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!

What are widgets compared to plugins in Figma?

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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

Hi everyone, in this video we'll look at the difference between plugins... kind of traditional Figma plugins... and these new fancy, newish fancy, widgets, why do we have two of them? I'll show you the difference, and I will show you a couple of my favorites... oh, look at this one... automatic color styling, nice.

All right, the general broad differences is that plugins do more... widgets are quite simple creatures... plugins tend to do loads and loads of things, potentially... the other thing is that you can only have one plug-in open at a moment... and widgets, you can have lots open at one time because they're lightweight. Plugins generally appear in, like this little icon one, icon Scout...

appears in its own little window and produces stuff for your canvas... and then when you're finished with it you close it... whereas widgets live on your canvas... and you can have loads of them open. So let's open up this one here, all this one does, well... sometimes they end up in strange places...

so mine's ended up tied into this, and it is stuck in there... this brings up a good point, widgets are new... and they are developed by lots of different people... all with different abilities... and some of them are updated all the time to keep up, and some of them aren't... so I'm going to share a couple here, but sometimes they just don't work...

this one does normally, but very often... I end up getting them smushed in here and I can't actually find them... 'Option' click the little thing, there he is... he's hidden in there so if I hold 'Option' on a Mac, 'Alt' on a PC... and click the little chevron, it spills down everything, there you are... so I can say actually, just come out of there and...

come over here for me. Sometimes with plugins and widgets... you have to close down Figma and open it back up before they work properly... not all the time, but I've run into that problem a lot. So this one here just allows you to pick a date... the date, you've done something, it works for FigJam as well as Figma...

and it is cool, it's on an angle, you can pick different angles... can pick different dates... it might be your date to be completed, the date it was finished... the day you're going to deliver it... but the cool thing about it is, it gets a sweet little icon there... it's my little widget...

but I can have more than one, 'Shift I' to open up the resources... and there it is there, we're going to use this one in the next video... Color Levels Generator, it's awesome... and it lives on the canvas... and while plugins generally produce something that's kind of dead... on the canvas it's just produced and it's finished...

these are dynamic, I can change the date and it adjusts... and this one here, I can change the colors, and it adjusts... it's dynamic, it's doing something, lightweight, but it's doing something... I can save these styles to my Style library, it's all very cool. So that's why we have plugins and widgets I wish they'd just smush them together... because I feel like the terms do the same thing, but now we all know...

you can have multiple widgets on the canvas at once... plugins, just one open at a time... but generally they can do more, more processing power... widgets, lightweight, simple things... and lastly, before we go, shortcut... who remembers, to open the last plug-in that you used?

If you haven't already, you will find a plug-in that you know and love... and you use all the time... this will become a handy shortcut, I promise... that's right, it is 'Command Option P' on a Mac, 'Ctrl Alt P' on PC... there you go, there's no such one for the plug-in... oh, one last thing about plugins, you can actually copy and paste them...

so you've got two of them... I've got two of the same plug-in now, I need two of these... do I need two of them? Not really, probably need loads of these ones though... all right, there you go, plugins versus widgets, in Figma.
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