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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

#211

Post by sbuk »

somat wrote: post #189
Uehreka wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Conversely, A lot of time something looks good "because" it works well. I had one old structural engineer spend a great deal of time trying to convince me that beautiful bridges were stronger than than ugly bridges. because our ideas of beauty are so tied to what works well. I am not entirely convinced, I have seen the sins some of these so called designers do in the name of "looking good" but I do see his point.

I’d argue that the elegance of a design solution—engineers design things—is what the structural engineer was referring to. The next question is what is elegance in regards to a solution to a problem? Simplicity? Economy, both financial and technical? Aesthetic? The difficulty we have is that few people agree. When I studied industrial design in the early nineties, we were taught that design is merely the process of solving a problem. In fact, when dissecting a brief, the first goal is to establish the problem that needs solving is. The aim of a designer (or indeed an engineer) should be to incorporate all three elements that I mentioned. Sadly, those that struggle with the aesthetic, dismiss it’s importance out of hand.

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

#212

Post by thisOtterBeGood »

somat wrote: post #189
Uehreka wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Conversely, A lot of time something looks good "because" it works well. I had one old structural engineer spend a great deal of time trying to convince me that beautiful bridges were stronger than than ugly bridges. because our ideas of beauty are so tied to what works well. I am not entirely convinced, I have seen the sins some of these so called designers do in the name of "looking good" but I do see his point.

Many people (including me mostly) don't understand why their eyes feel something as "good-looking" or "beauty". It boils down to symmetry being a big part of it, and sometimes symmetry creates working solution. A bridge being the perfect example for that since you need to balance the weight between both sides of the bridge it's easy to get this while also "looking good". But I believe symmetry is not the only thing our brain accounts to beauty. I would love to know more about that topic.

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

#213

Post by dusted »

I guess articles like these are why everything seems bland, flat and unfinished.

I disagree on the aesthetics. Borders make it look nice and good. When in doubt, add another border.

I think it's an interesting perspective, I've heard it before "you're a developer, so what you think looks good does not look good: Your sense of beauty does not count. It does not matter what you prefer, because you're a developer, and your sense of, your preferred aesthetics are to be disregarded-"

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

#214

Post by Zardoz84 »

asoneth wrote: post #19
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…

I think you deal with bad designers the same way you deal with bad developers. Try not to hire them in the first place, fire them if you can, and if you're stuck with them try to make sure they are occupied with tasks that will not cause too much overall damage.

or use "ugly arm" method (I don't know if this is the correct English name of this). Ir, show to they two options. First a obviously ugly option that nobody would use. Then, show your desired option. They would use your desired option, perhaps with some minor changes, and they feel that did something.

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

#215

Post by illiarian »

TuringTest wrote: post #209
illiarian wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No, it is not. Yes, it is. If it's about how it looks, then it's illustration, not design. > how it looks and how it works are usually two different job functions. Again, no. If you skip functionality in your design, you will end up with an unusable product.

But if you skip the looks in your design, you'll end up with a product that works worse. It may not look rational, but then humans do not have a 100% rational behaviour. https://lawsofux.com/aesthetic-usability-effect/

It's not an either-or ;)

Edit: don't also forget, that after initial perception comes the actual usage.

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

#216

Post by doctor_eval »

illiarian wrote: post #205
esafak wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UX often involves research and customer interaction. UI is more straight up visual design, informed by the UX research. The same person might not do both. Do you think they should?

Yes. Yes, they should. A person who does UI and doesn't have first-hand experience on what customers want and do is not a UI designer. That person is a dribbble illustrator.

I remember clearly the first time I ever heard the term “UX”. It was condescending explained by some guy from Google to a quite technical audience of telcos, many years ago. For reasons I couldn’t explain, it pissed me off.

Later, they produced Material Design.

The prosecution rests, your honour.

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

#217

Post by KronisLV »

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…

> I'd like to hear any strategy one has to deal with that. I have taken up Figma and Sketch so I can meet them "where they are" but still, plenty of disagreements can happen.

One option would be to use a premade design system or a component library/framework that gives you a consistent look and feel, most of those design decisions having a good enough baseline. Then just add a color theme and some branding on top of it and call it a day. It will also increase your development velocity and save you from some pixel pushing.

For an example of this, consider PrimeFaces: https://www.primefaces.org/

They have working components that are good enough (and support multiple themes, if need be), their own icon solution and also a CSS utility library, including stuff like layouts. For most projects it'll be enough to create something that works and looks okay.

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

#218

Post by doctor_eval »

esafak wrote: post #204
illiarian wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish that whoever made this "distinction" never made it. Because now people just blindly repeat this, and it makes no sense . UI (user interface) is a part of UX (user *experience).

UX often involves research and customer interaction. UI is more straight up visual design, informed by the UX research. The same person might not do both. Do you think they should?

Apple famously did many years of intense user testing to develop their HIG (and maybe still do?). I’m pretty sure xerox did too, and all the other UI researchers many years ago. Maybe even Microsoft did :)

In any case, it contradicts your claim, since all this user research was way, way before UX was a thing.

Honestly I just got the feeling that the phrase UI had become stale and UX was just seen as a way for a new generation to put their mark on the world.

Nothing wrong with that, of course.

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

#219

Post by thiht »

chillbill wrote: post #2

Looking at the first example given I think this book is the one missing the mark. I genuinely have trouble when things have less borders! I don’t care about things designed to seem nice, I want them to be usable!

I came to the comments specifically to talk about this first example. I also think the left design is not a bad design. It's just a different style, but both are valid. Maybe the one on the right is more trendy but that's it.

The other examples are more sensible, but this specific one is just the author forgetting about subjectivity.

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

#220

Post by thiht »

BiteCode_dev wrote: post #33
chillbill wrote: post #2

Looking at the first example given I think this book is the one missing the mark. I genuinely have trouble when things have less borders! I don’t care about things designed to seem nice, I want them to be usable!

Same, I really prefer the design on the left. Easier to see things, and it makes you feel you can click on elements.

> it makes you feel you can click on elements

This is not intrinsic to the design, just a force of habit. The design on the right looks perfectly clickable to me.

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