Running a Remote Design Class in Figma

Students Who Design (SWD) is an online learning platform that teaches product design. Its recent Introduction to Digital Product Design course was delivered entirely through Figma, covering everything from initial onboarding to final feedback and post-course access. Here’s how the team structures its virtual classroom and manages coursework at scale.

A Workspace for the Whole Cohort

Getting Students into the Same Team

Before the course begins, SWD asks every student to create a personal Figma account at figma.com and familiarize themselves with the editor’s basic controls. Once accounts are confirmed, students are invited into the SWD team as editors, giving them immediate access to course lectures and shared files.

To keep the workspace organized as class sizes grow, the team relies on a consistent file structure:

  • Instructor coursework lives in its own projects within the same account, separating lectures, sponsorship assets, and brand files from student submissions.
  • Students follow a naming convention for their master files (in this case, Intro DPD: Name), allowing instructors to search the team and locate any student’s work quickly.

Each student starts by duplicating a master Figma file containing the basic UI building blocks for the course’s hands-on exercise (a Messenger redesign). A shared starting point eliminates the friction of opening a blank canvas and keeps everyone’s output consistent.

Guiding Progress Through Structure

The SWD course uses pre-recorded lectures delivered via Loom so students can study at their own pace, accompanied by weekly assignment deadlines and instructor feedback. Assignments build toward a final high-fidelity user flow, including a lo-fi exploration phase, research synthesis, and a working prototype.

To keep the iterative process legible, students are advised to organize their work in pages using a simple system:

  • A number prefix to streamline scanning.
  • A descriptive title indicating the fidelity (e.g., wireframes, mockups, prototype).
  • A dedicated page for exploration and revision.

This way, instructors can dip into a student’s file and immediately understand where they are in the process. Students also use text boxes inside their files to annotate the user problem they’re solving or to flag specific explorations for review.

Fostering Critique Online

Asynchronous and Live Feedback

Critique is built into the course at several stages, using two complementary modes:

  • Commenting for asynchronous feedback on in-progress work.
  • Live group sessions held over Zoom, with students and instructors sharing a single Figma file to simulate a professional design critique.

Staying close to student work without hovering is one advantage of the online format. Friends can review a student’s pages at any time, see which assignments are complete, and spot where the student is experimenting or stuck.

After the Course Ends

Once assignments are finished and critiqued, students are not locked out of the workspace. They can remain in the account indefinitely to continue iterating on their case studies, referencing lectures, and revisiting instructor feedback. Since portfolios are never truly finished, this ongoing access is treated as a feature rather than an afterthought.

Supporting Tools and Team Workflows

Beyond Figma’s core features, SWD uses a handful of additional tools to run the class and its internal operations:

  1. Loom for pre-recorded lesson walkthroughs and slide narrations.
  2. Zoom to conduct live critiques and build community during group sessions.
  3. Slack for general communication and asynchronous critiques between students and instructors.
  4. Notion is used internally as a content management system, letting each instructor see an up-to-date snapshot of every student and quickly link to the relevant Figma files.

One practical tip from the SWD team: create two versions of a UI kit for students—a simplified kit with only the essential components, and a full-featured version covering fonts, colors, and spacing. A stripped-down first kit prevents students from being overwhelmed, letting them get comfortable with basic elements before they dive into a more exhaustive library. With a team library, both versions can live in a master file that everyone on the team can access.