Review : Figma, Free Design UI Software with Tons of Features
Tags: Figma, Ui Ux Design, Design Tools, Design, Product Design

Figma, a Design UI Application with Tons of Features — Before going into today’s discussion, who have had a time where an entire application is redesigned because of miscommunication between teams? This can surely happen if there’s no visual communication between designer and developer regarding the layout of the application

It can be imagined how troublesome that would be, especially when the deadline is getting nearer and nearer.

Now, to minimalize the inconvenience that might happen such as the one above, we can just use Figma; with Figma, you can save time to verify designs because we can collaborate in the way of giving comments, advices, and even changing the design at the same time. Neat isn’t it? They’re one of the reasons we recommend this particular Design UI software.

As Sketch’s one of main competitors, Figma and Sketch functionalities doesn’t differ that much. The main difference they have is how they offers their services. This means that if Sketch offers its services to Apple and Mac OS devices, Figma offers its services to web-based application, making it able to be used on all platforms, be it Windows, Mac, or even Linux.

But this strength of Figma is also one of its weakness. Why? Because the nature of it being web-based means that if there’s no internet connection, then it can’t be used anymore.

Features in Figma

Figma by itself offers a couple of features that in our opinion very helpful in the making of application layout design. As an example, let’s take a loot at the plugins and what can they do.

Prototyping

Let’s start with prototyping. This feature makes it easier for us to test the prototype of a screen that has been made where we can run it as if it’s an application. This feature is quite helpful when we want to make look that’s connected to one another.

2. Smart Animate

Next is Smart Animate. This relatively new feature is used to add an animation where a transition between pages happens.

An animation that can be used for transition exists by default, but Smart Animate is specific to each and every component within a look. Not only that, but it’s also easy to use. User only need to go into Prototype tab, and choose Smart Animate for animations.

3. Auto Layout

We continue to the feature that makes it easier for us to arrange components within a design. With Auto Layout, arranging the main components will be easier, especially one that’s related to sizes and position. For example, if we change a text, we also need to adjust the other components that exists near it, be it size or position.

4. Plugin Support

Same with Smart Animate, this feature can be considered new. Like it’s name, we can use plugin to speed up the process of making application layout designs.

Figma provides a couple of plugins that are quite amazing. Google Sheet Sync being one of them. With this plugin we can show the data that’s in Google Sheet into the design layout that we’re creating.

Conclusion

Platform availability: Windows, Apple / Macbook, Linux

Main Function: Program Design and Simple Prototyping

Enjoy!!

You can download UI Design resource freebies with format sketch or figma

visit vreedi for download resource UI Design freebies.