Note: If you have a different UI than in the course, you can change it back by clicking the '?' in the bottom right corner of Figma and select 'Go back to previous UI'. Happy Figma'ing!

Auto Layout on different device sizes- How to make advanced Auto Layouts

This lesson is exclusive to members

Course contents

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Course info

177 lessons / 16 hours 46 quiz questions 21 projects Certificate of achievement

Overview

Hi there, aspiring Figma enthusiasts! Are you ready to embark on an exhilarating journey with me, Dan Scott, as we unlock the full potential of our Figma skills in the dazzling realm of UX/UI Design using Figma Advanced?

Try Figma for free by clicking here.

This course is tailor-made for those who have already mastered the fundamental principles of UI/UX Design using Figma. If you've triumphed over my Figma Essentials course or have a sneaking suspicion that there's a treasure trove of unexplored tools, tips, workflows, and updates awaiting your discovery, then look no further! This course is your golden ticket to taking your UI/UX prowess to the next level.

Together, we'll start by delving into the depths of multilevel nested autolayouts, and unravel the secrets used by UX professionals by learning:
- Workflow techniques, managing design assets, styles, components, grid and column layouts like true virtuosos.
- Learn how to use Variables and put them to work creating even more complete prototypes.
- Use variables to make Light & Dark Modes + Compact & Comfortable spacing versions of your components. 
- You’ll then take your new knowledge of variables to understand and create your own Design Tokens. 
  • - Unleashing the magic of advanced animation techniques, captivating users with animated background gradients and Houdini Text.
  • - Harness the power of Lottie animation files, breathing life into your designs.
  • - Crafting responsive elements that effortlessly adapt to any device, proving your design prowess knows no bounds.
  • - Unleashing the full potential of powerful images & video masking techniques, amplifying the visual impact of your creations.
  • - Mastering advanced typography features, transforming words into captivating works of art.
  • - Embracing the realm of AI, infusing your process with its genius to elevate your skills as a UX designer.
  • - Elevate your prototyping game, conducting user tests with finesse using advanced techniques.
  • - Unveiling sticky scroll buttons that stack, animated anchor points and booleans, and a host of other captivating effects.
  • - Creating enchanting dropdown menus, hover grow effects for images, and expanding search bars.
  • - Discovering the right accessibility tools & techniques, ensuring inclusivity and usability for all users.
  • - Becoming a variant boss, expertly taming unwieldy variants to just 1 or 2.
  • - Unveiling the secrets of seamless collaboration with designers, developers, and stakeholders.
  • - Mastering the art of exporting production-ready assets, bringing your designs to life beyond the realm of Figma.
  • - Unearthing professional workflow tricks & shortcuts, saving you precious time and skyrocketing your efficiency.
  • - Plus much more exciting advanced Figma goodness along the way!

As you journey through this course, you'll acquire the skills wielded by UX professionals, gaining a profound understanding of the UX Design industry. From concept to a highly polished finish, you'll confidently manage your own UX projects ideal for your portfolio.

Throughout the course, I'll assign assignments and projects that nurture your skills and empower you to create your very own unique UX design masterpiece for your portfolio. Don’t worry if this all seems overwhelmingly advanced right now, because the BYOL crew stands ready to support and guide you, ensuring your questions get answered.

It's time to embrace the call to upgrade yourself and transcend from being a good UX Designer to a bona fide Figma UX Superhero! Unlock your potential, save the day, and let your design prowess soar!

Requirements:

- A copy of Figma (a free plan is available on the Figma website).
  • - Basic knowledge of Figma is required. I recommend watching my Figma Essentials course prior to embarking on this epic adventure.

Who this course is for:

  • - UX/UI adventurers who already have a basic understanding of Figma.
  • - Self-taught Figma enthusiasts yearning for structured guidance.
  • - Graduates of my Figma Essentials Course, hungry for more knowledge and skills.
  • - Visionaries who have developed their own unique Figma approach but crave exploration of the vast universe of tools, updates, and time-saving techniques.

What you'll learn:

  • - Diving deep into multi level nested autolayouts. 
  • - Robust components that are easy to update and hard to break. 
  • - Component properties. 
- Variables
- Design Tokens
- Advanced Prototyping using Variables
  • - Learn Workflow tips and tricks for managing your design assets, styles, components, grid and column layouts.
  • - Advanced animation techniques
  • - Animated Background gradients. 
  • - Houdini Text
  • - Animate along a path in Figma
  • - How to add Lottie animation files in Figma
  • - Build responsive elements ready for any device size.
  • - The best shortcuts & plugins to make you a more efficient UX designer.
  • - Absolute Positioning of Autolayouts. 
  • - Powerful images & video masking techniques. 
  • - Advanced typography features. 
  • - Learn to use AI in your process to make you a better UX designer. 
  • - Advanced prototyping techniques to level up your user tests. 
  • - Make prototypes better and faster using tricks & shortcuts. 
  • - Sticky scroll buttons that stack. 
  • - Video playback controls. 
  • - Animated anchor points and booleans.
  • - Create a Dropdown menu
  • - Create a hover grow effect for images.
  • - Create and expanding Search Bar 
  • - Learn the right accessibility tools & techniques  
  • - Become a variant boss. Cutting down those 100 variants to just 1 or 2. 
  • - Learn the best ways to work with other designers, developers and stakeholders. 
  • - Build a UX project from beginning to end ready for your portfolio.
  • - Export production ready assets.
  • - Learn professional workflow tricks & shortcuts.
  • - Forum support from me and the rest of the BYOL crew.
  • - All the techniques used by UX professionals
  • - 160 videos of detailed Figma Advanced Content.
Daniel Scott

Daniel Scott

Founder of Bring Your Own Laptop & Chief Instructor

instructor

I discovered the world of design as an art student when I stumbled upon a lab full of green & blue iMac G3’s. My initial curiosity around using the computer to create ‘art’ developed into a full-blown passion, eventually leading me to become a digital designer and founder of Bring Your Own Laptop.

Sharing and teaching are a huge part of who I am. As a certified Adobe instructor, I've had the honor of winning multiple Adobe teaching awards at their annual MAX conference. I see Bring Your Own Laptop as the supportive community I wished for when I was first starting out and intimidated by design. Through teaching, I hope to bring others along for the ride and empower my students to bring their stories, labors of love, and art into the world.
True to my Kiwi roots, I've lived in many places, and currently, I reside in Ireland with my wife and kids.

Certificates

We’re awarding certificates for this course!

Check out the How to earn your certificate video for instructions on how to earn yours and click the available certificate levels below for more information.

How to earn your certificate

Work your way towards your certificate for this course by following these simple steps.

  • Watch the course videos
  • Complete the Class Projects - look out for the videos marked with
  • Upload your class projects into the My Projects area in your account
  • Complete and pass the Knowledge Quiz (Merit level courses only)
  • Complete the Distinction Certificate Project (Distinction level courses only) - look out for the video marked with
  • Upload your Distinction project to the My Projects area in your account
  • Request your certificate when you've completed the requirements for the certificate level you're working towards

Good luck!

Pass certificates

We’re awarding ‘Pass’ level certificates for this course.

You can work your way towards your ‘Pass’ certificate by following these simple steps.

  • Watch the course videos
  • Complete the Class Projects - look out for the videos marked with
  • Upload your class projects into the My Projects area in your account
  • Don’t forget to request your certificate when all your projects are complete

Good luck!

Merit certificates

We’re awarding ‘Merit’ level certificates for this course.

You can work your way towards your ‘Merit’ certificate by following these simple steps.

  • Watch the course videos
  • Complete the Class Projects - look out for the videos marked with
  • Upload your class projects into the My Projects area in your account
  • Complete and pass the Knowledge Quiz
  • Don’t forget to request your certificate when you have passed the quiz and completed all your projects

Good luck!

Distinction certificates

We're awarding 'Distinction' level certificates for this course.

You can work your way towards your 'Distinction' certificate by following these simple steps.

  • Watch the course videos
  • Complete the Class Projects - look out for the videos marked with
  • Upload your class projects into the My Projects area in your account
  • Complete and pass the Knowledge Quiz
  • Complete the Distinction Certificate Project - look out for the video marked with
  • Upload your Distinction project to the My Projects area in your account
  • Don't forget to request your certificate when you have passed the quiz and completed all your projects

Good luck!

Downloads & Exercise files

Transcript

Hello, hey, we're going to make this version... we've been ignoring the small column of the larger iPhone... we've been kind of designing over here and wrecking this, just ignoring it... like, "Dan, look, it doesn't fit, why is it not fitting?"  That's what we'll address in this video... we'll make something that is nice and stretchy... it has both the Price underneath, which is awesome...

and the Price is side by side, to kind of better use the space... and it's responsive, can you see, four lines, three lines, two lines... it is going to get a little bit worm hole, rabbit hole-ey... we're making this thing probably way too over complicated... but it's fun for the course, but it's a little head scratchy as well... so if you're finding this quite like "Oh, my man, am I expected to do this?"  Only for really big budget, big team jobs...

and even then these might be too complicated... might be better just to have a couple of examples, and let the developer do it... but that's no fun, let's get complicated in Figma... so that you can do the easy stuff easier, that makes sense? Anyway, let's go make this, look at it, look how fun it is... first things first, I'm just going to move it over here, my small version...

why? Because I'm going to be adjusting this, my main component... and all of these component sets, these variants... so I want them close, rather than having to scrub back and forth... so what's wrong with this one? First of all what I like to do is just reset the instance...

you can right click it, there's a shortcut, I can't remember what it is... Reset all changes, look, there's not even a shortcut, that's why I don't remember... with it selected I'm going to hit that... and this goes back to a real good copy, no overrides... and that's good because then I can go like this... and know that I haven't really, there's not too many changes on this thing.

So the big problem is, is that I want, first of all the Price to go underneath... because it doesn't really fit in this small 2-column layout... so let's do that, we don't have a 2-column... now, what would be nice is you can click on the instance of my Card Lower... and go, all right, auto layout, go... go, go down, you got it right, go down, that'd be easy...

but you can't do it on the instance I swear, you could use to do this... back in the days of Figma yore, but, I don't know... but I can't actually prove that so maybe it never happened. So what we need to do is do it back here on my main component... which is a variant, sorry, variable... and I don't want to change the main one because that's good there...

this one here, without the Price is fine, so I'm going to need another one... I'm going to do this first one... because it has the Price in there, I'm going to say, you... can have this vertical layout, and it almost works. I'm going to give it some space, I'm going to click the--  oh, it jumped out, it jumped out... I'm going to go there, I don't want to jump out, how do I not get it to jump out?

Oh, remember the shortcut? Hold space bar... start dragging first, then hold space bar... won't jump out. The other thing is, I'm getting-- I can click this and just resize it... or I can use my sweet shortcut...

we learned it earlier, kind of frame selection, this one here... but the shortcut is, all the keys, plus R... so I've got the outside selected... 'Command Option Shift', or 'Ctrl Alt Shift', and hit 'R'... "Too many shortcuts, Dan," don't worry, you can ignore the ones you don't want... and this one here is great, it's on top and bottom, and I can go up here...

and say, you are going to be, not on or off, the toggle switch is broken... I'm going to be 'Price 3', that's that one. Now when we have more than two... we head on and off, and they'll work great, we made a toggle switch... you can't have a three setting toggle switch, so it just breaks... so we're going to select on this...

and actually go to our options here, for our properties, and say... Price is still good... off makes sense, you can have large and we can have small... that makes more sense. So I can go up here now and say, I want the small one... maybe horizontal layout's better, yeah, that's better, anyway...

so we need to do a couple of things... when I change this, and it kind of looks like it's working but it's not... give it a jiggle... you can see, it's kind of working... that stretching, it's not stretching the height... which is probably the main thing.

The other thing I'm going to do is just turn this part off... I'm going to turn the eyeball off... because-- that's something we'll fix in a future video... it could be very similar to what we're doing here... so bits of it working, bits of it not... the first thing is, how do I get that thing to stick to the bottom?

This is where, even me, I kind of know what I'm doing, and I know that... I don't know exactly off the top of my head, which it is... but I'll show you my methodology of going through and just figuring it out... doesn't take too long, sometimes you stumble on it the first time... so what could be doing it? It's probably the height of this thing...

or the constraint, let's have a look at constraint, so we can say... is it on this thing? No, not the constraints on this... you've got them, but this is a piece that's inside of this... this is my main component for my event... so I can click on this one, say, you are down the bottom...

to the top, they're kind of it, there you go. I didn't really have a plan for which one it was going to be... kind of guessing as I go along, and we got some of it right... the problem with it now, it's sticking to the bottom, which is great... it's just not growing, why is it not growing? So let's do the same thing, let's look at this and say...

why aren't you growing? Over here, it's hugging contents... which is the thing I want, and it's not doing it... maybe it's the constraints, it's working in this one... maybe it's this, let's click on that... that's half of what I wanted, I did want it to go center...

so that's kind of it... and this text here, while I'm here, I want that to be centered, there you go... but it's still not growing, why is it not growing? You, outside, are not growing... so it's not this, this is a part of this... there you are, so this one maybe is not it...

so this one is fixed height, so this one can hug contents... oh, close, maybe down the bottom here... maybe it's the constraints down the bottom... and this is the fun game of what's controlling what... when you've got nested, inside of nested, inside of nested auto layouts. It can be quite tricky because sometimes it's not auto layout at all...

in this case, I bet you, it's the text box,... so I'm going to use this one, and I'm going to say, to you... you're not a fixed height, I want you to, Fill Container, no, Hug Contents... it's kind of working, but it's not this one, I think it's this guy... you, my friend, are Fixed Height, that's Hug Contents... it's Fill Container...

nope, all right... I'm going to pause and put my thinking hat on... try and work out what it is? I should prep more... I haven't done it but I've thought about it, I'm thinking... I can actually do it to this instance, and say, Hug Contents, Fill Container...

no, Hug Contents... no, Fill Container, oh, I thought that was it, all right, back to thinking... oh, maybe it's the card, not the actual box... so we go, it's Fixed Height... we did it, teamwork... "Does Dan even know what he's doing?"  Not when we get these deep in these auto layouts...

there's variants on top of auto layouts, it can get tricky... so if you are struggling, you're like... "Man that took me ages to work out," don't worry... unless you're doing something simple, can take a little while to work it out... that's my excuse, anyway... what I'm going to do here, I want to move the spacing here, want to open it up...

but I, I can do it on this instance, then I have to do it on all of them... so I'm going to go back one... and say, you actually, have a bit of padding in there... oh, there's another word... so what I'm also going to have to do is play with the spacing, the size, sorry... so 18 is not going to work, right?

So I'm going to use my down arrow, probably go to 16... I'm going to have to, when the developer builds this, have a character count... so that they don't have a zillion, and kind of blow out the, the size of this. So that's the size, I'm going to have to go and say, you need some... way more smaller padding, here you are, hello... let's give it a test just to make sure we haven't broken it...

so it's working all right, let's check his other buddies, like... the instance with the large Lower Card in there... and it kind of works... would I just leave it now, do we need it to break to three? Let's do it because we've already learned what it is... we've learned that it is the text itself on the instance...

it needs to be set to Hug, and the parent needs to be set to Hug, already... and there we go... all right, nice. Let's do one last thing, because that's not a really good use of space... let's get this side by side... and remember, I can't go in, in my instance...

like at the beginning, I can't say, you be right... so I can go back to this one, I want duplicate of this, I'm going to say 'D'... and what I mean by that is, 'Command D', or 'Ctrl D'... and this one here, can go this way, click the outside... all the keys, plus R, that's 'Command Option Shift', or 'Ctrl Alt Shift'... and hit 'R'...

and what I want to do is, it's kind of broken my toggle again... let's have a look, let's click the set... let's click on the settings here, Early Bird "On", "Off"... and then, "Horizontal"... oh yeah, I think that's better... now I can go to this one and say, you are...

'Horizontal', more room... have we created a monster? We have totally created a monster here... would I make something like this? Yes, this is fun... getting Figma to bend to my will...

but did I spend half a day getting it going? Probably... is it worth it? It'll depend on the job... bigger design systems, where there's lots of people using it... on a page element that gets used a lot, sure...

even if you don't want to get too far... down this rabbit hole of burying all these things inside of it... do it for this course so that you can get really used to, like what to look for... and, you know, when you've got problems with... maybe a less complicated asset in Figma... all right, that is it, I will see you in the next video.
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