9 ms·

Can't Code? Learn Design.

101 points by prajjwal 14y ago

radley 14y ago
The middle option is (was?) learn Flash. You get a bit of both sides and can complete projects by yourself.
- Smudge 14y ago
  You can't complete non-flash projects by yourself?
  - mhartl 14y ago
    I think what radley means is that Flash is an all-in-one solution, whereas to finish a non-Flash project you would have to master HTML, CSS, a back-end web framework, and perhaps some JavaScript as well.
  - dredmorbius 14y ago
    I suspect the point is more that Flash enables one to tackle both code and design with a single toolset.
- TazeTSchnitzel 14y ago
  You know, before I tried Flash programming I would have agreed with you. But Flash has been painfully awkward every time I've tried it (for programming). HTML5, if learned from good resources, using good tools, is much nicer for the programming side.
- tsahyt 14y ago
  I'm probably making an ass out of my self now but: For the love of god, please don't learn Flash! People learning Flash have given birth to the worst parts of the web. There's a reason why everybody wants to get rid of it.
mikeryan 14y ago
Just to extend this statement a bit. There's 2 related but different skills in design. User Experience and Visual Design. Visual Design is one of those things where the best designers do have a innate artistic ability. There is a certain level of talent in this area which you're just born with. UX however is a skill which can be taught and learned and is a phenomenal skill for a product guy, learning to do Information Architecture, UX etc. is very doable. BTW Not all visual designers are good at UX. Those that are talented at both aspects of design are pretty much unicorns. A spot to get started http://www.uxforthemasses.com/ux-books/ http://www.uxforthemasses.com/ux-books/
- quaunaut 14y ago
  In fact, I'd go so far as to say that the vast majority of design people are horrible at UX. Not that programmers are any better, but in general, industry standards of UX is incredibly poor.
- rednum 14y ago
  Can you elaborate about this fields? What kind of problems belong to VD and what to UX (possibly with examples of good and bad desing/ux)? I'm a coder (cs student) genuinely interested in learning some design skills, but I'm not quite sure what areas exactly to pursue.
  - bbatha 14y ago
    If your school offers it take a course in human computer interaction this will teach the fundamentals of UX such as designing menus to be intuitive and efficient.
  - SoftwareMaven 14y ago
    UX is about how people interact with a product. Visual design is about what they see while interacting. So UX will guide you towards what features are important and ways of exposing those features so the end user has the best experience. UX also tends to focus on testing assumptions. Visual design will guide you towards making sure the elements on the page are aestheticly pleasing and that they communicate what is trying to communicated. Google is famous for testing it's shade of blue, but, IMO, great design can't be tested, but rather comes from a designer understanding her audience and the story she is trying to tell.
unfoldedorigami 14y ago
I agree with the commenter's initial point that learning any amount of programming will help a non-technical person to understand and better contribute to a technical startup or organization significantly. What I'm worried about is that non-technical people will skim this article and think that design is easier than coding. There's a rabbit hole in every discipline and my experience has been that the attributes that makes someone a decent programmer are usually the same attributes that makes someone a decent designer. In fact, I'd go as far to say that the attributes that make anyone decent at anything are usually the same for anything else. So if you "want to learn to code" and for some reason cannot, then I'm going to bet you have other issues that prevents you from doing so, which is the sentiment Dan Shipper (the original comment this poster was responding to) basically attributed to "false constraints." I guess the argument comes down to believing that coding (like most people believe about design) requires some innate talent to be able to do it. And while I believe that might be the case to be great at it, I truly do believe almost everyone should be able to learn to code (or design) if they truly want it enough. Like with anything, I prefer people not to go into a field if they're not passionate about it. Don't code if you're not into it. And don't come into design because it's Plan B. Code because you love it. Design because you can't get enough of it. If you're non-technical and your passionate about wanting to build technical things, then you really only have one avenue for that outlet if you can't somehow convince others to help build those things for you and that's learn it the hard way.
- mnicole 14y ago
  Thank you for saying this far more eloquently and admittedly less emotionally than I had originally written in the reply I decided not to post. I love LCTHW, but as a designer, this post was a little offensive to me - it read as "Well, if you can't do the hard stuff, do the easy stuff." Basically, my gist was that web design is already overwhelmed with people that used it as a backup plan - be it print designers, graphic designers or general artists that realized the former two were all moving into web and that's where the money was. The outcome of this can be seen across the web; information hierarchy and complementary interaction design take a backseat to overdone graphics and bad UX. If you're going to be designing for code, you're going to need to understand code, particularly CSS/JavaScript capabilities and fallbacks. It will make you a better designer and possibly help you transition into the dev you wanted to be.
spydertennis 14y ago
A point the article misses is that design is very conceptually similar to code. If you can design something it can almost always be coded and you will have a fantastic understanding of how it all works. (I'm thinking more towards UX design than aesthetic design.)
rjzzleep 14y ago
well he's right, and his analogy is perfect. i once again in fact yesterday, had someone wanting me to build his business for free. after agreeing that i get a share of the revenue for cutting my rate in half and giving them my services, which are actually the result of 18 years of experience. the point is, op is wrong in his belief that people will ever understand the value of what they ask for if they want it for free. lesson hard learned. i'm actually thinking about putting together an opensource contract that everybody should fork and edit to give a working framework to people that keep getting cheated over their expertise. but, i completely agree with the article itself.
ilaksh 14y ago
>If you can lay out all the major screens and the design then that’s worth its weight in gold. Design is also just about as hard to find as programming. I am going to put myself out there by honestly saying that, as a programmer, I have never understood why people believe the above statement, and I disagree. Please don't take this as a negative comment (I know people will, which is why most people would not write a comment like this). I am just trying to understand. I'm sorry, but I don't believe its worth its weight in gold. Here is the starting point for my perspective: 1. An analyst, customer, boss, or someone who is not a programmer, describes in words what they want the software to do. I take that description and spend a couple of days building a prototype web application. I don't create the screens in Photoshop first because A) it will take longer and B) I'm not trying to create the ultimate user experience, I am trying to build functional software that we can start getting feedback and iterating on. 2. Analyst, customer, boss, designer, or someone who is not a programmer, looks at the prototype, may or may not acknowledge that the software now has the primary functionality requested, and starts criticizing the appearance or user experience. Its actually easy for him to find flaws: its not very attractive (there was no time invested in making it attractive) and some use cases could involve fewer clicks. 2A. Here is the issue I have: it really seems to me that a significant portion of people believe at that point that the programmer was unable to conceive of an attractive design or shortcuts that would improve the user experience, and that is the context and justification for the entire field of design. Anyway here is my experience: if you can't code, then you probably cannot actually create a better user experience than me. If I am given time to work on a design, then I will optimize the user experience as much as possible given the features of the software platform and budget. If there really aren't budget or time constraints then I can disregard the inner workings of the platform to some degree because I know I will have time to code whatever interface I can conceive of. Maybe some designers can help me understand.
- stevoyoung 14y ago
  Rather than trying to answer this here I'll point to a great definition of what UX design actually is. Hint, it's not "laying out a page" or "painting the picture". http://uxdesign.com/ux-defined http://uxdesign.com/ux-defined If you can do all of the above and you are a rock star developer, my friend, you are a rare breed. Why not go straight to code? Iterating through conceptual ideas via sketches, wireframes, research etc to get an experience correct is a million times more effective and efficient than iterating through it in code.
suyash 14y ago
Can't design, LEARN UX
riffic 14y ago
code and design aren't two separate ideas.

101 points by prajjwal 14y ago

radley 14y ago

The middle option is (was?) learn Flash. You get a bit of both sides and can complete projects by yourself.

Smudge 14y ago
You can't complete non-flash projects by yourself?
- mhartl 14y ago
  I think what radley means is that Flash is an all-in-one solution, whereas to finish a non-Flash project you would have to master HTML, CSS, a back-end web framework, and perhaps some JavaScript as well.
- dredmorbius 14y ago
  I suspect the point is more that Flash enables one to tackle both code and design with a single toolset.
TazeTSchnitzel 14y ago
You know, before I tried Flash programming I would have agreed with you. But Flash has been painfully awkward every time I've tried it (for programming). HTML5, if learned from good resources, using good tools, is much nicer for the programming side.
tsahyt 14y ago
I'm probably making an ass out of my self now but: For the love of god, please don't learn Flash! People learning Flash have given birth to the worst parts of the web. There's a reason why everybody wants to get rid of it.

mikeryan 14y ago

Just to extend this statement a bit. There's 2 related but different skills in design. User Experience and Visual Design. Visual Design is one of those things where the best designers do have a innate artistic ability. There is a certain level of talent in this area which you're just born with. UX however is a skill which can be taught and learned and is a phenomenal skill for a product guy, learning to do Information Architecture, UX etc. is very doable. BTW Not all visual designers are good at UX. Those that are talented at both aspects of design are pretty much unicorns. A spot to get started http://www.uxforthemasses.com/ux-books/ http://www.uxforthemasses.com/ux-books/

quaunaut 14y ago
In fact, I'd go so far as to say that the vast majority of design people are horrible at UX. Not that programmers are any better, but in general, industry standards of UX is incredibly poor.
rednum 14y ago
Can you elaborate about this fields? What kind of problems belong to VD and what to UX (possibly with examples of good and bad desing/ux)? I'm a coder (cs student) genuinely interested in learning some design skills, but I'm not quite sure what areas exactly to pursue.
- bbatha 14y ago
  If your school offers it take a course in human computer interaction this will teach the fundamentals of UX such as designing menus to be intuitive and efficient.
- SoftwareMaven 14y ago
  UX is about how people interact with a product. Visual design is about what they see while interacting. So UX will guide you towards what features are important and ways of exposing those features so the end user has the best experience. UX also tends to focus on testing assumptions. Visual design will guide you towards making sure the elements on the page are aestheticly pleasing and that they communicate what is trying to communicated. Google is famous for testing it's shade of blue, but, IMO, great design can't be tested, but rather comes from a designer understanding her audience and the story she is trying to tell.

unfoldedorigami 14y ago

I agree with the commenter's initial point that learning any amount of programming will help a non-technical person to understand and better contribute to a technical startup or organization significantly. What I'm worried about is that non-technical people will skim this article and think that design is easier than coding. There's a rabbit hole in every discipline and my experience has been that the attributes that makes someone a decent programmer are usually the same attributes that makes someone a decent designer. In fact, I'd go as far to say that the attributes that make anyone decent at anything are usually the same for anything else. So if you "want to learn to code" and for some reason cannot, then I'm going to bet you have other issues that prevents you from doing so, which is the sentiment Dan Shipper (the original comment this poster was responding to) basically attributed to "false constraints." I guess the argument comes down to believing that coding (like most people believe about design) requires some innate talent to be able to do it. And while I believe that might be the case to be great at it, I truly do believe almost everyone should be able to learn to code (or design) if they truly want it enough. Like with anything, I prefer people not to go into a field if they're not passionate about it. Don't code if you're not into it. And don't come into design because it's Plan B. Code because you love it. Design because you can't get enough of it. If you're non-technical and your passionate about wanting to build technical things, then you really only have one avenue for that outlet if you can't somehow convince others to help build those things for you and that's learn it the hard way.

mnicole 14y ago
Thank you for saying this far more eloquently and admittedly less emotionally than I had originally written in the reply I decided not to post. I love LCTHW, but as a designer, this post was a little offensive to me - it read as "Well, if you can't do the hard stuff, do the easy stuff." Basically, my gist was that web design is already overwhelmed with people that used it as a backup plan - be it print designers, graphic designers or general artists that realized the former two were all moving into web and that's where the money was. The outcome of this can be seen across the web; information hierarchy and complementary interaction design take a backseat to overdone graphics and bad UX. If you're going to be designing for code, you're going to need to understand code, particularly CSS/JavaScript capabilities and fallbacks. It will make you a better designer and possibly help you transition into the dev you wanted to be.

spydertennis 14y ago

A point the article misses is that design is very conceptually similar to code. If you can design something it can almost always be coded and you will have a fantastic understanding of how it all works. (I'm thinking more towards UX design than aesthetic design.)

rjzzleep 14y ago

well he's right, and his analogy is perfect. i once again in fact yesterday, had someone wanting me to build his business for free. after agreeing that i get a share of the revenue for cutting my rate in half and giving them my services, which are actually the result of 18 years of experience. the point is, op is wrong in his belief that people will ever understand the value of what they ask for if they want it for free. lesson hard learned. i'm actually thinking about putting together an opensource contract that everybody should fork and edit to give a working framework to people that keep getting cheated over their expertise. but, i completely agree with the article itself.

ilaksh 14y ago

>If you can lay out all the major screens and the design then that’s worth its weight in gold. Design is also just about as hard to find as programming. I am going to put myself out there by honestly saying that, as a programmer, I have never understood why people believe the above statement, and I disagree. Please don't take this as a negative comment (I know people will, which is why most people would not write a comment like this). I am just trying to understand. I'm sorry, but I don't believe its worth its weight in gold. Here is the starting point for my perspective: 1. An analyst, customer, boss, or someone who is not a programmer, describes in words what they want the software to do. I take that description and spend a couple of days building a prototype web application. I don't create the screens in Photoshop first because A) it will take longer and B) I'm not trying to create the ultimate user experience, I am trying to build functional software that we can start getting feedback and iterating on. 2. Analyst, customer, boss, designer, or someone who is not a programmer, looks at the prototype, may or may not acknowledge that the software now has the primary functionality requested, and starts criticizing the appearance or user experience. Its actually easy for him to find flaws: its not very attractive (there was no time invested in making it attractive) and some use cases could involve fewer clicks. 2A. Here is the issue I have: it really seems to me that a significant portion of people believe at that point that the programmer was unable to conceive of an attractive design or shortcuts that would improve the user experience, and that is the context and justification for the entire field of design. Anyway here is my experience: if you can't code, then you probably cannot actually create a better user experience than me. If I am given time to work on a design, then I will optimize the user experience as much as possible given the features of the software platform and budget. If there really aren't budget or time constraints then I can disregard the inner workings of the platform to some degree because I know I will have time to code whatever interface I can conceive of. Maybe some designers can help me understand.

stevoyoung 14y ago
Rather than trying to answer this here I'll point to a great definition of what UX design actually is. Hint, it's not "laying out a page" or "painting the picture". http://uxdesign.com/ux-defined http://uxdesign.com/ux-defined If you can do all of the above and you are a rock star developer, my friend, you are a rare breed. Why not go straight to code? Iterating through conceptual ideas via sketches, wireframes, research etc to get an experience correct is a million times more effective and efficient than iterating through it in code.

suyash 14y ago

Can't design, LEARN UX

riffic 14y ago

code and design aren't two separate ideas.