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Design DS—05

Complex interfaces

A course about working tools: tables, filters, long forms and dashboards — the screens people sit in front of for eight hours a day. What promo pages teach does not apply here: what matters is density, the states of the data and the fact that one screen is seen by people with different permissions. We build the shop's admin panel — the second, grown-up half of the product the school builds across all its courses.

8 modules22 lessons
18 hoursof video and practice
Basics neededrequirements
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Format
€59 one-off payment
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Outcome

What you will be able to do

Design dense screens without turning them into mush
Build tables: columns, sorting, row and bulk actions
Place filters and search so that people actually use them
Split long forms into groups and steps with validation that makes sense
Choose dashboard numbers that answer a question, and not distort them
Think through the data states: empty, too much, error, loading, no access
Show one screen to different roles without drawing a second layout
Adapt a working tool to a narrow screen without losing functions
Programme

8 modules, one project

Press a module to open its lessons

01 How a product differs from a promo page3 lessons · 2 h 10 minOpen

A different job and a different person: they work here, they are not getting acquainted. Hence density, speed and roles.

Density instead of air: what a working screen pays with
Task frequency: what has to be one click away
Taking an admin panel apart: how it is built and why
02 Tables3 lessons · 2 h 32 min

The main element of a working interface: columns, aligning numbers, sorting and actions on rows.

Columns: what to show, what to hide, how to align
Sorting, pinning and horizontal scrolling
Actions: per row, bulk and dangerous
03 Filters and search3 lessons · 2 h 26 min

Where filters live, how to show the ones applied and what to do when there are fifteen of them.

Where to place filters and how to show the applied ones
Search, suggestions and a result with no matches
Practice: filtering the order list
04 Long forms3 lessons · 2 h 30 min

A form with forty fields: grouping, steps, saving a draft and validation that helps instead of scolding.

Grouping fields and the order of filling them in
Steps, drafts and leaving the page
Validation: when to check and how to report
05 The dashboard3 lessons · 2 h 28 min

Which numbers to show, how to compare them and why a beautiful chart so often lies.

Which numbers answer the shop owner's question
Charts and comparison: scale, period, honesty
Practice: a sales dashboard on one screen
06 Data states2 lessons · 1 h 38 min

Empty, too much, error, loading: the states that are missing from the layout but that a person sees.

The empty screen, the first run and «nothing found»
Loading, errors and partially arrived data
07 Permissions and roles2 lessons · 1 h 40 min

One screen for the owner, the manager and the warehouse: what to hide, what to show as inactive and what to explain.

Hide, disable or explain: the choice for each role
Practice: the order list through the eyes of three roles
08 Responsive working tools3 lessons · 2 h 36 min

The final module: what to fold away first, how a table lives on a narrow screen and how to hand the admin panel over as a whole.

A table on a narrow screen: cards, column priority
What to fold away first and what cannot be sacrificed
Final project: the shop's admin panel in full
Materials

What you get

22 lessons with transcripts

Videos with timecodes and a written version: the rules on tables and states are easy to come back to at work.

A library of working components

Tables, filters, panels and forms in Figma built on the tokens from the «Design system» course — a screen comes together in one evening.

Data for the admin panel

Orders, products and sales in a realistic volume, including empty lists and extreme values for checking the states.

A working-screen checklist

The check before handover: data states, roles, keyboard, density, and how the table behaves on a narrow screen.

Tomsa Daria
Course author

Tomsa Daria

Teaches the «Interface design» direction at Forma. The full list of their courses is on their page.

All courses by this author

The whole first module is open

Watch the lessons of the first module and the first task. If the format does not suit you, you have lost nothing.