Ask HN: How do you manage UI/UX for your side projects? • Hacker News Board

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

#141

Post by wpmoradi » Fri, Dec 07, 2018, 9:05 PM UTC

ohkaiby wrote: post #57

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…

I actually took a 3-month crash course on Visual Design because I was weak in that area (as a front-end developer). Probably one of the best professional investments I have made. The course taught me basically the above list. I would add knowledge about grids and negative spacing to the above list.

Which course did you take?

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

#142

Post by DonaldPShimoda » Fri, Dec 07, 2018, 9:06 PM UTC

jtolmar wrote: post #137

The best solution is to learn graphic design. Most engineers make the similar mistakes when starting out, so here's a cheat sheet: * Your colors are too saturated, desaturate everything. (If you're using LCH, make 50 chroma your default for something that's "colorful.") * Use more padding, more whitespace, and bigger fonts. Increase it until you're starting to get uncomfortable, then increase it just a little more pa…

> Remove everything you can remove

This reminds me of my favorite design quote:

"Perfection is attained not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away."

— Wind, Sand and Stars by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, early French aviator and author of The Little Prince

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

#143

Post by alkonaut » Fri, Dec 07, 2018, 9:11 PM UTC

Use default theme of some tookit (e.g Bulma or similar) and don’t change one bit anywhere. As soon as I even think I can change a margin somewhere it all goes to hell.

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

#144

Post by gkilmain » Fri, Dec 07, 2018, 9:40 PM UTC

maceurt wrote: post #26

InGodsName wrote: post #3

I've multiple solutions: 0. Use a css framework like Bootstrap or Bulma, it's not difficult to put together a website/webapp with a bit of CSS skills (you don't need to know a lot of CSS to create a good experience) 1. Team up with the UI/UX designer who you've worked in past and offer them your backend expertise for their project. Good ol barter has saved my ass multiple times by now. 2. If you don't want to get som…

Bootstrap is so antiquated. It is also far from easy, and even if you learn a lot about bootstrap is will not make your project suddenly look good. Not to mention the container system is one of the most confusing things I have ever seen, but maybe that is just me.

Bootstrapping a proof of concept, or a very early version of an app, definitely is still very much relevant. Bootstrap aids in this. And I think it is widely accepted that if you have an app that you'll eventually scale it needs to be refactored out. But for that initial POC, bootstrap away!

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

#145

Post by paulftw » Fri, Dec 07, 2018, 9:52 PM UTC

IMO you need to start loving UI/UX to get anywhere. It’s actually interesting and with modern frameworks is not too hard for a decent programmer to pick up. Getting out of your comfort zone and learning new paradigms, solving new class of coding challenges etc will also make you a better backend engineer. Think of it as a good investment.

Second step - twitter bootstrap and admin templates for it are the little known secret of fast and cheap and good looking UI. Good templates are under $50, recently some nice ones started popping up on github under open source licenses.

One aspect that is hard for me and probably requires another half of the brain is making it “pretty” (or graphic design). Good news is there are tons of UI freebies, UI kits, free app templates shared on behance and dribble. Basically it’s pretty app designs created by people who don’t have skills to convert them into code. So they give that stuff away for free. Taking one of those goodies and using for your side project will make your project stand out without dropping a cent on professional designers. I always recommend freebies designs for MVP even when it’s more than a side project.

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

#146

Post by paulftw » Fri, Dec 07, 2018, 9:55 PM UTC

paulftw wrote: post #145

IMO you need to start loving UI/UX to get anywhere. It’s actually interesting and with modern frameworks is not too hard for a decent programmer to pick up. Getting out of your comfort zone and learning new paradigms, solving new class of coding challenges etc will also make you a better backend engineer. Think of it as a good investment. Second step - twitter bootstrap and admin templates for it are the little known…

And also google “best google webfont pairings” pick one, apply it to your bootstrap site with only 10 lines of CSS and voila the page suddenly feels fresh and cool

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

#147

Post by felideon » Fri, Dec 07, 2018, 9:58 PM UTC

jolmg wrote: post #127

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…

> Basic on typography (It makes a big difference even if most people don't notice it) Can you expand on why typography matters? I've never understood why some people seem to care so much about kerning and line angles in the glyphs and such. What do you think are the most important topics in typography people should learn and why do they matter?

https://ia.net/topics/the-web-is-all-about-typography-period

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

#148

Post by sbilstein » Fri, Dec 07, 2018, 9:59 PM UTC

Cop, copy, copy.

I taught myself about color palettes, gradients, margins, and typography by carefully hitting inspect element on websites I love. You’ll get an idea of font sizes that make sense for headers, tables, written content and more. Inspect buttons to see how designers use shadows or changes to indicate function.

Once you start copying enough and read a book or two on design it will start making sense. Pay obsessive detail to how a payment flow or navigation reacts on a site you love when you do something wrong.

Less is more and start by building out simple forms that feel slick and intuitive. Copy the landing page of a website like Strava. Copy the landing page of a SaaS product you love. Copy the layout and typography of the Stripe documentation. You’ll eventually have enough tools to start making more informed decisions when you are not copying.

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

#149

Post by paulftw » Fri, Dec 07, 2018, 10:02 PM UTC

mschaef wrote: post #30

I stick with a few basic guidelines: * Sketch out the idea on literal paper before committing it to working code. Paper is so much easier to get 'working'. * Borrow visually from other sites that I like and have similar intent. I don't have the time on side projects to go crazy breaking new UX ground. (And users probably don't want that anyway.) * Keep the idea simple and uncluttered. Maybe a specialist could get awa…

Awesome list. One point I’d add that changed how I think about UI and UX is being aware when UI reflects internal code structure instead of just doing what a user would want to see.

The latter is harder, so engineers tend to avoid it, often subconsciously.

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

#150

Post by sfilargi » Fri, Dec 07, 2018, 10:05 PM UTC

jolmg wrote: post #132

sfilargi wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A lot of engineers have the mentality of "engineering is hard, but design is just whatever some color matching and styling". Just anecdata, but as an engineer I think engineering is easy and design is hard. For engineering you just have to follow logic, reasoning, good practices and have discipline. Also you can test your code to death to make sure everything is correct. For design you have to have an artistic natu…

> For design you have to have an artistic nature. I know what you mean, but I now read "artistic nature" as making subjective/arbitrary decisions that for some unknown reason a lot of people favor. Though by the way I read d0m's comment, it seems like there's a fair amount of objectivity in graphic design as well. Lots of logic: If you need to design something, it's because you have a goal and you need to make every…

Yeah, I get it, even art has to follow some ground rules to begin with, but do we know what exactly is it that makes Beethoven’s “Fur Elise” such a great composition?