How To Use Figma Prototype Features

Figma's prototyping features empower designers to transform static designs into interactive, dynamic experiences, bringing your concepts to life. This guide will walk you through the process of creating and refining prototypes in Figma, ensuring your designs are not only visually appealing but also functionally robust. Whether you're crafting a simple click-through or a complex multi-page experience, mastering these tools will enhance your design workflow and elevate the user experience.

In this section, we’ll cover the following topics.

Introduction To Prototyping in Figma

Figma offers a broad range of prototyping features designed to make the process intuitive and accessible, even for beginners. These features allow you to simulate user interactions, test flows, and create a more engaging and realistic representation of your final product. In this section, we’ll cover the fundamental features of Figma prototyping, which form the building blocks for more advanced interactions.

1. Setting Interactions

Adding interactions in Figma is a straightforward and user-friendly process. Interactions are the building blocks of your prototype, defining how users navigate through your design and interact with various elements.

Creating Interactions

To set up interactions, simply drag a connection from one object or frame to another. This drag-and-drop approach makes it easy to visually map out user flows and ensure that every part of your design is linked correctly. Once the connection is made, you can customize the interaction with various parameters to fine-tune the behavior. Watch the video below.

User Actions

The most common user action is On tap, typically used for buttons or links. This action triggers a response when the user taps or clicks on the element. Figma also supports multiple actions for a single object, allowing you to create more complex interactions. For example, you can combine On tap with While hovering to create effects like tooltips or color changes when a user hovers over a button.

Event Triggers

After defining a user action, you need to set an event that is triggered by that action. The most common event is Navigate to, which directs the user to another frame or page. When you set up an interaction using drag-and-drop, Figma automatically selects the destination frame where your cursor dropped. However, this can be customized to point to any frame in your design.

For interactive components like toggles or dropdown menus, you might use the Change to event, which allows a component to switch states. The Open overlay event is useful for elements like pop-ups or sidebars, where additional content needs to be layered over the current screen. The Back event, which navigates the user back to the previous screen, is crucial for maintaining intuitive and user-friendly navigation. Watch the video below.

Animation

Animations can significantly enhance the user experience by making transitions smoother and more engaging. Figma allows you to add animation effects to events, bringing a polished feel to your prototypes. For example, Smart Animate can create seamless transitions between frames, animating changes in position, size, or color of elements as users interact with the prototype. If you prefer a quicker transition with no animation, you can select the Instant option. Understanding when to use these animations can help you create prototypes that not only look good but also feel natural and intuitive to use.

2. Setting the Flow Start Point

The flow start point in a prototype determines where users will begin their journey when they start interacting with your design. Setting this start point in Figma is simple and intuitive. You just need to drag the Flow icon to the frame where you want the prototype to begin. This ensures that the user experience starts at the correct entry point, whether it’s a home screen, a landing page, or any other significant screen in your design. Watch the video below.

3. Prototype Environment Settings

Before presenting your prototype, it’s important to configure the environment in which it will be viewed. Figma allows you to choose a device frame that matches the platform your design is intended for—whether it’s a mobile device like an iPhone or Android phone, or a desktop monitor. Additionally, you can set a background color that complements your design, enhancing the overall visual presentation.

4. Presenting a Prototype on Your Computer

Once your interactions and environment settings are in place, presenting your prototype is as simple as clicking the Play button located at the top right corner of Figma. This opens the prototype in a new window, where you can interact with it as if it were a real app. Presenting your prototype in this way is ideal for testing user flows and gathering feedback in real-time.

Watch the video below.

Sharing Your Prototype

Figma’s cloud-based platform makes sharing your prototype effortless.

You can easily share a link to your prototype with stakeholders, clients, or team members via email or any other communication tool. Select the Share prototype button from the prototype view. Figma offers several sharing options to control access:

• Can view prototype only: Recipients can interact with the prototype but cannot view or edit the underlying design file.
• Can view: Recipients can view both the prototype and the design file, but cannot make any changes.
• Can edit: This option grants full editing access, allowing collaborators to modify the design.

Recipients can access the prototype directly in their web browser, making it easy to gather feedback and make revisions collaboratively, regardless of geographic location.

By mastering Figma's prototyping features and following these best practices, you can create prototypes that are not only visually compelling but also intuitive and user-friendly. This will lead to more effective design validation, better stakeholder engagement, and smoother transitions to the development phase.