Placeholder for solutions
Rethinking Layer Management in Figma
UX Design, UX Research
6 Months
Advised by Adobe
Master Capstone Project
This capstone project, advised by Adobe, rethinks layer management in Figma to better support designers working in complex, collaborative files. As files grow, designers often struggle with navigating deeply nested layers and understanding others’ structures, issues not well addressed by Figma’s current layer panel. Our research revealed that most designers rely heavily on Figma, yet face major usability barriers around context switching and structural clarity. Due to time constraints, we focused on improving Figma’s layer experience through features that help designers quickly interpret unfamiliar files and spend more time designing, not decoding.
My Role
Led user research to uncover pain points in layer navigation. Conducted 8 interviews, analyzed 44 survey responses, and performed competitive analysis, identifying 3 key usability barriers
Co-hosted 3 participatory design workshops to co-create solutions with target users
Translated research into 4 insights and defined 2 core features, driving the design of 10+ interactive Figma prototypes focused on Z-axis stacking and scalable layer systems
Presented weekly to our Adobe advisor for strategic design feedback and iteration guidance
How might we rethink layer lists?
User Research
We guessed that designers might have many different ways to organize the modify their layers. Before we assumed what they might behave, we spent some time observing designers' natural design behaviors across different design platforms.
⬆️ Challenges: Every designer had different ways of organizing and working with layers. While many expressed frustrations with the current structure, the feedback was initially scattered and difficult to align. We spent hours across multiple rounds of discussion to distill common patterns, revisiting interview recordings to better understand the context and extract key quotes that informed our insights.
We defined high-level design principles for how we wish the layer management feature in Figma would work:
1. Provide handy, contextual assistance when designers need it during their workflow.
2. Design for clarity and user control, sustaining trust in the “source of truth” and enabling confident actions without uncertainty and confusion.
3. Rarely require significant behavioral change from designers and collaborators in order to perceive value.
4. Reduce the time needed to accurately understand, select, and manipulate layers, improving efficiency.
5. Foster a sense of joy, reward, and ownership to keep designers excited and engaged in their daily work.
Ideation
Based on the key findings, we came up with 3 How-Might-We statements:
1. HMW align layer structure representations with designers’ perception of nested hierarchies?
2. HMW support designers in communicating key structural and semantic elements of their work?
3. HMW support designers in efficiently understanding each other's files?
We decided to prioritize 1st HMW is because:
1. The focus on nested layer structures provide more practical and actionable opportunities given the timeline.
2. By solving for this fundamental problem with the layer paradigm, we expect the solution to also have an impact on HMW 02 & 03.
3. Our generative research did not have enough depth into how designers communicate and collaborate on design files.
While we as a team start brainstorming and taking references from the real world such as understand how library organize books, we also host 3 co-design workshop to invite designers to brainstorm together.
Prototyping (ongoing)
Feature 1: Z-order
1. Break down complex layers into semantic and hierarchical groupings to improve clarity and efficiency.
2. Introduce a forward-thinking approach by incorporating spatial design thinking. (Eg. XR design interface)
⬆️ A prototype designed to simulate how users can quickly interpret and modify complex nested structures