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Skills a Designer Must Have when Working for a Startup

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Re: Skills a Designer Must Have when Working for a Startup

#3
post #2

The skills are critical for any front-end designer, not just the ones in startups. Companies that embrace skilled designers as their culture compete much better than others.

The word "startup" has almost reached the status of buzzword. "Cloud based startup" would have been even better..

Re: Skills a Designer Must Have when Working for a Startup

#5
Completely leaves out visual design. Maybe because polish is harder to encapsulate with a single book or because it's so easy to pick up by cruising Dribbble for inspiration, but it's still worth mentioning.

Otherwise you get the average startup designer that's more of a developer in disguise.

Re: Skills a Designer Must Have when Working for a Startup

#6
post #4

I found "Designing Interfaces" disappointing. It is a list of interface widgets - for example an accordion menu - and some information about how to use it. A far better book on usability is "Don't Make Me Think" by Steve Krug.

+1 for Don't Make Me Think. Old, but highly recommended.

Re: Skills a Designer Must Have when Working for a Startup

#7
post #5

Completely leaves out visual design. Maybe because polish is harder to encapsulate with a single book or because it's so easy to pick up by cruising Dribbble for inspiration, but it's still worth mentioning. Otherwise you get the average startup designer that's more of a developer in disguise.

"because [visual design is] so easy to pick up by cruising Dribbble for inspiration"

It is?

Re: Skills a Designer Must Have when Working for a Startup

#8
post #5

Completely leaves out visual design. Maybe because polish is harder to encapsulate with a single book or because it's so easy to pick up by cruising Dribbble for inspiration, but it's still worth mentioning. Otherwise you get the average startup designer that's more of a developer in disguise.

"because [visual design is] so easy to pick up by cruising Dribbble for inspiration" It is?

I think what's being said here is that it's easy to pick up the ideas of visual design, not the actual skill (I hope). As a budding designer, Dribbble is definitely helpful in allowing you to see "the bar" and improve how you approach certain projects. However, it is most definitely NOT easy to "pick up [visual design] by cruising Dribbble."

Re: Skills a Designer Must Have when Working for a Startup

#10

I hate this list. Want to be good? Look at sites/apps you admire and learn to emulate them. Don't read a 300 page book on User Experience or ugh, UX... unless you're doing for enjoyment.

Sounds like a good plan for cargo-cult web design. A good book on UX (which stands for the same User Experience, btw) will teach you why you admire particular web sites.
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