Figma Prototype Tutorial for Beginners (2025)

Here's how to create a prototype in Figma.

A prototype is an interactive representation of your product design.

A Figma prototype allows you to share a link with others,

and anyone who opens the link can view and interact with your prototype.

Figma prototypes can become quite complex

when working on large scale products.

Take the YouTube app as an example.

There are many actions you can perform on a single screen.

However, the core interactions you need

to learn are actually quite simple.

First, scrolling through a page.

Second, cross page interactions.

For example, tapping a thumbnail to open a video.

Third modals.

Tapping a button causes something to pop up

and it disappears when you tap elsewhere.

Now let's dive in.

If you want to make a page scrollable,

simply make the height of the frame longer.

In this low fidelity example of YouTube,

do this and add the elements at the bottom

for frames you want to stick on the screen, like bottom navigation,

select it, go to the Prototype tab on the top right and change its position to fix.

Once you've done that, click the present triangle icon

in the top right corner to view the prototype.

Now you can scroll through the page whenever you like it.

Here's how it looks when working on a high fidelity prototype.

Next, let's say you want to create the effect of tapping

on a video thumbnail to go to the video page.

This requires adding a cross page interaction.

First, let's build the page that the thumbnail will link to.

Next, I like to group the trigger area because

not only will tapping the thumbnail take the user

to the video page, but tapping the title and secondary text will also do so.

To group multiple elements, select them all,

right click and select Group Selection.

Or use Command+G for Mac or Ctrl+G for Windows.

Then click the Prototype tab in the top right corner.

Now there are two ways to add an interaction.

My favorite way is to hover over the trigger,

then drag the circle that appears on

its edge to the destination screen.

By default, this will create an *on click*

trigger with a *navigate to* effect.

In simple words, this creates effects of tapping

something takes you to somewhere else, which you

will use about 80% of the time.

If you play the prototype, you should be able to

tap the thumbnail and navigate to the video page.

Now there's another way to add this interaction.

Let me delete the first one.

To demonstrate again, go to the Prototype tab,

select the trigger, click the plus interaction icon in the

top right corner and set up the interaction manually.

In this method, you will need to specify the action

and select the destination for the navigate to effect.

This will create the exact same result.

And your prototype should behave like this.

To return to the starting point of a prototype,

press R, which I guess stands for restart or replay.

And here's how the effect looks in a high fidelity prototype.

Next, let's create a modal that appears

when tapping the 3 dot icon on

the bottom right corner of the thumbnail.

First, create the frame for the modal.

A modal's frame is typically smaller than

the screen size because that makes it

look like it's floating on the screen.

Let's add the interaction similar to before,

go to the Prototype tab and drag

the interaction trigger to its destination.

This time, instead of using the default navigate to interaction,

change it to open overlay.

You can explore the rest on your own after the video.

Also, check the box "close when clicking outside" to make

the modal close when you click outside

and check the box that says "background" to add a dark background

behind the modal, giving it a floating look.

Now play the prototype.

And here you go.

Your modal effect is working.

Here's something you should totally try too.

Download the Figma app on your mobile phone

and test the prototype on your phone.

It will feel much more realistic on your phone.

Now let me also cover the best practice for sharing a prototype.

It's quite simple.

Play the prototype, click the Share Prototype button

in the top right corner and copy the

link to share with someone you like.

Here's a cool part.

When the person opens the prototype, you'll see their

profile icon pop up in the top right corner.

If you click on that icon, you

can shadow their interactions with your prototype.

Imagine doing this during a quick usability test.

It's a lifesaver.

You don't even need to share your screen on zoom to see what they are doing.

Before you go, I also want to point

out a common mistake many beginners make here.

Before sharing your prototype, make sure to press R to

restart it to the starting point of your flow.

Then share it.

Otherwise, your stakeholder might open the prototype in the

middle of the flow, causing a lot of confusion.

And if you don't have a flow starting point yet,

or if it's not correct, just select the first page of your prototype.

Then click the plus icon beside Flow starting point.

You can rename it.

You can adjust it to a different page.

You can also add multiple of these

if you are working on multiple flows.

If you made it this far, you've learned so much about prototyping

and do you know what's the most common mistake I see people make?

Including way too many screens and features in

the first few versions of your prototype.

Most apps or new features aim

to achieve one major goal.

So in your first few versions of low fidelity prototype,

focus on designing the happy path.

The simplest, ideal path for your target user.

And after you polished up this happy path design,

you can move forward to create all the edge cases,

other screens and everything else will flow so naturally and easily.

If you learned something today,

subscribe to my channel and turn on all notifications.

This is part of my figma tutorial series right here.

And if you want to go one step further to learn

how design is done in big tech companies,

check out my course Fast Track UX.

It is truly a gem. I promise.

Thank you so much.

I'm Aliena.

If you like this video,

then I will see you in this video.