[HN Gopher] Ask HN: What are some good resources for a programme...
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Ask HN: What are some good resources for a programmer to learn
UI/UX design?
I am a backend developer and would like to learn about UI design
for modern web applications. I'm thinking of aspects like color
schemes, font sizes, where to place the elements, spacing between
elements, interaction and feedback etc. Are there well known
books, courses or video series that teach web application UI design
in a systematic way?
Author : pramodbiligiri
Score : 55 points
Date : 2021-04-25 11:46 UTC (11 hours ago)
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| _Don 't Make Me Think_
|
| (and no doubt other stuff by the same guy)
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don%27t_Make_Me_Think
| notjustanymike wrote:
| "Information Dashboard Design" by Stephen Few was the book that
| got me rolling. A good mixture of what and why.
| hulitu wrote:
| MacOS style guide.
| cercatrova wrote:
| Refactoring UI is the book that comes to mind, it was made by two
| developers.
| Chris_Newton wrote:
| The _Refactoring UI_ guys have a lot of decent material, though
| they do tend to concentrate on a certain aesthetic that won't
| necessarily produce the most effective UI in all cases. OP is
| specifically interested in modern web applications, so it seems
| like a good fit.
| austinpena wrote:
| I will second refactoring UI. It is how I learned design.
| iudqnolq wrote:
| I can also highly recommend the UI library written by one of
| the authors, Tailwind UI. I got my first job writing a
| dashboard for a nonprofit about a year ago and I was sick of
| fiddling with CSS. $150 later I was flying through writing
| usable interfaces, plus they loved how it looked.
| meitros wrote:
| https://shiftnudge.com/ is very good, but unfortunately doesn't
| open for enrollment for a few more months
| FractalHQ wrote:
| Best way for me has been to just look at websites with good
| designs and take mental notes. It doesn't take long to develop an
| intuition or spot common patterns.
| Scandiravian wrote:
| I really like "the design of everyday things" by Donald Norman.
| It's more focused on design in general, than what you're asking
| for, but I think the fundamentals of design is a prerequisite to
| become a good UX/UI designers
|
| It teaches several ways to prototype design, how to evaluate
| whether your design is efficient, and how to develop a design
| oriented mindset
|
| It not only helped me make better designs, but also made me a
| better coder, because I started thinking about my code as a
| product to be used by others
| jiehong wrote:
| I wholeheartedly recommend this book too!
|
| It does make you see the world differently though, especially
| doors (for a while).
| majewsky wrote:
| I was going to make the same suggestion. This book is one of
| those that seem like the insights presented are mostly trivial
| and obvious, but then you notice that it has completely
| reshaped your perception of a class of problems.
|
| Plus, it's popular enough that there is a good chance you can
| find it at a library. (In fact, the first time I read it, I got
| an older edition from a library. I since bought a newer edition
| to re-read.)
| xyzzy21 wrote:
| I learned it OTJ at HP. There was a "UID" or User Interface
| Design group there we worked with. They were the group that
| invented green/purple keyboard/mouse mapping and similar mapping
| with colored traces mapping to colored controls and colored
| cables for oscilloscopes back in the 1990s.
|
| There are references that were involved in that but none
| individually nor as ensemble is a "systematic" source. So they
| wouldn't really fit your requirement. These range from Card &
| Moran to vendor design guidelines to general industrial design
| concepts.
|
| You will learn the most by "doing" and solving real problems.
| Honestly half the issue is looking at customer use-cases and
| testing with customers which is the ultimate source. Doing it in
| a vacuum or from arbitrary recipes generally doesn't work.
| Customer. Customer. Customer.
|
| My current company has a number of beta customers who are willing
| to try things due to long-term friendship combined with a modest
| discount on the first copies they buy. They are our guinea pigs
| and our inspiration for both problems and opportunities both for
| UI/UX but also intimately tied to product features.
| armagon wrote:
| This site looks useful: https://uxtools.co/challenges/ . There
| are articles as well as challenges. I'm not sure it is
| systematic, but it looks like it covers a number of useful things
| to know.
| thrower123 wrote:
| https://www.ics.uci.edu/~kobsa/courses/ICS104/course-notes/M...
|
| We need to go back
| dyeje wrote:
| Nielsen Norman Group has alot of great short form content. Their
| newsletter sends a couple out each Monday.
| kerzner wrote:
| Check out The Non-Designers Design Book by Robin Williams.
|
| It focuses on four fundamental concepts of graphic design that
| apply to everything visual, including UIs. Its four concepts form
| a language for thinking about the aspects of visual design like
| color schemes, font sizes, spacing, etc.
|
| It has lots of examples and mini design exercises. And you can
| read it in just a few hours.
| brudgers wrote:
| Design is learned by designing.
|
| The systematic starting point is black and white, courier, and
| HTML.
|
| They get you about 90% of this very webpage.
|
| With a lot of iteration of course. Iteration is design's only
| methodology. Unsuccessful is it's predominate conclusion.
| Partially successful is as good as it gets. Running out of time
| is how a design is finished.
|
| Surely read all you can about color theory, typography, and
| composition. All you can about web app organization. But accept
| that none of that is designing. None of it strictly necessary.
| None of it sufficient.
|
| There's no such thing as a design in your head. Good luck.
| philipswood wrote:
| Maybe https://hackdesign.org/
| dmt0 wrote:
| https://jgthms.com/web-design-in-4-minutes/
| thanksforfish wrote:
| Dont make me think is fantastic for removing the mystery around
| usability design. The ideas here are timeless.
|
| https://sensible.com/dont-make-me-think/
| mooreds wrote:
| I also liked "Don't Make Me Think". The version I read was a
| bit older in terms of UI elements, but the principles are, as
| you said, timeless.
|
| The breakdowns of what users are thinking are very helpful.
|
| Another great thing to do in the same vein is to actually watch
| users interact with your software. I have done that multiple
| times and it is just so helpful to see what people are thinking
| and to build empathy.
| david_allison wrote:
| Nielsen Norman Group[0] and their YouTube[1] are a goldmine
|
| "Learn UI Design"[2] provide some really high quality methodical
| videos[3] and content
|
| [0] https://www.nngroup.com/
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2oCugzU6W8-h95W7eBTUEg
|
| [2] https://learnui.design/
|
| [3] https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCakPr8lc7Zcowd8Cp2Uy_Eg
| systemvoltage wrote:
| I second NN Group. It is _by far_ the best resource for UX /UI,
| unfortunately, no one follows it and virtually all UX/UI today
| is filled with issues left and right.
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