7 ms·

Design for an Audience

74 points by jashkenas 8y ago

keyle 8y ago
Being a designer is being a good communicator first. The rest is applying the gestalt. But it starts with putting yourself in the shoes of the audience and telling a story (visually). This is why, no matter how much technology changes, from Paint shop pro, to Photoshop, to Sketch, to Figma, etc. Nothing scares a designer, because designing is a timeless skills with very few variants over time (gradients / skeuomorphic design / flat / combination ...) It's like how would you like your water, with a slice of lemon or ice? Visual hierarchy, grouping, aligning on grids, contrasts, use of colours and tones, that's the part that's easily learnt. The why is where design is interesting.
- mettamage 8y ago
  You seem like you know a thing or two about design (I took a month UX design course where I came to the same conclusion). How would you go about learning design? I ask this because learning how to code on your own seems -- in a way -- much easier. Just go on the internet, look up the necessary resources et voila, done. But that's not the case with design. So how could one self learn design?
  - galfarragem 8y ago
    You learn design by doing, being criticised and then thinking about it. The learning pace will be very variable depending on your background and time investment. Learning design seems easy because the barriers to entry are almost unexistent: no matter how bad it is, most designs will somehow do the job. By the other hand, to get design skills that can land you a job might not be an easy task. The scale changes the best way to approach design. It matters if it's small scale (web/graphic/product), medium scale (architecture) or large scale (urban) but - with different weights - usability, proportions, trends, psychology/sociology and economics are always relevant. Anyway a good designer will adapt to a different scale within a short time: design is design.
  - mhomde 8y ago
    There are tons of articles and books on design. In the same way you build your toolbox with programming with algorithms, concepts design patterns, best practices, you need to build one for design. Ergonomics, color theory, typography, ergonomics, Fitt's law etc etc. Then work on applying them until you develop and intuition for what's the best solution to a problem. With design, maybe more so than with code, it's a lot about developing good taste. Code can be empirically worse or better but design is a lot of having a point of view and working within self imposed constraints. One book I'd really recommend is "The inmates are running the asylum" by Alan Cooper. It's more about shifting how to think about design rather specifics, but it's one of those books that puts a voice in your head that will help guide a lot of decisions.
  - DoreenMichele 8y ago
    If you are interested in website UX, a classic is "Don't Make Me Think." https://www.sensible.com/dmmt.html https://www.sensible.com/dmmt.html https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don%27t_Make_Me_Think https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don%27t_Make_Me_Think
throwaway_234 8y ago
Design is easy... keep it simple... place stuff where it always is.. use modern fonts(one for headers text and other for paragraphs).. proper spacing ... .. color contrasting colors and one color that is opposite of all others used to highlight x. Also find another designers work you love and use it as a template/for inspiration. I love designing and especially in code. I don’t understand what’s the point of wireframe designers yet I have been rejected by numerous interviews/jobs for being a design coder vs. a wireframe Designer.
- denisw 8y ago
  Try Framer [1]. You're still designing in code, but using a tool that "wireframe" designers can more easily understand and appreciate. Might help with the interviews. :) [1]: https://framer.com/ https://framer.com/
- hammerbrostime 8y ago
  It’s faster to draw a box then to code one. When still getting buy in from the team and testing your ideas with users, the ability to iterate quickly counts
- hemclohumi 8y ago
  Most of the time easy thing is not that easy. It needs proper understanding on user, context, demography etc. Most of the code generating tools creates junk and useless code with random ids which are hard for developers to integrate with logic, he has to change it to make it more semantic. Hence,companies look for specific people when they have a team of html designers separately.

74 points by jashkenas 8y ago

Being a designer is being a good communicator first. The rest is applying the gestalt. But it starts with putting yourself in the shoes of the audience and telling a story (visually). This is why, no matter how much technology changes, from Paint shop pro, to Photoshop, to Sketch, to Figma, etc. Nothing scares a designer, because designing is a timeless skills with very few variants over time (gradients / skeuomorphic design / flat / combination ...) It's like how would you like your water, with a slice of lemon or ice? Visual hierarchy, grouping, aligning on grids, contrasts, use of colours and tones, that's the part that's easily learnt. The why is where design is interesting.

mettamage 8y ago
You seem like you know a thing or two about design (I took a month UX design course where I came to the same conclusion). How would you go about learning design? I ask this because learning how to code on your own seems -- in a way -- much easier. Just go on the internet, look up the necessary resources et voila, done. But that's not the case with design. So how could one self learn design?
- galfarragem 8y ago
  You learn design by doing, being criticised and then thinking about it. The learning pace will be very variable depending on your background and time investment. Learning design seems easy because the barriers to entry are almost unexistent: no matter how bad it is, most designs will somehow do the job. By the other hand, to get design skills that can land you a job might not be an easy task. The scale changes the best way to approach design. It matters if it's small scale (web/graphic/product), medium scale (architecture) or large scale (urban) but - with different weights - usability, proportions, trends, psychology/sociology and economics are always relevant. Anyway a good designer will adapt to a different scale within a short time: design is design.
- mhomde 8y ago
  There are tons of articles and books on design. In the same way you build your toolbox with programming with algorithms, concepts design patterns, best practices, you need to build one for design. Ergonomics, color theory, typography, ergonomics, Fitt's law etc etc. Then work on applying them until you develop and intuition for what's the best solution to a problem. With design, maybe more so than with code, it's a lot about developing good taste. Code can be empirically worse or better but design is a lot of having a point of view and working within self imposed constraints. One book I'd really recommend is "The inmates are running the asylum" by Alan Cooper. It's more about shifting how to think about design rather specifics, but it's one of those books that puts a voice in your head that will help guide a lot of decisions.
- DoreenMichele 8y ago
  If you are interested in website UX, a classic is "Don't Make Me Think." https://www.sensible.com/dmmt.html https://www.sensible.com/dmmt.html https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don%27t_Make_Me_Think https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don%27t_Make_Me_Think

throwaway_234 8y ago

Design is easy... keep it simple... place stuff where it always is.. use modern fonts(one for headers text and other for paragraphs).. proper spacing ... .. color contrasting colors and one color that is opposite of all others used to highlight x. Also find another designers work you love and use it as a template/for inspiration. I love designing and especially in code. I don’t understand what’s the point of wireframe designers yet I have been rejected by numerous interviews/jobs for being a design coder vs. a wireframe Designer.

denisw 8y ago
Try Framer [1]. You're still designing in code, but using a tool that "wireframe" designers can more easily understand and appreciate. Might help with the interviews. :) [1]: https://framer.com/ https://framer.com/
hammerbrostime 8y ago
It’s faster to draw a box then to code one. When still getting buy in from the team and testing your ideas with users, the ability to iterate quickly counts
hemclohumi 8y ago
Most of the time easy thing is not that easy. It needs proper understanding on user, context, demography etc. Most of the code generating tools creates junk and useless code with random ids which are hard for developers to integrate with logic, he has to change it to make it more semantic. Hence,companies look for specific people when they have a team of html designers separately.