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

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

1. Remove this panel entirely and revert to the previous UI behaviour

2. 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.

Can this be turned off? I remember there was such an option

Seriously??

You think telling user base to get larger screens is the solution to the problem introduced here?

What should laptop users do? Get new laptops according to you? What should corporate employees do according to you, tell their managers to replace all monitors at the office because you think it’s a good solution to compensate for Figma’s bad design decision?

Don’t forget to tell Apple to start building Macbooks larger than 16” okay?

We can assume you’re offering to cover the costs for all the above. Nice.

Please get rid of this stupid floating question mark. I don’t need to open up YouTube Videos or join the forum right here. I need to access my style settings.