Every Figma file opens into the same three-part layout: a Layers panel on the left, an infinite canvas in the middle, and a Design panel on the right. Learning where things live here makes every later lesson faster.
A Figma file can hold multiple pages (shown at the top of the sidebar) — a common way to split a project, e.g. one page per app section. Below that, the Layers panel lists every object on the current page, nested to match how things are grouped, sectioned, or framed.
At the bottom of the screen, the toolbar holds the tools you'll use constantly: the arrow (move/select), the frame tool, shape tools (rectangle, ellipse, etc.), the pen tool, and the text tool. Most have a keyboard shortcut — V for the move tool, R for rectangle, T for text — worth learning early since reaching for the mouse every time slows real work down.
Select anything and the right-hand Design panel fills in with everything about it — position, size, corner radius, fill color, stroke, and effects. This panel is contextual: it only shows fields relevant to whatever's currently selected, so a text layer shows font controls that a rectangle never will.
The Design panel has a sibling tab, Prototype, at the very top — same panel location, completely different purpose. Design is for building; Prototype is for wiring screens together into a clickable flow. Both are covered in this course, Prototype in the last lesson.