If you're a UI/UX designer or perhaps a web designer, then you might probably know about Figma and what all it has in store for you. But did you know you can now make your task easier with some easy Figma tips and tricks? Well, without building any more suspense, let's hop onto some of my favorite Figma tips and tricks that I can't live without.

Figma Tips And Tricks To Make Your Work Easier

Update or add the new auto-layout feature for dynamic resizing of your designs. With the auto layout, you can quickly create buttons, lists, models, etc., with multiple margins and resizing rules that can easily accommodate more intricate components and eradicate the need for tedious spacing edits.

Update auto layout

Using a base unit of 8px is often recommended for multiple reasons and must be used consistently for every sizing and spacing task. You can make this more straightforward for yourself and your entire team by simply setting the "nudge amount" in Figma from 10px to 8px. This way, every time you will move or resize an object, it will be in increments of 8. To use the nudge, hold down the Shift + arrow key, and to adjust the nudge amount, navigate to Menu > Preferences > Nudge amount > 8.

Update the nudge amount to 8px

I had no idea about the Bar Graph arc tool until I read about that tool on the FIGMA blog and tried. It makes a minimalist Bar Graph arc and saves time to create arcs like how we did in the old days.

Use the bar graph arc tool

You can use the base components more efficiently by creating and managing components with multiple variants. Each variant will hold its individual nested base component overwritten to create a novel state. This makes bulk updates pretty easy and also ensures 100% consistency.

Manage base components

Use "true/false" or "on/off" labels to switch between two distinct properties. This little trick will make switching variants quicker and closely match how different components work in the code. For instance : Type=Single-line, State=Default, Optional=Yes

Use true/false logic

After selecting multiple objects in the table, click the grid icon in the corner to organize your design. This equalizes all distances between objects, allowing you to drag and rearrange objects and adjust their spacing.

Organize the grid or swap position

Aligning various objects and adjusting the spacing just right can seem pretty tedious and time-consuming. However, fortunately, Figma's "Smart selection" & "tidy" features enable you to do just that in bulk.  With Figma, similar objects can be auto-arranged into a neat list or grid, bulk spaced, and reordered. <ul><li>To bulk edit spacing, select similar objects > select list/grid icon > drag spacing right, left, up, or down. </li><li>And to swap the object placement, select similar objects > select the dot inside a single object > drag and drop it into a new location. </li> </ul>

Edit spacing in bulk

It's essential to keep your file organized with a defined naming structure and hierarchy for all your layers. This task is made much quicker with Figma's "Rename Layers" model, enabling you to rename layers in bulk. You can rename each layer to be the same, have a number suffix, add a prefix to distinct names, or rename only part of the layer's name. To access the Rename Layers model, navigate to Right-click layers > choose "Rename."

Rename multiple layers at once

Let's face it, having to look for a specific design or master component can sometimes be pretty time-consuming and may also lead to miscommunications and duplicacy. Therefore, organize your file pages to make navigating and maintaining them quick and easy. Make sure each page has a well-defined name for various design and documentation purposes.

Organize your file pages

It's no mystery that using keyboard shortcuts is much quicker than using the mouse. Practically every action can simply be initiated with a keyboard shortcut to make working in Figma seem much faster and efficient.  Besides, is there anything worse than seeing a designer struggle with their mouse while they can simply use the shortcut key? Therefore, challenge yourself to learn a new shortcut every day! To view keyboard shortcuts: Hit"?" in the bottom right corner of your browser.

Use keyboard shortcuts

To keep your design pixel perfect with the help of a scale tool, simply select all the objects that you want to scale, then hold K on your keyboard and drag. Earlier I was so reluctant to scale the whole artwork because something always broke, especially the text field, and I'd have to re-adjust the artwork. But now, with the help of the Scale tool, those headaches are no more. All your artwork scales perfectly and maintains the propositions, and you no need to re-work on the artwork.

Use the scale tool

CMD (CTRL) + / has many practical quick applications that can save you a lot of time in your workflow. If you are not using it, it is strongly recommended that you check what is available on the menu. Unlock all items and change the font.

CMD (CTRL) + to unlock the lock objects

<ul><li>Drag the selection box and then hold down the spacebar to increase the size of the cursor selection. If you're drawing a shape, you can also reserve space to move the object as you draw. If that's not enough, press the spacebar, and Figma will automatically move the object into an auto frame or layout. You can also substitute it for nesting. The space bar is very handy!!</li><li>Hold down the spacebar and move the object out of the frame to make it stay inside the container. You can also disable movie clip content in the object container so that it can be seen even when it is outside the container. </li></ul>

More time saving tricks with spacebar

As good as Figma is, these Figma tips and tricks are pretty impressive and valuable for work, making your tasks easier, as well as faster.


Design

13 best Figma tips and tricks for designers in 2022

<ul><li>The first website was published in 1991. It was exclusively text-based and the start of a digital revolution.</li><li>There was no such thing as a high-speed internet connection, so websites needed to be built for slow connection speeds so most of them looked like walls of text.</li><li>Later versions of HTML allowed for more complex designs, but are still very basic compared to today.</li></ul> Takeaways for today's websites: Large media files, heavy graphic design, and excessive animations can all contribute to higher bounce rates when load speeds aren't as fast as we want.

Early 1990s: Antiquity

<ul><li>Web design has evolved both in terms of structure and appearance.</li><li>Designers began using table-based layouts to organize content, allowing for greater flexibility and creativity.</li><li>Graphical design elements also quickly grew in popularity.</li></ul> Takeaways for today's websites: The development of table-based design was vital in the evolution of web design and a move toward non-linear page structure. Page structure remains critical when thinking about navigation and content as it determines how the user experiences and interacts with a site.

Mid-1990s: The Middle Ages

Flash was introduced in 1996 and opened up a world of design possibilities. Design elements were enhanced with animations, tiled background images, neon colours, 3D buttons, splash pages, and other multimedia. Flash was the entry into visitor-focused design. Takeaways for today's websites: Flash was a game-changer but would not stick around forever. Today's norm is to use alternative methods such as CSS and JavaScript animations.

Late 1990s: The Renaissance

Usability and flexibility in web design mark the early 2000s. CSS was the coding language that allowed developers to store visual rules in files separate from HTML, separating content and style. As a result, CSS made websites easier to maintain, more flexible, and quicker to load. Takeaways for today's websites: It has become easier for people to scan websites looking for the information they need. A few best practices include intuitively placed information, visually accentuated links, and straightforward navigation.

Early 2000s: The Enlightenment

This period of web design started with the birth of Web 2.0. Features of this period include the growth of multimedia applications, the rise of interactive content, and the advent of social media. Design became about content, and content about search engine optimization. The user was at the centre of design, and selling products became a secondary function. Takeaways for today's websites: Thinking about your website in terms of SEO is still a top priority for most thriving business websites. SEO demands content, and content largely became the focus of web design during this era.

Mid- to Late-2000s: The Industrial Revolution

<ul><li>Today, web design has firmly established itself as an irreplaceable component of every good marketing strategy.</li><li>In terms of modern aesthetics, minimalism is the preferred choice with sparse content, flat graphics, simpler colour palettes, and big and bold visuals. UX has taken centre stage and given way to design features such as infinite scrolling and single-page design.</li><li>Mobile web is a key step in the evolution of web design. Websites are structured to accommodate the growing number of mobile web users, including a mobile-first approach.</li></ul>

2010 to Now: The Modern Era

Learn about how web design has evolved over the past 20+ years, and see how websites have grown into the fully formed experiences they are today.

Stashed ideas

A Look Back at 30+ Years of Website Design

Artfully run by a one-man development team, the secret to Sublime’s success lies in the program’s vast array of keyboard shortcuts—such as the ability to perform simultaneous editing (making the same interactive changes to multiple selected areas) as well as quick navigation to files, symbols, and lines. And when you’re spending 8+ hours with your editor each day, those precious few seconds saved for each process really do add up.

Sublime Text

Wouldn’t it be great if you could edit your HTML and CSS in real-time, or debug your JavaScript, all while viewing a thorough performance analysis of your website?Google’s built-in Chrome Developer Tools let you do just that. Bundled and available in both Chrome and Safari, they allow developers access into the internals of their web application. On top of this, a palette of network tools can help optimize your loading flows, while a timeline gives you a deeper understanding of what the browser is doing at any given moment.

Chrome Developer Tools

By abstracting a lot of the functionality usually left for developers to solve on their own, jQuery allowed more generous scope for creating animations, adding plug-ins, or even just navigating documents, than its predecessor, Javascript.And it’s clearly successful—jQuery was by far the most popular JavaScript library in existence in 2015, with installation on 65% of the top 10 million highest-traffic sites on the web at the time.

jQuery

It’s every developer’s worst nightmare—you’re working on a new project feature and you screw up. Enter version control systems (VCS)–and more specifically, GitHub.By rolling out your project with the service, you can view any changes you’ve made or even go back to your previous state (making pesky mistakes a thing of the past).  The repository hosting service also boasts a rich open-source development community (making collaboration between teams as easy as pie), as well as providing several other components such as bug tracking, feature requests, task management, and wikis for every project.

GitHub

Despite being around since 2012, the ever-increasing of people learning programming means that 2022 is going to be another bumper year for this tool beloved by the frontend community. There is almost no better way of showcasing your HTML, CSS, and JavaScript snippets, and as a result their embeds are an increasingly common sight across coding resources online.

CodePen

HTML is usually the cornerstone of any front-end developer’s toolbox, but it has what many perceive to be a serious flaw: it wasn’t designed to manage dynamic views.This is where AngularJS, an open-source web framework, comes in. Developed by Google, AngularJS lets you extend your application’s HTML syntax, resulting in a more expressive, readable, and quick to develop an environment that could otherwise not have been built with HTML alone.

AngularJS

Web dev tools that save time are your best friend, and one of the first things you’ll learn about code is that it needs to be DRY (“Don’t Repeat Yourself”). The second thing you’ll probably learn is that CSS is usually not very DRY.Enter the world of the CSS preprocessor, a tool that will help you write maintainable, future-proof code, all while reducing the amount of CSS you have to write (keeping it DRY).Perhaps most popular among them is Sass, an eight-year-old open-source project which pretty much defined the genre of modern CSS preprocessors.

CSS preprocessors: Sass

Thinking about becoming a coder? Our guide to the best and most important frontend web development tools is exactly what you need right now.

The 7 Most Essential Frontend Web Development Tools in 2022

As a utility-first CSS framework, Tailwind has rapidly become popular among developers. With its fast styling process and the freedom it offers when designing a website, it’s really no wonder why.But how can you make sure this is the right CSS framework for your upcoming development projects? In this blog post, you’ll learn what Tailwind is, and how it differs from other frameworks like Bootstrap, or Foundation.In addition, we will highlight the main advantages and disadvantages of the framework.

THE PROS AND CONS OF TAILWIND CSS

First released in May 2019, Tailwind CSS is a front-end CSS framework. Tailwind has created quite a following. More than 260k developers have used it to enhance their design systems.Stats like these make Tailwind one of the most popular CSS frameworks on the market, and all in less than two years. There are many reasons for this. Primarily, its features make it the ideal choice for a wide variety of projects.The main difference between Tailwind and its competitors is that it gives developers complete control over the styling of a web application.

What is Tailwind CSS?

1. Control Over StylingTailwind is a unique CSS framework when it comes to styling web applications, meaning that Tailwind does not have a default theme that you have to use like other CSS frameworks.You can give each project a different look even if you use the same elements (color palette, size, etc.). Therefore, it’s one of the few CSS frameworks that is not opinionated on how you should style your project.

ADVANTAGES


There is no faster framework than Tailwind when it comes to styling HTML. As a result, you can easily create good-looking layouts by styling elements directly. This is possible because Tailwind offers thousands of built-in classes that do not require you to create designs from scratch.Therefore, you do not have to write CSS rules yourself. These CSS classes are the main reason why building and styling with Tailwind is so fast.

2. Faster CSS Styling Process

With Tailwind’s pre-built classes, you can design the layout directly in an HTML file. This makes it a very responsive, mobile-friendly CSS framework. Apart from that, Tailwind has proven to be a stable framework since its initial release.The framework was developed by top-notch engineers, which is why bugs and breaks are rare.

3. Responsiveness and Security 

Tailwind CSS works in the front end of a website. For this reason, it is reasonable for developers to demand ultimate responsiveness. Well, Tailwind provides the ability to create responsive themes for your web applications and remove all unused CSS classes. With PurgeCSS, Tailwind helps you keep your final CSS as small as possible.

4. Additional Features 

1. Styling and HTML are MixedBecause you do not have to write CSS rules yourself, Tailwind works differently than most CSS frameworks. While this is great for those unfamiliar with CSS, it also means that Tailwind mixes style rules with your HTML files.This goes against the principle of the “separation of concerns.” Many developers prefer to separate page structure and style, claiming that classes make the Tailwind markup process verbose.

DISADVANTAGES


Because of the built-in classes, Tailwind CSS is quite learning-intensive. Even for experienced developers, it can be a challenge to learn how to use and fully utilize the pre-built classes. But, of course, as with any other development task, practice makes perfect.However, if you are confident and quick when it comes to writing CSS classes, Tailwind may not be the best choice for you. Even if that’s true, Tailwind generally makes CSS styling faster in the long run.

2. It Takes Time to Learn 

Unlike Bulma and Bootstrap, Tailwind does not have many significant styling components. Unfortunately, this means you have to manually add features like headers, buttons, and navigation bars for web apps.This is not a significant drawback, as experienced developers can implement these features quickly. However, you will need to spend some time doing so.

3.  Lack of Important Components

Although Tailwind CSS has made great strides when it comes to adding guides and video tutorials, it still lags behind competitors like Bootstrap. Of course, you can always contact the developers if you have a problem.However, keep in mind that this may take some time. For this reason, you may need to customize the framework to your needs manually.

4. Documentation

In a few words, working with Tailwind is quite different from other CSS frameworks. We have identified its main advantages and disadvantages. Based on these features, we can easily say that Tailwind is:<ul><li>An excellent solution for developers familiar with CSS who want to speed up the creation and design process in the long run.</li><li>Not such a good idea if you are not familiar with CSS or do not want to spend time learning a new CSS framework. </li></ul>It all depends on your personal needs and preferences. However, if saving time on CSS styling is a priority for you, you should definitely give Tailwind a try.

Is Tailwind Worth Trying?

Tailwind is An excellent solution for developers familiar with CSS who want to speed up the creation and design process in the long run. Not such a good idea if you are not familiar with CSS or do not want to spend time learning a new CSS framework.

Trying Tailwind css

Certain web elements will always be there, such as navigation, content, visual design, etc.  But knowing the new trends around these elements can help you update your web design knowledge and create on-point designs.

Updating your web design knowledge

Cinema-style homepages are full-screen video stories that help users feel part of the website in seconds. You can also modify your cinema-style homepage, for example, using the slow-motion effect, vignettes, etc.

Cinema-Style Homepage

Most websites are too slow because website designers use heavy graphical and third-party elements.  You can develop a website that only loads what the user needs, increasing website loading speeds and ensuring you get better returns on your investment.

Smart Content Load

Creating content that focuses on the customer's interests and needs can increase the customer's confidence and trust in you.  You can hire a web design agency to help create marketing content that meets your target audience's demands.

Personalised Content

Giving a customer the ability to toggle between the two modes can enhance their experience on your website. Ensure that your web design has colour palettes for light and dark modes to ensure that switching between the modes doesn't affect visibility.

Light and Dark Mode Toggle

Modern design allows overlapping design elements instead of keeping them in the same container. It can help to build an organised and professional website with trackable components. However, overlapping pages should remain readable, and the pages collapse effectively.

Overlapping Design Elements

AI chatbots that act like human agents can play a significant role in improving customer experiences. They understand user intent and can notice where a customer is on the purchase journey. A chatbot can do the work of several humans, making it worth considering in your website design.

Human-Like Chatbots

Small buttons are not thumb-friendly for users on small screens. One easy way to improve user experience is with big buttons on all your website's versions. You can differentiate the buttons using colour.

Big Buttons

Flat or minimalist designs can increase the appeal of your website. It makes every page easy on the eye. White space is significant when adopting a minimalist design, but website designers are also experimenting with colourful minimalist designs.

13 best Figma tips and tricks for designers in 2022

A Look Back at 30+ Years of Website Design

The 7 Most Essential Frontend Web Development Tools in 2022

Trying Tailwind css

7 Upcoming Web Design Trends and Inspiration in 2022 - The European Business Review

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