Frames, Grupos y Organización de Diseño

How to effectively organize your workspace in Figma?

Organizing your workspace in Figma effectively is essential to maximizing productivity and facilitating collaboration. Whether you're picking up a project after a while or collaborating with others, understanding how to properly structure your elements can make all the difference. This guide will take you through the concepts of sections, frames, and groups, and how to use them to make your workspace a more efficient and cohesive environment.

What is a section and how is it used?

In Figma, a section is a large area that groups together multiple related classes or elements. This makes navigation and overall project organization easier, as you can gather all important components in one place.

• Thematic grouping: Place all the elements that deal with similar topics within the same section for a more agile access.
• Easy navigation: Having a clear structure makes it easier to find what you need without wasting time.

What is the difference between a frame and a group?

Understanding the difference between frames and groups is crucial for flexible and adaptive design in Figma.

• Frames: They act as a container that keeps objects well aligned and organized. Frames allow you to better control the resizing behavior, ensuring that the elements inside remain properly aligned.

  // Example of how to resize a frame let frame = figma.createFrame(); frame.resize(200, 200);

• Groups: A group behaves more like a simple collection of stacked elements with no rigid rules about their positional relationship when resizing. Groups do not collapse their internal elements when adjusting dimensions as frames do.

How to leverage frames for responsive design?

Responsive design is crucial in a world where users access products from multiple devices of different sizes. Building a project using frames can facilitate this adaptability.

• Constraints: Use constraints within a frame to define the behavior of elements when modifying the size of the parent frame. For example, you can align certain elements to the left or right of the frame, ensuring that the desired proportions are kept constant when scaling.

  // Example of constraint in Figma let rect = figma.createRectangle(); rect.constraints = { horizontal: 'STRETCH', vertical: 'TOP' };

• Nested frames: By placing one frame inside another, you can create complex hierarchies that keep the layout consistent across different resolutions and screen sizes.

  // Create a nested frame let parentFrame = figma.createFrame(); let childFrame = figma.createFrame(); parentFrame.appendChild(childFrame);

How to define frames for different devices?

Figma makes it easy to design for different devices by creating type-specific frames.

• Mobile devices: Design using predefined frames for iOS or Android, adjusting for different models such as the iPhone 13 Mini or the Android Compact, making sure that everything is "above the fold" to the user's view without the need to scroll.

• Tablets and desktop: Include devices like the Surface Pro and iPad mini, or choose a desktop frame like the MacBook Air, which help you envision how those designs will display on larger screens.

The responsive approach and what you should achieve

The goal is that, no matter the resolution of the device, all icons and objects should be kept at the same distance or should descend in equivalent proportions. The idea is to simplify the work and ensure that the visual elements maintain aesthetic coherence regardless of the device.

Creating a responsive design requires properly configuring the constraints of the elements and making sure that the entire framework (or subcomponents) behaves as expected on testers of different models and resolutions.