Chapter 6. Prototyping Interactive Designs with Figma

Prototyping is a vital step in transforming your static designs into interactive experiences, allowing you to simulate user interactions and test flows before development. In this chapter, you’ll learn how to harness Figma’s powerful prototyping tools to create dynamic, interactive prototypes that help you refine and validate your design concepts.

What is Prototyping in App UI Design?

Prototyping in app UI design involves creating an interactive model of an app’s user interface, simulating its flow, functionality, and overall user experience.

This process enables designers to visualize how the app will operate, providing an opportunity to explore and refine design ideas before moving into development. Prototyping is crucial for testing user interactions, gathering feedback, and identifying potential usability issues early in the design process. It is essential for ensuring that the user experience is intuitive and that the app meets user needs.

How Figma Can Help in Prototyping

Figma is a comprehensive tool for prototyping in app UI design, offering a range of features that streamline the process and enhance collaboration:

1. Interactive Prototypes: Figma allows you to create interactive prototypes by linking different frames with transitions and animations. You can define user interactions like clicks, hovers, and swipes to simulate the app’s behavior.
2. Real-Time Collaboration: Figma’s cloud-based platform enables multiple team members to work on the prototype simultaneously. Designers, developers, and stakeholders can view, edit, and comment on the prototype in real time, fostering seamless collaboration.
3. Easy Iteration: Figma’s intuitive interface simplifies the process of iterating on designs. You can quickly adjust layouts, update components, and modify interactions, making rapid prototyping and testing straightforward.
4. Presentation and Feedback: Figma offers sharing options that allow you to present the prototype to stakeholders or users directly from the browser. Viewers can interact with the prototype and provide feedback, which can be easily incorporated into the design process.
5. Design and Prototyping in One Tool: Figma integrates design and prototyping into a single workflow, eliminating the need to switch between multiple tools. This integration ensures that your prototype is always aligned with the latest design updates.
6. Device Preview: With Figma, you can preview your prototypes on actual devices, enabling you to test the user experience in real-world scenarios. This feature is particularly beneficial for mobile app design, ensuring that interactions feel natural on the intended device.

The video below showcases an example of a prototype created in Figma. Throughout this chapter, we’ll guide you step-by-step in developing a similar prototype.

By leveraging Figma for prototyping, designers can create realistic, interactive representations of their apps that can be thoroughly tested, refined, and validated before transitioning to the development phase.

What You Will Learn in This Chapter:

In this chapter, we’ll guide you through the process of app UI prototyping in Figma with a hands-on guidance. You will learn:

How To Use Figma Prototype Features

Figma's prototyping features enable designers to turn static designs into interactive, functional prototypes, enhancing the overall user experience. This guide covers the basics, from setting up interactions and event triggers to applying animations that bring designs to life. Key features include defining flow start points, configuring prototype environments, and presenting prototypes on different devices. Additionally, Figma allows seamless sharing of prototypes with stakeholders and includes tips for ensuring design consistency and usability. Mastering these tools will improve your design workflow and help create polished, user-friendly prototypes.

Prototype Interaction Settings and Practice

Prototype interaction settings in Figma are crucial for creating intuitive and engaging user experiences, covering everything from basic triggers to advanced transitions. Master components in Figma streamline the setup process for navigation elements like toolbars and buttons by allowing interaction settings to be inherited by all instances, saving time and maintaining consistency across designs. For non-navigation elements, interactions must be set individually, tailored to their specific roles within the prototype. The article also highlights the use of semi-master components for adapting navigation elements across different device types, ensuring coherent interactions and efficient design management across platforms.

Advanced Interaction Settings in Figma

Figma provides more advanced interaction settings for designers to create dynamic, responsive prototypes, integrating features like sidebar overlays, fixed-position scrolling, and sophisticated animation techniques. These settings facilitate the design of prototypes that provide immersive and intuitive user experiences, essential for web and mobile applications. Users can manage overlays using the Open overlay interaction, ensuring easy customization and usability. Fixed-position elements maintain visibility during scrolling, enhancing navigation consistency. Additionally, Figma supports horizontal and multi-directional scrolling for content-rich interfaces and offers hover effects and smart animations to make interfaces feel more interactive and responsive.