Figma inside Lambda School’s remote classroom
Lambda School is a fully online, live, instructor-led program that trains students in Web Development, Mobile Development, Data Science, and UX Design over nine months, with no upfront tuition. The school’s core challenge is replicating the connected, hands-on feel of a physical classroom in a distributed setting. To do this, its UX curriculum leans heavily on Figma’s collaborative features.
Lectures that invite participation
Lambda’s UX classes run over video conference, with the instructor sharing their screen. But instead of a one-way slide deck, lessons are presented inside Figma, turning the presentation into a shared activity. Students can zoom in on a particular curve, scroll to study a logo in detail, and use visible cursors to point at exactly what they mean while discussing. The format keeps even passive review collaborative.
That collaborative element is deliberate. As Lambda design instructor Elizabeth Lin puts it, “with all our design lessons at Lambda School, we make sure that there’s a collaborative element! Students are more motivated and have more fun when we’re all working together.” Students build their projects directly in Figma from the start, making the evolution of each design visible to the entire class. In one documentation lesson, Lin watched students remix and build off each other’s in-progress files, using classmates’ work as inspiration. The practice pushes students to improve their own output while getting them accustomed to working on a shared file, a common dynamic on professional design teams.
Feedback without friction
For new designers, timely feedback is essential. Lambda aims to create a community where students feel comfortable critiquing each other in every lesson. With open audio plus Figma’s browser-based editor and commenting, students get the benefits of working side-by-side without feeling like they’re interfering with one another. In some classes, students even shared music with each other while they worked.
When students want quiet focus, they can design in their own area of a shared Figma file while instructors and peers can still observe work in progress. Onlookers can leave comments on the design itself for asynchronous review, or take notes for later. When real-time help is needed, a student can pull the instructor or a classmate into their corner of the file and literally move pixels together. The result is a constant exchange of ideas across the whole lesson.
A portfolio that builds itself
Lambda’s model doesn’t stop at instruction: students don’t pay until they land a job, and they receive support from career coaches, local mentors, and a network of hiring partners. For design students, showcasing capability to employers means having a solid portfolio.
Because every design is created, iterated, and stored in Figma along the way, the portfolio is essentially already compiled. Figma saves and organizes all versions, letting students focus on the interview instead of digging through old files to piece a portfolio together. Access to classmates’ work also means students can continue learning from each other’s approaches long after a lesson ends.
