Developers, learn to design | Hacker News Reader

Developers, learn to design

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Thanks for introducing me to the 'grown up' world of app development reminding me to 'stop whining' about design.

There's a big difference between being aware of good design principles and being competent enough to start making changes on your own.

Studying bootstrap and reading a book won't earn you the experience that a designer has built up over years of practice, so while it's certainly beneficial to be able to collaborate on design issues with an informed opinion, it's dangerous (and insulting) to suggest that you should take it upon yourself to make changes.

> Designing [...] is a set of rules, just like programming

I could agree with that, but I found design extremely unpleasant. For instance: it's almost impossible to vertically center a <div> inside its parent <div> in CSS without some obscure magical CSS-guru hacks which usually include creating wrapper <div>s. Why should I change my markup to adapt to browser's representation? Why can't I just v-align: center it?

Are those rules? Sure. But extremely frustrating rules... and that's only the technical part of design!

Don't get me wrong, designing is an awesome tool for your belt, but I found it extremely frustrating. Maybe I'm the one to blame for it?

This designer-implementor conflict I think is the biggest hurdle with being both the designer and developer.

If you're thinking about the implementation too much while designing then it can compromise the design because you can tend to subconsciously shy away from things that may instinctively 'feel' hard.

So for me this is where the biggest strength of a separate designer can be if they're just focusing on making the design truthful to itself which in turn can challenge the programmer to push that bit more.

When I'm designing I consciously ignore any sense of "this is difficult/impossible to implement" and when I'm working with a designer I tell them to ignore development constraints in the design process. Once we have a fina design and it is impossible, sure you can reevaluate, but don't let that influence the initial designs IMO.

I strongly disagree. Using Twitter bootstrap is OK. Copying other design is not OK.

Also, saying that design is a set of rules is like saying music or drawing is a set of rules. It's not. Design is a creative process. It's not about knowing how to use the right tools. Mastering Photoshop or Twitter Bootstrap doesn't mean you will successfully create a good looking design. I know how to use a lot of design tools, but when I try to create a design everything looks like garbage. If you're a coder, do yourself a good and hire a designer for your apps.

Coding is creative also, if you don't know program design, your code will look like (and behave like) crap.

But like coding, UX design is only learned with lots of practice, you have to specialize somewhere. Even designers specialize between visual, motion, and interaction.

(And lots of fun if your specialty is programming language design).

Yes, coding is also creative. If you want to write some sexy code you'll have to some designing. But program design is more like planning. To write nice code you need some sort of planning before firing up the text editor. In UX design you need to have "an eye" for that sort of stuff.

At least that's how I see it.

I think the creativity is intrinsic, the rest is a 10,000 hour thing (you have to train your creativity). Even planning and problem solving requires creativity. Our labels aren't really helping much (coding vs. design both involve creativity, but so does almost everything)

A better plan (if you want to minimise the amount you have pay designers - although, paying a designer is the best option) get them to go a base design/ style guide (and maybe a screen or two) then learn the grid rules and finish it off.

Grid and colour rules are easy. Design isn't. Although the same can be said for development.

slide #10: where to begin - use twitter bootstrap and knock-off other layouts.

good advice on being a clueless tool.

Well , Bootstrap is like Windows default theme for webapps these days so it's fine I think.

It is tested on a wide range of browsers , like jquery , that's something even good designers dont do.

If as a developer one doesn't have much of an eye for design, Bootstrap is still a good way to begin, as opposed to nothing at all.

That's not to say devs should just use Bootstrap and be done with it, but it's a decent start; I'd rather have someone clueless about design using Bootstrap than styling forms on his own.

I have a presentation that goes along with a talk I give to developers on understanding some simple techniques that they can use to contribute to design: http://www.slideshare.net/appsfire/anatomy-of-a-button-13406...

This presentation reminded me of this:

Sometimes it's better to hire a younger, less experienced developer, who's not aware yet, that "specialisation is good". Thanks to that you can have one dev who's able to finish the whole project. Obviously it's only true for smaller projects.

While I agree that learning about design is great for most developers, this is a pretty naive presentation. I could turn it around and say, "Designers, learn to code. It's not rocket science, it's a set of rules, just like design. Code doesn't have to be perfect, good enough is OK."

As a designer and coder I find this presentation a bit disturbing. It lacks of almost everything and it's mostly telling programmers to design as they wish. Design != style, it's more than that. Designed evolved so much these years that cannot be enclosed on a set of rules.

Think about the case when creating nice design job is done by frameworks like twitter bootstrap and all you have to do is good UX. Isnt UX just a set of rules?

"You don't have to be a freaking Picasso to suggest color change"

Too bad they didn't chose a single color to use on their website: http://123ship.it/

Last time I checked black and white were colors </nitpick>

That's a very weak tu quoque[1]. Shades of gray and white are colors by anyone that's taken high school physics.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque

Fine, to be more precise (and more snarky), I'll change it to: "too bad they didn't implement a single color change from what Bootstrap provides"

"Design is not rocket science" - of course, it's quite the opposite of rocket science, it's art.

"It's set of rules" - no, rules are what you apply to design idea. I agree that everyone can learn to apply the rules, but for truly great design, you need to start with a good base.

The article is clearly about web design. In that part I agree with the author. However, to create something that looks really, really good, you need some talent as well. Unless he tells me he created his "123 ShipIt" logo himself ;)

For me, to some level its just set of rules - mostly in the case of UX which is far more important than fancy design. But, i agree, that there is no way you can create good logo without design sense and art background :)

You make it sound like some ethereal force that you need to be born with. It takes time, but design ability is learnt. I credit my good education and discipline for my talent.

Source: I'm a designer, check my profile.

Maybe my wording was wrong. I looked at your profile and designs now, and I still think that a random developer using the advice from original posting could not create something like this: http://dribbble.com/shots/765388-Bear-Beer

Maybe you're just talented and thus it seems easy to you.

The irony in using a dark color on a dark background to highlight your possibility to suggest a color change.

Why would every occurence of the string "fl" be in a different font?

Why does every paragraph end in "środa, 6 marca 13"?

AFAICT, it means: Wednesday, March 6th 2013.

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