This update is genuinely one of the most frustrating UX changes I’ve experienced in a professional design tool 😡 😡 😡The new left-hand navigation panel permanently steals ~60px of horizontal space on small screens, which is completely unacceptable. That space is my primary working area — the canvas. I am literally losing room to do my job so a panel can sit there doing nothing most of the time.Yes, Variables, Files, Assets, Find, and Library are important.No — they are NOT minute-to-minute actions.They do not deserve permanent, always-visible real estate. This panel is idle 90% of the time, yet it constantly punishes my workflow.On smaller displays, this feels especially hostile. Instead of prioritising the canvas (the entire reason Figma exists), the UI forces a bulky navigation column that adds zero value moment-to-moment and actively makes precision design harder.This change feels like it was designed for: Large monitors only Product demos Feature discoverability …not for actual day-to-day designers working fast, zoomed in, and space-constrained.What makes this worse There is no way to fully hide or disable this panel Collapsing all UI is a blunt workaround, not a solution There is no respect for screen size or user preference The previous solution worked better and did not need fixing The two solutions that would actually fix this Remove this panel entirely and revert to the previous UI behaviour At an absolute minimum: let users completely hide this panel permanently Not temporarily.Not “collapse everything”.Not keyboard gymnastics.A simple, explicit option to turn it OFF.Right now, this feels forced, wasteful of space, and completely misaligned with how professionals actually use Figma. Please prioritise the canvas again — it is the core of the product, not an accessory.

New Member

Question

Figma, Your New Left-Hand Menu/Panel Is a Disaster – 7th Jan 2026

Forum|Forum|8 months ago
January 8, 2026
95 replies
3669 views

This update is genuinely one of the most frustrating UX changes I’ve experienced in a professional design tool 😡 😡 😡

The new left-hand navigation panel permanently steals ~60px of horizontal space on small screens, which is completely unacceptable. That space is my primary working area — the canvas. I am literally losing room to do my job so a panel can sit there doing nothing most of the time.

Yes, Variables, Files, Assets, Find, and Library are important.
No — they are NOT minute-to-minute actions.

They do not deserve permanent, always-visible real estate. This panel is idle 90% of the time, yet it constantly punishes my workflow.

On smaller displays, this feels especially hostile. Instead of prioritising the canvas (the entire reason Figma exists), the UI forces a bulky navigation column that adds zero value moment-to-moment and actively makes precision design harder.

This change feels like it was designed for:

Large monitors only
Product demos
Feature discoverability

…not for actual day-to-day designers working fast, zoomed in, and space-constrained.

What makes this worse

There is no way to fully hide or disable this panel
Collapsing all UI is a blunt workaround, not a solution
There is no respect for screen size or user preference
The previous solution worked better and did not need fixing

The two solutions that would actually fix this

Remove this panel entirely and revert to the previous UI behaviour
At an absolute minimum: let users completely hide this panel permanently

Not temporarily.
Not “collapse everything”.
Not keyboard gymnastics.

A simple, explicit option to turn it OFF.

Right now, this feels forced, wasteful of space, and completely misaligned with how professionals actually use Figma. Please prioritise the canvas again — it is the core of the product, not an accessory.

Navigation

Misp_Ronger

New Member

Dock

New Member

It takes up more space, solves problems that didn’t really exist, and in the process iwastes screen real estate. Everything this new navigation is trying to “simplify” could have been handled with keyboard shortcuts (for example, Alt + 1–4). Power users already rely on shortcuts.

But even if you could argue it is useful to someone, if you don’t need it, you can’t choose to hide it! You can only hide the entire left panel. So you’re forced to permanently give up a chunk of your canvas for something that could have been much smaller, icon-based, or simply optional. The padding is huge, the icons are oversized, and it feels unnecessarily bulky.

Figma keeps saying it’s “growing” and becoming more “approachable,” and the messaging frames this added complexity as a positive because it supposedly comes with simplifications. But in reality, this feels like the opposite.

Aleezhou

New Participant

The full-screen variable panel blocks access to the artboard, making it impossible to directly copy color values into variables.What a terrible design.

JamesWillo

New Member

The last two major UI updates don’t fill you with confidence for any other changes to the UI.

As said above, completely pointless and takes up space.

The only positive is that it’s easier to find the variable button, but we also don’t need it full screen. I get more and more frustrated by the day in response to Figma’s constant messing about with the UI.

justserioga

New Member

Tanish

New Member

What is this side menu, no collapse button and it is fixed, remove this

Are you guys working on Adobe XD for the design of Figma’s UI, because if Figma’s designers are working on Figma for the design of Figma, they will face this issue.

Remove it now...

Nellya

Power Member

The full-screen variable panel blocks access to the artboard, making it impossible to directly copy color values into variables

You can minimize it

Carl_Antone

New Member

We need a way to hide the distracting new* "Navigation Bar." It’s distracting, takes up valuable screen real estate, only uses about 10% of its space - the other 90% is absolutely wasted empty pixels. I mean, really? It provides nothing that isn’t already available in menus or keyboard shortcuts.