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Rules for developers to design beautiful UIs without a designer

refactoringui.com

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Re: Rules for developers to design beautiful UIs without a designer

#111

Post by karaterobot »

As a designer (and former developer) my objection to this is semantic. It's not possible to design beautiful UIs without a designer. The reason is: the designer was you all along. If you are doing design, even half-heartedly, even without knowing it, you are the designer.

The relevant questions when it comes to "beautiful UI" are: do you give a shit, and do you have the skill to execute on giving a shit. Most people don't, thus the profession.

This book seems to assume the former is true, and wants to give some quick tips on how you can fake the latter. I'm skeptical of this approach, in the same way I'd be skeptical of someone who said "here are 10 tips to make a good program without learning to program". Skeptical, not offended.

I'm interpreting the word "beautiful" generously. Beautiful in the same way an equation or algorithm can be beautiful: not just — or even primarily — esthetic, but beautiful in the sense of doing what it's meant to do about as well as can be done. Beauty, truth; truth, beauty, etc.

Design is very interesting. I always saw it as a part of engineering: both are interested in finding the optimal solution given a set of constraints and requirements. The tool chain is different, granted. To me, it's fun, and not something I'd want to skip over. See giving a shit, above.

Re: Rules for developers to design beautiful UIs without a designer

#112

Post by petilon »

doctor_eval wrote: post #106
petilon wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My comments are based on experience working on projects where some designers (who went to art school) heard Steve Jobs say "design is how it works, not how it looks" and then decided that they own the "how it works" part. The result, from what I have seen, is disastrous. Functional design (how it works) and visual design (how it looks) is really two different job functions. You don't need an art degree or even be goo…

Jobs said, "In most people's vocabularies, design means veneer. It's interior decorating. It's the fabric of the curtains of the sofa. But to me, nothing could be further from the meaning of design. Design is the fundamental soul of a human-made creation that ends up expressing itself in successive outer layers of the product or service." Design is not just one thing or another. It happens at each layer. From decidin…

> Design is not just one thing or another. It happens at each layer.

I think we are in agreement. "How it works" is design. "How it looks" is also design. Sometimes, but not usually, one person may be able to do both types of design.

Re: Rules for developers to design beautiful UIs without a designer

#115

Post by threatofrain »

Uehreka wrote: post #109
pazimzadeh wrote: post #49

Design is how it works, not how it looks. This article seems to mainly be talking about the "polish" of a design. There are more important principles which don't have anything to do with polish, such as not putting the Cancel button next to the Ok button. More like this: https://lawsofux.com https://asktog.com/atc/principles-of-interaction-design/ https://www.nngroup.com/articles I recommend prototyping the flow/feel…

> Design is how it works, not how it looks. After over a decade of people jumping into these discussions with this line, I’ve gotta push back: Design is also how things look, and how things look can be important. Consumers care about how things look. If we dismiss presentation and drive people towards UX stuff every time it comes up, then the people we talk to are going to end up having good ideas that no one buys be…

I'd also note that despite Jakob Nielsen's prominence nobody designs like he suggests. We should be open to the idea that beauty and delight may be more important than usability or features.

Re: Rules for developers to design beautiful UIs without a designer

#116

Post by tmtvl »

waldothedog wrote: post #92
tmtvl wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You gotta admit that it looks good I don't have to, and I'm not going to because it looks like crap. Why is "Cancel" just a word instead of a button? And while "Invite" is marginally better, a rounded rectangle is not much of a button either and doesn't immediately signify "oh, I can click this". I know some people prefer flat and featureless design (and there are jokes we could make about that), but that is very p…

What would “immediately” signify the ability to be clicked? And to whom would this sign have such a meaning?

Styling to make it look like a button which is jutting out would signify the option for interaction to anyone who's ever seen a device with physical buttons, like a keyboard, smartphone, television, remote control,...

Re: Rules for developers to design beautiful UIs without a designer

#117

Post by munk-a »

411111111111111 wrote: post #41
chankstein38 wrote: post #34

Honestly their first concrete example, with fewer borders, is something that bothers me a lot on the internet today. Cool everything looks flat and like part of everything else. That's not hard to go down through a giant list of or anything... /s

The goal was beautiful design, not good usability. You gotta admit that it looks good, and eye candy is usually extremely effective for user retention, even if the alternative handles better, technically.

Good usability is beautiful. Valuing aesthetics over functionality is ugly.

Re: Rules for developers to design beautiful UIs without a designer

#118

Post by lambdasquirrel »

Uehreka wrote: post #109
pazimzadeh wrote: post #49

Design is how it works, not how it looks. This article seems to mainly be talking about the "polish" of a design. There are more important principles which don't have anything to do with polish, such as not putting the Cancel button next to the Ok button. More like this: https://lawsofux.com https://asktog.com/atc/principles-of-interaction-design/ https://www.nngroup.com/articles I recommend prototyping the flow/feel…

> Design is how it works, not how it looks. After over a decade of people jumping into these discussions with this line, I’ve gotta push back: Design is also how things look, and how things look can be important. Consumers care about how things look. If we dismiss presentation and drive people towards UX stuff every time it comes up, then the people we talk to are going to end up having good ideas that no one buys be…

People tend to take care of things that are both well put together and beautiful.

Re: Rules for developers to design beautiful UIs without a designer

#119

Post by codedokode »

deckard1 wrote: post #76
clumsysmurf wrote: post #7

Often the bad designs come from the designers themselves. Just as software developers often fall prey to "NIH", many designers feel the established design systems like Material are insufficient for some reason. That is OK, if you know the rules you can break them, but often they don't know the rules either (grid system, typography, color for accessibility) and want to make "their own mark" with some new creation that…

> not know what to do with empty space every PM everywhere. They simply cannot leave good enough alone. Eventually every site A/B tests its way until it becomes Reddit mobile site. No one asked for carousels but sites continue to use them. We are getting inundated with popups today. I don't want to say it's as bad as 1990s flash ad popups. But it's getting damn close now. Bullshit cookie popups. "This site is better…

Google popup is one of the worst, it often covers useful content, the only one that is worse is full-screen "give us your email" popup.

Re: Rules for developers to design beautiful UIs without a designer

#120

Post by BalinKing »

pazimzadeh wrote: post #49

Design is how it works, not how it looks. This article seems to mainly be talking about the "polish" of a design. There are more important principles which don't have anything to do with polish, such as not putting the Cancel button next to the Ok button. More like this: https://lawsofux.com https://asktog.com/atc/principles-of-interaction-design/ https://www.nngroup.com/articles I recommend prototyping the flow/feel…

This criticism feels fairly ironic, since the first guideline at lawsofux.com is the “Aesthetic–Usability Effect: “Users often perceive aesthetically pleasing design as design that’s more usable” (https://lawsofux.com/aesthetic-usability-effect/).
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