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!

How to use Instance Swap Component Properties with preferred in Figma

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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

Hi everyone, in this video we're going to look at... something called Component Properties... it is a really underwhelming name... for something that is spectacularly good... when we're getting into complex components... and is a really good way for an alternative for variants...

just a quick overview... this one here is kind of what we've been doing traditionally... in Figma, and what we've been doing in this course, we just make a button... and we've got three instances of it... this one here does the exact same thing... "But Dan, it's missing all these extra bits"...

ah, but that is what the component properties does. In this case there are a few different component properties... we're going to look at the one called Instant Swap... and to quickly demo what it does, I've got two buttons... the old way, I go through and pick the badly named variants... or the new way, the yellow button...

and the yellow button over here has a lovely little thing, saying Icon... which icon do you want? You want the Done, you want the Plus, want the Pencil... just pick from it... it's easier for the person using the button... somebody in my team, me, in the future...

but it's real power is here... where I don't have to create all these components, it's just one... I switch out this instance using one of the component properties... and if you're like, "Hey, that doesn't seem like a whole lot of work"... it's when variants turn into something like this. Check out the fields here, look at all the different variants you need...

in a field, using Google's Material... so many options that we could cut down to... something that looks and works a lot more like this... all right, let's jump in, and I'll show you how to put one together. To get started, on my Components page I made a Buttons section... and I drew something that looks like a button...

it is just an auto layout at the moment... move the background color, and some text in it... now we're going to show you the bad way because I feel like it's the only way... to really appreciate and understand the new fancy way... it's the way I needed it in my head, anyway. So let's take our Auto Layout, let's convert it into a component...

I'm going to have variants of this component, three of them... I'm going to add some instances... that's why this thing is called an Instant Swap... and will only work when you do something like this, so 'Shift I'... I'm going to find, what have we got, is there a tick in there? Nope, there's a Done, there it is...

so I'm going to drag in this, there we go... it doesn't quite fit, 'Resize to Fit'... so I'm going to have an instance of the Tick... and I'm going to have an instance of, let's go "icon"... and just have an instance of the 'Pencil' in there, and 'Shift I'... let's go for the 'Plus' icon.

So you need these instances in here for this thing to work... so this is the kind of the wrong way of doing it, right, or not the wrong way... it's just the way we've been doing it from now... so we've made this thing called Button A, great... and for me I had to kind of make three versions of it, not a big drama... where it becomes a big drama is when you have to do something...

that's more than three instances... I found this one, check out this... that is our Main component, and these are all the instances, oh my goodness... it's probably the most complex one I could find... this is Google Material's drop down input fields. So this feels really easy, but obviously it can get a lot more complex...

on the other side the person who's using this... goes to their Component library that you've shared with them... opens this out, and goes, "All right, Dan... there's Button A, there's different properties that he hasn't named"... but there's Variant 1, 2, and 3... so that's not a big drama, but watch this, gets better.

So I'm going to make a duplicate, I'm going to detach it... Fill color, any old color... so this is nothing to do with this now, these are all separate... what I do now is, we're going to make it a component... like before, let's rename it, and call it "Button B"... and what we're going to do is, instead of making variants...

what we're going to say is, because there's an instance here, which is our Tick... we can say, I would like you to add a-- so over here... Done's come from the name of my icon... but I want to add an instant swap, it's this thing here... it knows it's an instance, so you don't select on the outside button... you click on the instance inside of my component  you say, actually, I'd like you to do an instant swap, please...

and the instance name is going to be "Icon". So people that are going to be using this... I'm thinking ahead to the person using this now, saying... okay, there's going to be an option, says Icon... and they're going to be able to add some preferred... this is where this gets really good, you can say...

it has done, but I also want them to be able to pick 'Multiply'... which I need to rename to "Close"... 'Add', let's add the 'Pencil', but I don't want the Bookmark or the Delete. There's just no reason to have it for this particular button, or any buttons... it's used for something completely else, let's click 'Create Property'... and the nice thing is, that thing that I made...

looks kind of nice and clean... let's bring in my, 'Shift I', let's type in "Button" again, let's drag this out... so I'm the user using it now... I say, "All right, I need a button, Dan made this sweet button," here you go... what options do I have? Over here you get this new stuff, this wasn't there before...

but now I've got this instant swap, this is Done... and they can pick from these, only the three... if you've ever worked with a document with like, say a hundred icons on it... there's a huge list here, whereas here, I can just pick the preferred ones... me, as the creator can say, "Actually, I can only use these three"... and they can go and swap them.

I really want to convey how awesome this is... I guess we're going to have to do another couple of videos... where we make something more complex... I think it's the only way but let's just quickly recap. So for me as the creator, mine looks a whole lot tidier, right... and you might be getting stuff now where you're like...

"Where are the variants, how are these hidden, from other people's work?"  So I've got my Main component selected... over here I've got this Component property... that has got this, there's this little diamond here, it's an instant swap... you can have more than one Component property... we'll cover them all in a minute... but you can say in here, actually, the person needs that...

you know, they need something else, they need to go... the default, needs to be, let's say the Plus... and also, for the Preferred ones... people are using the Delete, you're like, "You can't use Delete, stop using Delete."  What they really need is, they need to be able to add... a bookmark for this button as an option... so for me I didn't have to go and make another variant...

switch them around, auto layout them out, it's nice and tidy... and for the user, when they're using this button here... this is the one they've dragged out... all they need to do is go in here and say, "Hey, what am I allowed to use?"  All the preferred options... and if they're like... "Hey, I really need that trash can one, I don't care what Dan says"...

the default is preferred, but actually they can get to all of the components... whether you've got a library shared to you, or local components... now I can go and find my icons... and dig in, and grab every single one I want... so I can override it, but it just makes things tidy about... like what you can and can't use...

for me, as the creator... and the user just gets a nice little drop down to pick from stuff... all right, that is Component properties for an instant swap, super cool... all right, let's look at the next one in the next video.
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