Why you should consider using Auto Layout as a Designer

The advent of Auto Layout on various design software is certainly a welcome development by designers everywhere. Follow me through this article as we delve deeper into the concept. Defining it, outlining its uses and dropping a few pointers on how to use it.

Table of Contents:

What is Auto Layout?

What does Auto Layout do?

Why should you as a Designer consider using Auto Layout?

Guide to Applying Auto Layout in Your Designs.

Conclusion

Prerequisites:

Readers should have basic design knowledge and an idea on how to use design tools, particularly Figma. They should also have a little knowledge of responsive design and its benefits.

What is Auto Layout?

The Auto Layout Feature is a powerful feature that grants designers the ability to create responsive designs. In essence, it lets you decide how elements in a frame and your design as a whole should behave when changes are made, regardless of whether these changes are made to the content, the frame, or the design as a whole.

What does Auto Layout do?

In a nutshell, it lets you create responsive designs but what are “responsive designs"?

Well simply put, responsive designs are designs that automatically adjust to fit any screen size. With this, you no longer have to rearrange elements manually every single time, you just apply Auto Layout, set the properties(spacing and alignment) and your design adapts accordingly to whatever changes you make.

Why Should You as a Designer Consider Using Auto Layout?

There are several reasons why the use of Auto Layout is such a big help when designing. The following are a few of these reasons:

Responsive Design: as I've mentioned several times now, this is the main benefit of applying Auto Layout to your designs in Figma. It essentially automates the greater part of the design process.

Time Saving: Auto Layout also eliminates the need to make manual adjustments to every little detail which in turn saves time.

Consistency: The Auto Layout feature, if used properly, guarantees consistent spacing of elements and components across your designs.

Mimics Development and Promotes Collaboration: the principles of Auto Layout are more or less the same as the front-end concept, Flexbox, and as such can make it easier for devs to grasp the design process and vice versa.

Guide to Applying Auto Layout to Your Designs

It is possible to apply Auto Layout to multiple layers, components and frames at once and you can use any of these shortcuts to do so;

Keyboard: select the layers you would like to apply Auto Layout to and press “Shift+A" on your keyboard. This is by far the quickest and most common method available.

Right Sidebar: select your layers, move your pointer to the right sidebar, look out for the “Auto Layout” section and click the plus(+) icon next to the section title.

Right Click: select your layers, right click on your selection and choose the option “Add Auto Layout" from the resulting menu.

In conclusion, the Auto Layout feature has many benefits, king among them being automating the design process to a great extent and as a result, saving time and making the process much much easier. You should consider using it some time.