I think most of HN users who fit that description (wanting to self-educate if you lack a formal design education) are programmers. To these i say: learning des

I think most of HN users who fit that description (wanting to self-educate if you lack a formal design education) are programmers. To these i say: learning design is good and valuable, but if you want to learn design because you want your next websites or web apps to look good, IMHO you'll be better off outsourcing to a designer who spent years studying these things (you won't become a great designer overnight). For a couple hundred dollars you can find somebody (good) on odesk to design a couple pages that would look much better than a starting designer could do.