Prototype Interaction Settings and Practice in Figma
Prototype interaction settings in Figma are essential for creating intuitive and engaging user experiences. This guide covers everything from basic triggers and actions to advanced transitions, helping you build prototypes that closely mimic real-world user interactions. By mastering these settings, you can elevate your designs, ensuring they are both functional and visually compelling.
In this section, we’ll cover the following topics.
- Overview of Interaction Settings
- Interaction Settings for Non-Navigation Flows
- Interaction Settings for Navigation Components
Overview of Interaction Settings
Figma’s interaction settings are powerful tools that allow designers to craft prototypes with realistic user flows. There are two primary approaches to setting up prototype interactions in Figma: one for navigation components and another for non-navigation elements.
1. Navigation Components
Streamlining Interactions with Master Components
For elements like navigation bars, home buttons, or links to specific pages, Figma’s component system can drastically reduce repetitive work. Instead of setting up interactions for each instance individually across different frames, you can define interactions once for the master component. All instances (or child components) will automatically inherit the interaction settings from their master component.
This approach is especially useful when dealing with recurring UI elements such as navigation bars or footers that appear across multiple screens. By utilizing master components, you maintain consistency across your design and save valuable time.
Overriding Interaction Settings
There are instances where you might need to customize the interaction settings for specific instances of a component. Figma allows you to override the default interactions inherited from the master component, giving you the flexibility to adjust behaviors based on the specific context of an instance. This is particularly useful for cases where a button or link might need to lead to a different screen or perform a unique action in a specific scenario.
Prototype interaction settings in Figma are crucial for creating intuitive and engaging user experiences. This guide covers everything from basic triggers and actions to advanced transitions, helping you build prototypes that mimic real-world user interactions. By mastering these settings, you can elevate your designs, ensuring they are both functional and visually compelling.
2. Non-Navigation Elements
Setting Unique Interactions
For elements that are not part of the global navigation—such as buttons, list items, or custom controls—interactions typically need to be set individually. Each of these elements often has a unique role within the prototype, and their interactions are tailored to the specific function they perform.
This approach requires careful planning to ensure that each user interaction follows the designed flow and that the user experience remains seamless across different scenarios. While this process might be more time-consuming, it allows for greater specificity and control over how each element behaves.
Efficiency Tips
Before diving into prototype interactions, it’s crucial to define which components or design elements should have common interactions. Separately managing these components will streamline your workflow. If a design element hasn’t been converted into a Figma component, it’s recommended to do so first. Converting elements into components allows you to update interaction settings globally from the master component, further enhancing efficiency.
Interaction Settings for Non-Navigation Flows
Interaction settings for non-navigation flows are relatively straightforward. You simply follow the designed user flow, linking each element in the sequence that the user is expected to interact with them. In most cases, this involves dragging and dropping interaction arrows between frames. Unless you want to add animation effects, this process is quick and intuitive.
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Example: Photo Sharing App User Flow
In our photo-sharing app example, the user flow dictates the sequence of interactions. The design includes multiple user paths, each with its specific interactions tailored to guide the user through tasks like viewing photos, liking content, or navigating between different sections of the app.
Interaction Settings for Navigation Components
Parent Component Interaction Settings
One of the strengths of Figma’s component system is how it handles interactions for navigation elements. By setting up interactions for a parent component, all instances of that component across your design will inherit these interactions. This is particularly useful for elements like home icons, navigation bars, or sidebar menus that are used repeatedly.
For instance, if you set the interaction for the home icon in the parent component, all instances of that home icon across your design will behave consistently. This not only saves time but also ensures that your navigation is coherent throughout the prototype.
Overriding Interactions
Even with a well-established component system, there may be times when specific instances require unique interactions. Figma’s flexibility allows you to override the inherited interactions for these instances, enabling customized behaviors without disrupting the consistency of the master component.
Managing Design Systems and Prototype Interactions
When using a design system, it’s important to consider how interactions are applied across different devices. Adding interactions directly to a parent component might not be ideal if that component is used across multiple device types (e.g., mobile and tablet). For example, interactions set for a mobile navigation component might not be suitable for a tablet layout, leading to a mixed-up prototype flow.
To avoid this, you can create a semi-master component. This involves:
- Creating an instance from the parent component.
- Converting the instance into a new component (Option + Command + K), which serves as a semi-master component.
- Setting interactions for the semi-master component.
- Using instances of the semi-master component across different views or pages.
Example: Navigation Interaction Settings in a Photo Sharing App
In our photo-sharing app example, we created four copy components from the master components to handle different navigation elements:
- Sidebar
- Top bar
- Home button
- Back link
When designing for multiple devices, creating semi-master components for different device sizes is crucial. For instance, if you set up interactions for a navigation bar component designed for mobile, using that same component for a desktop UI could result in navigation directing users to mobile-specific screens, causing confusion. However, certain elements, like a back link, can be used across multiple devices since they don't require a specific destination and are generally context-agnostic.
Steps for Implementing Interaction Settings and Instance Replacement
Once you’ve created the necessary copy components, there are two key steps:
- Add interactions to those components: Ensure each navigation element behaves as expected when interacted with.
- Replace existing instances with the new components containing interactions: This ensures that all frames use the updated components with the correct interactions.
For detailed guidance on setting up interactions, watch the following video, which covers using an open overlay interaction for sidebar creation:
For instructions on replacing instances, check out this video:
This video demonstrates how to replace the top bar:
- Delete existing top bars in your frames.
- Copy the top bar master component and paste it into one frame (this creates a top bar instance).
- Adjust the position of the top bar instance in the frame.
- Copy the adjusted top bar instance and paste it into the remaining frames (this method carries the position property across all frames).
These steps can be similarly applied to the home button and back link. Since the sidebar is already linked with the top bar, there’s no need to create additional copies of the sidebar.