Starting UI/UX from Level 0 with Figma

This is practically Chapter 1 of my journey in UI/UX. I’m Ela (a pen name) and I’m curious about expanding my design skills and sharing my progress with you.

A couple of weeks ago, I started out by exploring Product Design via this free course on Udacity. Midway through the first lesson, however, I paused. It wasn’t quite my cup of tea — at least, not yet.

Almost a year since successfully completing a Design Thinking course — during which I felt like giving up multiple times — I am just not in the frame of mind to tackle a similar challenge.

During the Product Design course, I felt disconnected and the need to first grasp the basics of UI/UX grew quickly. A few days and clicks later, I came across Gary’s amazing UI/UX crash course on Youtube.

Lesson 1: how to create a basic desktop website using Figma

What I loved most about this course was setting up call-to-action buttons and getting to understand component variants. Strongly recommend!

The tutor’s result, simulating a basic fashion desktop website:

My result, simulating a basic self-development website’s homepage:

For the full experience hovering the CTA buttons, navigation bar, and other sections, go here (best viewed via a PC): Basic Desktop Website Simulation using Figma, by Ela.

If, like me, coding freezes your brain and Canva is pretty much the only tool you’ve mastered, I wish this blog post inspires you and guides you with resources. Speak to you in my next post as my UI/UX journey continues…