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Back end developers can make good looking web apps too – FullyBearded

44 points by xcubic 5y ago

samspenc 5y ago
Never heard of Heroicons before (looks like they're made by the same company that makes the other products listed on the website.) But I've used FontAwesome before which I believe (or hope) is still the industry standard for free icons: https://fontawesome.com/ https://fontawesome.com/ . Not sure if Heroicons or something else has displaced it in popularity rankings. The other products -- Unsplash for photos, Undraw for illustrations -- were pretty cool references though and I'll be bookmarking them. Does anyone know if there are other resources for photos & illustrations that are popular among web developers?
- xcubic 5y ago
  Completely forgot about FontAwesome. Will add it to the list!
snarkypixel 5y ago
I highly recommend refactoringUI if you're a dev looking for practical advices on how to make better UI. Also, from experience, back-end folks often think of UI as fancy color scheme, but imho what they most often get wrong is proportion and spacing, so this is probably where I'd start to improve. For instance, read on visual hierarchy and white space.
- xcubic 5y ago
  refactoringUI seems like a good resource. Will add it. Thanks!
threatofrain 5y ago
This is more of an advertisement to signup for a newsletter and barely a blog… I wonder what xcubic got out of it. There’s barely any research in this post.
- joshmn 5y ago
  xcubic and the article's author do appear to have some relation if you follow the links in their bio.
  - xcubic 5y ago
    We are in fact the same and this is a broad overview how I do this. I plan to go more in depth in future articles by either 1) customizing bootstrap properly or 2) how to use tailwind
wildrhythms 5y ago
I love Tailwind, it's a valuable tool, I use it every day in my job, but, it requires quite a bit of preliminary understanding of CSS rules to use effectively. The author mentions this, but I feel it's worth repeating. Bootstrap is a lot more robust to prettify a "programmer UI", especially in the area of forms and inputs.
- sebmellen 5y ago
  One of my favorite things about Tailwind is the documentation. You’re right that you need to understand CSS, but if you know what you need in vanilla CSS you can find it in an instant in the Tailwind docs. Then it gradually becomes second-nature.
smoe 5y ago
I feel, these days making a web app look reasonably good is the easy part. Plenty of templates, color schemes, etc paid or free to pick from. The hard part is actually getting a good user experience. Which is just in part learning about and applying research done in this area, and on the other fighting off all the trash people want to shove into the app for engagement and growth.
- antegamisou 5y ago
  > I feel, these days making a web app look reasonably good is the easy part Making it look good & not bloated still remains a challenge.
jacobsenscott 5y ago
Keep it simple -stick with the defaults. This is the right advice for everyone professional designer or not.

44 points by xcubic 5y ago

Never heard of Heroicons before (looks like they're made by the same company that makes the other products listed on the website.) But I've used FontAwesome before which I believe (or hope) is still the industry standard for free icons: https://fontawesome.com/ https://fontawesome.com/ . Not sure if Heroicons or something else has displaced it in popularity rankings. The other products -- Unsplash for photos, Undraw for illustrations -- were pretty cool references though and I'll be bookmarking them. Does anyone know if there are other resources for photos & illustrations that are popular among web developers?

xcubic 5y ago
Completely forgot about FontAwesome. Will add it to the list!

snarkypixel 5y ago

I highly recommend refactoringUI if you're a dev looking for practical advices on how to make better UI. Also, from experience, back-end folks often think of UI as fancy color scheme, but imho what they most often get wrong is proportion and spacing, so this is probably where I'd start to improve. For instance, read on visual hierarchy and white space.

xcubic 5y ago
refactoringUI seems like a good resource. Will add it. Thanks!

threatofrain 5y ago

This is more of an advertisement to signup for a newsletter and barely a blog… I wonder what xcubic got out of it. There’s barely any research in this post.

joshmn 5y ago
xcubic and the article's author do appear to have some relation if you follow the links in their bio.
- xcubic 5y ago
  We are in fact the same and this is a broad overview how I do this. I plan to go more in depth in future articles by either 1) customizing bootstrap properly or 2) how to use tailwind

wildrhythms 5y ago

I love Tailwind, it's a valuable tool, I use it every day in my job, but, it requires quite a bit of preliminary understanding of CSS rules to use effectively. The author mentions this, but I feel it's worth repeating. Bootstrap is a lot more robust to prettify a "programmer UI", especially in the area of forms and inputs.

sebmellen 5y ago
One of my favorite things about Tailwind is the documentation. You’re right that you need to understand CSS, but if you know what you need in vanilla CSS you can find it in an instant in the Tailwind docs. Then it gradually becomes second-nature.

smoe 5y ago

I feel, these days making a web app look reasonably good is the easy part. Plenty of templates, color schemes, etc paid or free to pick from. The hard part is actually getting a good user experience. Which is just in part learning about and applying research done in this area, and on the other fighting off all the trash people want to shove into the app for engagement and growth.

antegamisou 5y ago
> I feel, these days making a web app look reasonably good is the easy part Making it look good & not bloated still remains a challenge.

jacobsenscott 5y ago

Keep it simple -stick with the defaults. This is the right advice for everyone professional designer or not.