roughly 9.3% of the population. - Noone challenges the idea that accessibility makes interfaces worse, asking whether excluding an entire population is itself poor design. - She recommends considering accessibility from the beginning rather than treating it as a later constraint. ## Iris Health: Emergency Medical Information - Iris Health was inspired by the risk of being unable to communicate medical information during an emergency, especially while traveling or living abroad. - If the app detects that a user is at a hospital and receives no response within ten minutes, it alerts emergency contacts by text. - A medical profile appears on the iPhone lock screen, allowing professionals to quickly view the user’s name, medications, allergies, and organ-donor status. - **Lesson:** Analyze potential users from every angle and adapt the interface to different medical and personal circumstances. ## Stark: Accessibility Within the Design Workflow - While developing Iris Health, Noone noticed that designers lacked sufficient tools for accessibility testing. - Stark provides color-blindness simulations and contrast-ratio checks directly within Sketch. - It enables designers to test different types of color blindness and verify typography against background colors. - The tool was already being used by teams at companies including Twitter, ESPN, Palantir, Dropbox, and Microsoft. - **Lesson:** Make accessibility checks part of the default workflow, using tools such as Stark, Contrast, and W3C accessibility resources. ## Lyra: Communication for Autistic Children - Lyra grew from Noone’s experience working with autistic children and others with special needs. - The app modernizes symbol-to-speech communication methods that traditionally relied on laminated cards and Velcro tabs. - Its goal is to help non-verbal autistic children communicate in a digital environment. - **Lesson:** Educate yourself about accessible design and learn to recognize common barriers before building a product. Inclusive design is most effective when it is built into research, design, and development from the outset. Teams should study the needs of underrepresented users and use accessibility tools continuously rather than relying on a final compliance check.

User Interface Accessibility Sketch Inclusive Design+3

figmaJun 5, 20182 min readCurated summary

#FigmaTip Roundup 8.0 | Figma Blog

This edition of Figma’s #FigmaTip Roundup collects quick workflow improvements from the design community. It focuses on making projects easier to identify visually and navigating layers and selections more efficiently. Together, the tips show how small organizational and keyboard-shortcut habits can speed up everyday Figma work. ## Customizing Project Thumbnails - Create a single frame on the first page of a project, sized approximately **620 × 320 pixels**. - Design a visually distinctive thumbnail inside the frame, using relatively large text. - Match the frame’s color with the canvas background so the thumbnail appears polished and cohesive. - This makes projects easier to recognize quickly in Figma’s project view. ## Navigating the Layers Panel - The roundup highlights keyboard shortcuts for moving through and managing layers. - The supplied article text does not include the details of this embedded tip, but its purpose is to reduce reliance on manually clicking through the layers panel. ## Speeding Up Selection and Layer Management - **Tab / Shift-Tab:** Select the next or previous sibling layer. - **Return / Shift-Return:** Enter or exit groups and frames while maintaining selection context. - **Command + ] / Command + [:** Move a layer up or down in the stacking order. - **Option + Command + ] / Option + Command + [:** Move a layer to the top or bottom of the stacking order. The practical recommendation is to combine a deliberately designed project thumbnail with regular use of selection and layer shortcuts. These simple techniques improve both project organization and editing speed without changing the underlying design process.

User Interface Figma User Experience Keyboard Shortcuts

figmaMay 29, 20183 min readCurated summary

How Virta Health uses Figma to help patients reverse type 2 diabetes | Figma Blog

Virta Health uses Figma as a collaborative foundation for designing healthcare experiences aimed at reversing type 2 diabetes. The company’s transparent, shared design process helps teams create consistent patient interfaces, involve non-designers, and move from ideas to implementation quickly. Figma’s real-time collaboration and reusable components have become central to Virta’s design culture and operational speed. ## Designing for High-Stakes Healthcare - Virta provides treatment for type 2 diabetes and other chronic metabolic diseases without medication or surgery. - Its mission is to reverse diabetes for 100 million people by 2025. - Reported results after one year include: - 94% of insulin users reducing or eliminating insulin use. - 60% of patients reversing type 2 diabetes. - Because healthcare products directly affect patients’ lives, interfaces must be intuitive, predictable, and reliable. ## Real-Time Collaboration Across Teams - Virta’s 11-person design team operates as a transparent internal hub for designers, developers, marketers, and physicians. - Since the company adopted Figma early, its designs have been accessible and current from anywhere and on any machine. - Designers share files in Slack, where teammates can immediately open the canvas, comment, duplicate work, and suggest improvements. - New team members can get productive quickly because the latest designs and decisions live in Figma. ## Consistency Through Components - Virta treats consistency as essential: patient and physician workflows should behave predictably across the app. - Figma components let designers reuse interface elements instead of recreating them manually. - The team developed a component library based on structural components and nested components. - Components support responsive desktop and mobile versions within a shared system. - Virta is applying the same structural principles to its codebase to reinforce consistency between design and implementation. ## Empowering Non-Designers - Figma allows marketing, product, leadership, developers, and physicians to participate directly in design work. - During the VirtaHealth.com relaunch, the entire process—from ideation through developer handoff—took place in Figma. - Shared visibility enabled faster feedback and helped the first page launch within a month. - Marketing teams use templated Figma files for social graphics, landing pages, and other collateral. - Non-designers can create assets independently, then tag designers for targeted reviews or illustration requests. - This self-service approach eliminated multiple design cycles and reduced the process by weeks. Virta’s experience suggests that collaborative design tools are most valuable when they become part of the company’s operating model, not merely a place to create mockups. Shared files, reusable components, and broad participation helped the company deliver faster while maintaining the consistency and clarity required in healthcare.

User Interface Figma Design Systems Prototyping+2

figmaApr 8, 20182 min readCurated summary

#FigmaTip Roundup 7.0 | Figma Blog

FigmaTip Roundup 7.0 collects small, community-shared techniques for working faster and more precisely in Figma. The tips focus on creating symmetrical shapes, controlling selection behavior, zooming directly to layers, and improving frame visibility. Together, they show how shortcuts and view settings can make everyday design tasks more efficient. ## Creating Symmetrical Shapes with Components - Draw a rough outline of one side of a shape, such as a vase or flask. - Convert it into a component with **⌥⌘K**. - Duplicate it with **⌘D**, then mirror the duplicate horizontally with **⇧H**. - Position the mirrored copy beside the original. - Edit the component to refine the shape while preserving symmetry. ## Freezing Selection Bounds - Pressing the **spacebar** freezes the bounds of the current selection. - This helps prevent the selection box from changing while moving or adjusting elements. ## Zooming Directly to a Selection - Enable **“Keyboard Zooms Into Selection”** in Figma’s settings. - This makes it easier to zoom quickly to a selected layer, especially when choosing it from the layers panel. - The feature is useful for navigating complex files with many objects. ## Making Frames Easier to See - The roundup also highlights Figma’s **“Frame Outlines”** view option. - Frame outlines improve visibility and make it easier to distinguish frame boundaries while designing. These shortcuts and settings are simple to adopt but can significantly improve speed, precision, and navigation in Figma.

User Interface Figma Keyboard Shortcuts Components+1

figmaFeb 26, 20182 min readCurated summary

Figma prototyping: now with transitions | Figma Blog

Figma’s 2018 update introduced transitions to its prototyping tool, allowing designers to create more realistic, communicative app experiences. Users could connect frames with dissolve, slide, or push animations, customize duration and easing, and preview results directly in the toolbar. The update aimed to reduce ambiguity among designers, engineers, clients, and other stakeholders. ## Why Transitions Matter - Prototypes help teams evaluate high-fidelity app experiences before development. - Animation between frames can significantly affect how an interface feels. - Adding transitions reduces back-and-forth by communicating interaction details more clearly. - The feature was developed in response to extensive community feedback. ## New Transition Features - Apply **dissolve, slide, or push** effects between frames. - Set animation durations down to a few milliseconds. - Adjust easing so animations accelerate or slow down at different points. - Preview frame transitions in the prototyping toolbar. - Use transitions to reproduce platform-specific interactions, such as iOS-style motion. ## Existing Prototyping Advantages - **Live design:** Prototypes remain synchronized with the underlying web-based designs, eliminating the need to re-export after edits. - **Mobile presentations:** Presentations can be controlled from Android or iOS browsers, while stakeholders can follow along from their own computers. - **Components:** Prototype interactions assigned to a component automatically apply to its instances, making repeated navigation—such as a home button—easy to maintain. ## Continued Product Development - Figma positioned transitions as another step toward making prototyping faster and easier. - The company planned to continue expanding prototyping to better support everyone involved in software development. Transitions made Figma prototypes more polished and useful for communicating both static designs and interactive behavior before implementation.

User Interface Figma User Experience Prototyping+2

figmaFeb 6, 20181 min readCurated summary

FigmaTip Roundup 6.0 | Figma Blog

The sixth FigmaTip Roundup collects practical techniques and community-created resources for speeding up design work in Figma. It highlights a Material Design System, more precise color editing for grouped objects, and Figma’s support for smoother “squircle” corners. ## Material Design System for Figma - R. Kamushken’s user-made Material Design System includes a fast table constructor. - The feature was introduced in version 1.3. - The resource is available for download through Setproduct. ## Editing Strokes and Fills Independently - Figma allows designers to change the stroke color of a group without altering its fills. - Objects in the group that have fills but no strokes remain unaffected. - The roundup presents this as a workflow advantage over tools such as Illustrator and Sketch. ## Smoother Corners with Squircles - The post announces a feature for creating ultra-smooth corners using squircles. - This provides an alternative to standard rounded rectangles for producing more polished interface shapes. The roundup encourages designers to adopt these community-discovered resources and features to make everyday Figma workflows faster and more precise.

User Interface Figma Design Systems Vector Graphics+1

figmaJan 18, 20181 min readCurated summary

#FigmaTip Roundup 5.0 | Figma Blog

This #FigmaTip roundup highlights small Figma interactions that can make design work faster and more intuitive. The tips focus on importing multiple images, navigating deeply nested layers, and creating evenly spaced layouts. Together, they demonstrate how Figma’s built-in behaviors can streamline common design tasks. ## Importing Images in Bulk - Drag a folder directly from your desktop into Figma. - Figma imports the folder’s images as a set, avoiding the need to add each file individually. ## Navigating Nested Layers - Hold **Control** and right-click an object. - Use the resulting context menu to view and navigate through the object’s nested layers. - This is particularly useful when several layers overlap or when selecting a deeply nested element is difficult. ## Creating Equal Spacing and Column Grids - Use Figma’s red alignment and spacing guides to quickly position objects at equal distances. - Once the spacing is correct, use the distribute function to arrange the objects into a column-like grid. These shortcuts are worth incorporating into everyday workflows: they reduce repetitive actions and make Figma’s “it just works” interactions more discoverable.

User Interface Figma Desktop Applications Grid Layout+1

figmaJan 9, 20183 min readCurated summary

How Figma Transformed This Berkeley Design Class | Figma Blog

UC Berkeley’s CS 160 course used Figma to make digital product design more accessible to computer science students. The cloud-based tool solved problems involving incompatible devices, steep software learning curves, and limited collaboration. As a result, students spent more time applying usability principles and less time learning complicated design software. ## Challenges in Teaching Digital Design - CS 160 teaches human-computer interaction through 3–4-person teams building Android apps around themes such as healthcare and elections. - The course struggled with: - Students using Linux, Windows, Macs, or no personal computer. - Limited computer-lab solutions for incompatible software. - Adobe tools requiring substantial training. - Students with prior design experience often handled wireframing and prototyping, while others focused on coding or user testing. - Enrollment demand was high enough that the course’s original 100-student limit had to be doubled. ## Figma Made Design More Accessible - Figma was free for students and worked across different operating systems. - Its simple interface allowed students without design backgrounds to learn the basics quickly—one student reported becoming productive in about an hour. - Built-in features supported teaching: - In-context comments for instructor feedback. - Version history for reviewing progress. - Simultaneous editing by multiple students. - Integrated prototyping for presentations. - Students could focus on concepts such as Nielsen’s usability heuristics instead of spending most of their time learning Photoshop. ## More Effective Project-Based Learning - Students applied classroom lessons directly to their projects, reinforcing the concepts through practice. - One healthcare-themed team designed an app helping people with alcoholism locate nearby Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. - Figma’s quick prototyping was especially useful because teams had only about an hour of face-to-face collaboration each week. - Teachers and TAs could comment directly on relevant parts of a design rather than sending unclear, broad feedback by email. ## Collaboration Across Disciplines - Real-time editing enabled students to brainstorm, observe one another’s work, and contribute regardless of their design background. - Teams could work outside class without worrying about conflicting file versions or accidentally overwriting one another’s work. - The course used Figma to bring coding and design together, giving computer science students a more collaborative introduction to product design. Figma’s main contribution was reducing technical and logistical barriers so students could concentrate on design thinking, usability, and teamwork. For similar project-based courses, accessible cross-platform tools with real-time collaboration and contextual feedback can make design education more inclusive and effective.

User Interface Figma User Experience Prototyping+4

figmaDec 13, 20172 min readCurated summary

Stitch Fix accelerates design sprints by collaborating in Figma | Figma Blog

Stitch Fix uses Figma to make design sprints faster, more collaborative, and easier to manage across departments. Its browser-based workflow gives everyone access to one shared source of truth, eliminating file handoffs and tool-installation delays. Real-time collaboration and reusable components let the team focus on solving UX problems instead of managing files or repeating production work. ## Sprinting in the Cloud - Stitch Fix brings designers, engineers, marketers, and project managers together to brainstorm, whiteboard, and prototype solutions. - Because Figma runs in the browser, participants can join shared files through a URL, regardless of whether they use Macs or PCs. - The team avoids exchanging files and installing separate applications for design, prototyping, and developer handoff. - Head of Product Design Ellen Beldner describes Figma as a replacement for the combined workflow of Sketch, InVision, and Zeplin. - A shared cloud file creates a single source of truth from the beginning of the sprint. ## Brainstorming and Critiquing in Tandem - Design sprints often reveal technical challenges or unexpected effects elsewhere in the user experience. - Figma’s Multiplayer feature allows team members to inspect and edit the same design simultaneously. - Instead of gathering around one computer or emailing exported files, teammates can review specific areas directly in the shared file. - Ellen can leave comments, provide immediate feedback, or draw mockups to explain suggested changes. - Designers can return to the same URL later to review detailed critiques without scheduling additional walkthrough meetings. - Working in one file prevents conflicting versions and helps the team stay aligned as prototypes become higher fidelity. ## Shared Components Reduce Busywork - Tight sprint schedules leave little time for repeatedly recreating common UI elements. - Figma’s shared components provide reusable instances of interface elements. - When the master component changes, all instances update automatically. - During a card-based design-system sprint, Stitch Fix used components to test different card combinations efficiently. - Team members could continue placing component instances while others worked on navigation and related areas. - This automation freed designers to focus on broader UX questions rather than repetitive production tasks. ## Practical Conclusion Stitch Fix’s experience suggests that browser-based collaboration, real-time feedback, and reusable components can significantly streamline design sprints. Teams seeking faster cross-functional iteration should prioritize a shared design environment that reduces tool friction and keeps everyone working from the same source.

User Interface Figma Design Systems User Experience+4

figmaDec 11, 20171 min readCurated summary

#FigmaTip Roundup 4.0 | Figma Blog

The post is a roundup of community-submitted Figma tips designed to help users work more creatively and efficiently. It highlights practical techniques for cropping, creating patterns, resizing layouts, and inspecting designs, showing how small features and shortcuts can improve everyday workflows. ## Cropping Images with Masks - Use masks to crop images into custom shapes rather than relying only on rectangular frames. - Masks provide a flexible way to control which parts of an image remain visible. ## Creating Patterns with Symbols - Reuse symbols to build repeating visual patterns. - Duplicating and arranging symbols can quickly produce decorative or structured compositions. ## Resizing Frames with Constraints - Set constraints on frame elements to control how they behave when the frame is resized. - Constraints help preserve relationships between elements across different dimensions. ## Inspecting Designs with Outline Mode - Press **Command + Y** to switch to Outline Mode. - This view makes it easier to inspect vector paths, layers, and the underlying structure of a design. The roundup encourages designers to experiment with Figma’s masks, symbols, constraints, and keyboard shortcuts to make common design tasks faster and more adaptable.

User Interface Figma Design Tools Graphic Design+4