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!

Figma UI UX Design Essentials

Whats the difference between UI and UX in Figma

This lesson is exclusive to members

Course contents
SECTION: 10
Tips & Tricks 7:21
SECTION: 14
Working with Illustrator 4:16
SECTION: 19
Saving & History 5:42
SECTION: 24
Teams & Projects 5:19
SECTION: 27
Thumbnail update 4:10

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Course info

114 lessons / 12 hours 29 quiz questions 22 projects Certificate of achievement

Overview

Hi there - my name is Dan Scott & welcome to Figma Essentials.

Together - you and me - are going to learn everything you need to get started working as a UX Designer using Figma.

You can try Figma for free by clicking here.

We’ll use this UI UX design tool to create beautiful User Interfaces and engaging prototypes. Most importantly... we'll cover the client expectations of you as a new UX designer. 

This course is aimed at people new to design, new to User Experience design. Even if you’re not totally sure what UX really means, don’t worry. We’ll start right at the beginning and work our way through step by step. 

First we’ll describe the brief & how to work with a UX persona.  

Then you’ll learn how to create simple wireframes.  

From there we’ll look at how to implement colours & images properly in your designs.

You’ll learn the do’s & don’ts around choosing fonts for web & mobile apps. 

You’ll learn how to create your own icons, buttons & other UI components. 

You’ll learn some pretty scary terms such as Components, Constraints & Multi Dimensional Variants. They are all really easy to understand once you know how. 

We’ll also make our lives easier by using free UI kits & plugins for Figma which will speed up our workflow dramatically!

We’ll build a simple Style Guide ready for client handoff. 

You’ll understand how to make both simple & advanced micro interactions, page transitions & animations 

Before the end of this course you will have made fully interactive prototypes 

You will take a project all the way through -  collaborating with other team members and exporting the right files ready to hand off to your developer or software engineer. 

We’ll be focusing on the software Figma but I’ll make sure to explain the techniques & terms used in the UX and how real world projects are run. You will develop a great understanding of the industry and will be able to manage your own UX projects.

I will be setting assignments through the course which will help develop your skills and enable you to create something special and unique for your own portfolio. 

Alright - it's time to upgrade yourself & go from Figma Zero to Figma Hero.

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

 All right, let's talk about what UI versus UX is, if you already know you're allowed to skip this video, it's okay. This is not going to be a very, like detailed, just give you an understanding of like the differences between the two, because it comes up a lot. 

So UI design, the simple way, this is all very simple, the UI, User Interface versus UX, the User eXperience. UI is the way something looks, and the UX is how it works, how somebody uses it, so often, the way it looks, how it's used. 

Now in terms of being a UI designer, like UI designer is in charge, like up until UX became part of my life, and a lot of us, it's kind of newish, and I did a lot of UI design, I designed a website that was based a lot on my intuition, like, "Oh, button should be this big, and it should be over here," and traditionally things go over here in the Nav. So there was a lot of that, and I'd give it to the client, they'd like it, great, but there was a big element missing, the UX, there was very little testing.

 I had a, I had an idea of what would work, but it was totally an idea, it was like a hypothesis of how it should work, and the UX part of being a UX designer is, the taking that kind of UI, that layout, and getting it in the hands of clients and testing it. That part of it turns you from just a UI designer into, you know, the beginnings of a UX designer, is getting it out there and actually testing that, did it work, did it do exactly, you know, what I hoped it would do, is the client, when they click this button, do they go where they expected, or were they surprised? Is the language like, let's say, UI designer designs the button, and the rounded corners, and the beautiful gradient, or the, and the text in the middle. the UX designer says that's great, let's go and test that, and says, you know, is it big enough, can they click on it, is there enough contrast, is it accessible for people, maybe that have, that are visually impaired, it is, you know, is the hierarchy of buttons, is this one too big, because it feels like it should be doing something else. 

There's a lot of that side of thing, is the UX, Now in all honesty, this course is based mostly around UI design, because we're learning Figma. Figma is the creation of these things, the testing side of stuff, I'll give you a, you know, some ex-- some insights as we go along, about what I would do at different testing phases, but it is broader than what can be covered in this course, but we'll do UI with a little bit of UX, but Figma basically is, we're learning software, that's why you signed up, probably. 

So it doesn't make you instantly a UX designer, the UX part is the, you know, taking it further than, just moving pixels around on the screen, is like giving it out there and getting it tested, and changing things, and testing things, that's UX. My little example, that I'm kind of, running through at the moment, example, it's a, yeah, my bank updated its website and its app, and it looks beautiful, the UI, amazing, the UX is terrible, I'm sure it went through some testing, I imagine it went through lots of testing, not right at the end though because there's just, it's just simple things like, let's say that I'm typing in my password, type, type, hit 'Enter', 'Enter', 'Enter', nope, you got to get the mouse and click the 'Enter' button. So I'm like, "Why?" You know, there's a, in code, it's not hard, that kind of, I can't remember what it's called, when you get to the end it will know that when you press 'Enter', you mean this button here. 

So that's just one thing, another thing, you go into, like updating, I want to update a person in my standing orders, like a Direct Debit, or, not sure what you call it in your country, but a regular payment that I'm making, so I went to find how to edit it, I'm like, "Huh.." I have to delete it because I couldn't find anywhere, and I'm tech savvy, I know how to use computers, and I couldn't find it, so I was like, oh, well, maybe we have to delete it, I've been doing this a few time, I'm like, I'm going to email them, they're like, I just got to click the name of the person to edit it, I'm like, huh, oh, it seems simple, go and have a look, and you do, if you click the name of the person, it does go in to edit it but it's missing a couple of things, any sort of indication that that's possible, underline, arrow, big sign, tool tip. 

The other weird thing about it is, you know, when your mouse, your mouse is kind of moving along, and when you go over something clickable, it turns into the little hand, it doesn't do that, you just click it with the arrow, and hopefully, it's like, start clicking everything. That must be hard to turn that thing off, somehow it's off. There is a million in one of those little things, it's just come out, but I do have a problem with it. 

Anyway, I'm burbling, and red, why is it red again? This feels very ominous, my little colored, like I just bought the colored light, you're going to see it all the way through this course, until I get sick of it, but yeah, that's my UX story at the moment. You'll have them as well, and that's the kind of thing, if you're new to UX, is keep those ideas open, like, they're terrible, and they're a pain in the butt, but it's kind of language and stuff that you're gathering as a designer, so that when you're working you can avoid some of those things, or at least, you know, when it comes back from testing, you're not surprised, you're like, "Oh yeah, it's that thing that I hate as well, is in this thing." 

 So UI, UX, that's my explanation for the moment, all right, next video.

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