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Ask HN: How do you manage UI/UX for your side projects?

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Re: Ask HN: How do you manage UI/UX for your side projects?

#101

Post by maceurt »

wartijn_ wrote: post #50
spunker540 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would you recommend in its place? I’ve been using bootstrap for any web side projects of mine mostly for its ability to flex and handle multiple devices sizes and also because its defaults look passable out of the box. I agree containers are confusing but honestly making a custom web app look good on all resolutions/aspect ratios is complicated in my opinion.

Not OP, but I recommend using plain css. With the grid layout and flexbox it has become pretty easy to create something decent and learning flexbox and grid isn't hard. Grid works basically the same as Bootstrap: split a page in parts and tell each element how many parts they can use. But with gird you don't to split your page in 12 part, but can choose for yourself how many you want. Flexbox is rid, but for things y…

I second using vanilla css. Vanilla css is a lot easier to understand than bootstrap imo. Vanilla css + HTML5 is good enough for pretty much any web page.

Re: Ask HN: How do you manage UI/UX for your side projects?

#103

Post by snerbles »

andrei_says_ wrote: post #72
d0m wrote: post #51

A lot of engineers have the mentality of "engineering is hard, but design is just whatever some color matching and styling". I'll prob. be downvoted but here's my honest opinion: I think you'll gain a lot career-wise to learn about UX and UI. You'll be able to understand products in a deeper level from the customer's side and will then be able to make better decisions as an engineer. You'll also have a much easier ti…

Made the bullet list readable on mobile: * Visual hierarchy (I.e. the same way you divide your code in modules and functions, you need to divide the visual space in a clear hierarchy). * Basic on typography (It makes a big difference even if most people don't notice it) * Understanding what's UX (I.e. reading "Don't make me think"). Just "caring" and "thinking" about UX will improve designs, even if you don't have mu…

It's more readable on desktop as well. Long lines in HN's code blocks render with horizontal scrollbars - using them to quote paragraphs is downright obnoxious.

Re: Ask HN: How do you manage UI/UX for your side projects?

#104

Post by ioddly »

d0m wrote: post #51

A lot of engineers have the mentality of "engineering is hard, but design is just whatever some color matching and styling". I'll prob. be downvoted but here's my honest opinion: I think you'll gain a lot career-wise to learn about UX and UI. You'll be able to understand products in a deeper level from the customer's side and will then be able to make better decisions as an engineer. You'll also have a much easier ti…

> Reading material design from Google https://material.io is a great start. You may not like the UI of it, but the UX and explanations of why things are this way are really interesting.

To add, I've found reading the design documentation of some web and mobile UI libraries to be very enlightening. For example, the colors section of BlueprintJS has helped really narrow down how I use colors: https://blueprintjs.com/docs/#core/colors

Re: Ask HN: How do you manage UI/UX for your side projects?

#105

Post by lettergram »

d0m wrote: post #51

A lot of engineers have the mentality of "engineering is hard, but design is just whatever some color matching and styling". I'll prob. be downvoted but here's my honest opinion: I think you'll gain a lot career-wise to learn about UX and UI. You'll be able to understand products in a deeper level from the customer's side and will then be able to make better decisions as an engineer. You'll also have a much easier ti…

Came to the comment section to basically write the same thing. The design is more important than coding in many ways, it's truly what sells the product.

I've often used it to highlight working features and "hid" the less functional ones. I'm learning myself, but totally worth getting a basic grasp on it. I usually have my designer friends or colleagues provide feedback which helps me learn.

Re: Ask HN: How do you manage UI/UX for your side projects?

#106

Post by paulie_a »

I was never formally educated in that field but I just try to make something I would want to use. Bragging: I've been complimented by a Xerox exec "this looks better than our software"

There is a lot more theory and practices than I will ever understand. But if you are not an expert, just ask yourself if you would want to use it. Not as a developer, but some random user.

Re: Ask HN: How do you manage UI/UX for your side projects?

#108

Post by weinzierl »

nkrisc wrote: post #90
preommr wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Basic of color theory Time for me to rant about how pointless and useless "color theory" is beyond the obvious things like red is for errors and green is for success. It's just a bunch of non-sequitors where people take random facts and then apply them after the fact on particular designs. Things like trying to design using colors from swatches or using colors based on their position on the color wheel are examples…

That is not color theory, at all. You could start with the Wikipedia page to get a quick overview of what color theory really is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_theory It is not the pseudo-scientific mumbo-jumbo strawman you're ranting against. Color theory makes no subjective judgements on what colors "mean" or should be used for, but instead focuses on the visual properties and perception of color.

> Color theory makes no subjective judgements on what colors "mean" or should be used for, but instead focuses on the visual properties and perception of color.

The parent was talking about color harmony (color wheels) and color psychology. This are very much the things the Wikipedia article you linked is about.

Both are indeed pseudo-scientific mumbo-jumbo.

Re: Ask HN: How do you manage UI/UX for your side projects?

#110

Post by preommr »

nkrisc wrote: post #90
preommr wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Basic of color theory Time for me to rant about how pointless and useless "color theory" is beyond the obvious things like red is for errors and green is for success. It's just a bunch of non-sequitors where people take random facts and then apply them after the fact on particular designs. Things like trying to design using colors from swatches or using colors based on their position on the color wheel are examples…

That is not color theory, at all. You could start with the Wikipedia page to get a quick overview of what color theory really is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_theory It is not the pseudo-scientific mumbo-jumbo strawman you're ranting against. Color theory makes no subjective judgements on what colors "mean" or should be used for, but instead focuses on the visual properties and perception of color.

Color theory is a wide subject. The context it was used in this discussion was for design and the influence of colors on the end user for things like UX, branding, etc. Yes, color theory also includes important and technical things like color spaces and human perception but that's not what we were discussing here.

To quote the OP: "How different colors mean different things (Branding-wise or for alerts/errors/warning)"

And, maybe I am wrong about this, but it seems like you've never even heard of color psychology since you seem to think that it's completely unrelated to color theory and that it's a strawman I cooked up out of nowhere. It's even linked in the related section on the wikipage for color theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_psychology

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