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!

Grid v Constraints v Autolayout in Figma: Which one to use and when?

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Course contents

Questions

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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.

Downloads & Exercise files

Transcript

Hello, hey, before we get deeper into grids... let's talk about the difference between Grids, Constraints, and Auto Layouts... because they can be confusing, about when to use each of them... which is good for what, it's confusing because... they all share a similar sort of purpose, it's about responsiveness... and if I'm honest I've recorded this video about 10 times already...

trying to make it concise, and not me waffling on for, don't know, 15 minutes... "It's meant to be a recap, Dan," come on, recap... let's start with Auto Layouts. Auto layout, we already know... we can grab four different things and we can say, 'Shift A' for an auto layout... and it gives us some kind of responsiveness...

and it's more to do with the content, internally in our auto layout... as opposed to constraints and grids, that respond to the frame size... so if I've got a different desktop size, or a different phone model... the responsiveness that happens there are grids and constraints... auto layouts are more to do with what responds inside of my little group here... so I can go in and say, actually, this is, you know...

instead of Settings, it's Account, you see, it reflows, it's responsive... not to the outside frame, just to its inside bits... I can grab you, and go, you, and go... you, and responsiveness, excellent. The constraints though, which we've done, if I select on this and say... actually, I want you to be constraints of the left, and--  no, sorry, the right and the top...

it means that when I go and resize this Desktop... maybe for a Tablet view, can you see, it comes along for the ride... so it's responsive but it's more to do with the frame size... so you often use these two together. I can resize it, and I can go in here and say, actually, don't want Logout... I want Sign Out...

and the auto layout adjusts. So grids, why do we have them? They are visually useful, they just help you get consistent margins... consistent spacing between pages, on multiple pages... they have some other useful things, if I got this... you'll see, it snaps to it, which is great...

I can have consistent spacing between them all on different pages... I've already said that... and where it becomes super useful is it actually ties in with constraints... over here we said, you, constrained to the right and the top... what we can do with a grid is, we can say, you... I want to be constrained to the left and the right...

but it's not doing the entire frame, it's actually just doing the grid itself... why is that cool? Is that when you have a different size... we have a different size page... let's say it's a small page, look what happens, oh, look at that. So grids, tied with constraints...

means for a more consistent reflowing and responsive design... to say, how to put those three different things in their own little box... and can you see how they kind of like complement each other, hopefully... so when do you use each of them? So auto layouts, I got kind of like three levels, or four levels... and for your initial scrappy design we've got no idea what you're doing here...

you're just kind of getting things on the page, to get everything laid out... you don't need any of these... you don't need auto layout, or constraints, or grids, unless you want to... but often at that stage, there's so much flux and flow... you're just dragging things around and trying to get things in order... so concept stage, none of these are that useful...

when do they become useful? Kind of at different times... the grid, I find is useful... basically, once you've got that concept stage done, use grids... because it allows you to be consistent across your different designs... it's one of those things to get, that's kind of easy to get right...

you know, you know what kind of grid size you're going to use, how many columns... let's do that on all pages, awesome. Auto layout is another one that you can use early in your design... because you want to-- you're still adjusting things... you're removing things and moving them around... so you're still at a reasonable concept stage...

but it's a lot easier having an auto layout to reflow these things... than it is to be manually like turning them off and deleting them, getting the... you know, the spacing perfect between them all... so often, I use auto layouts early in my design process, after the concept... maybe after client approval... or maybe I'm just happy with my, say wireframe, or High Fidelity...

and I want to go a bit further. So grids, early, auto layouts, early, where I start worrying about constraints... is later on when I need to build out different sizes... so often I'll just work on one phone size... whatever the most typical generic sizes, to start with, same with the Desktop... but when I get closer to the end of my project...

where I actually have to figure out, what am I going to do for Tablet... what am I going to do for a big screen, for a little screen... for a Pro Max phone, or a tiny little Android one... that's when constraints become a lot more useful... so that's for me, and my different sizes... but also, if you're going out to other people...

so as soon as you have to give them to someone else you should probably decide... how these things constrain, so that they adjust the way that you imagine them. Wow, so that was a big waffly mess... but that was the big waffly mess I could come up with... I hope it did help a little bit... so my parting words are that...

auto layouts, constraints, and grids, don't have to be used at all... especially at the beginning... where they become useful is when you've got more than one page, multiple pages... and you want consistency because you've got a reasonably established design... and they're absolutely essential when you're working with other team members... or preparing things for yourself, to be used later on in future projects.

All right, I should have probably started with that... all right, that is the end of the video... "Let's go on to doing some stuff, Dan, stop talking."
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