#QuickCuppa - Design tips for developers Part One

UIT 7: In this weeks episode I share five fundamental tips aimed at developers who want to build their design skills and design appreciation.

Think and plan
As a developer, you wouldn't start building an app or Website without some planning! It's the same for design. Give it the time it deserves.

Establish requirements...

So before jumping straight to the code, establish a plan. I'd suggest downloading and printing out some gridded PDFs, but using sticky notes, a whiteboard, or sketching in a notepad are all great options. Don't skip this step even if you think you have all the details in your head. When you finalize your wireframes, review it and you will probably notice you are missing something.

Develop a solid understanding of UX principles
One of the most important tips I can give is to get a decent understanding of user experience design. If you can always design with the user in mind, and not your own personal preference (because you aren't usually the target audience) then the slightly less important user interface design will be able to absorb some perhaps more quirky design choices. This might seem like common sense, but I've worked with many CEOs, product owners, project managers and developers who don't appreciate the value of good UX, and it shows.

There are a series of ‘laws' associated with UX design, and I'd recommend digesting these over time. Pick one a day and keep it in your mind throughout your work day.

'Laws of UX' defines twenty laws, with a few examples being:

• Aesthetic Usability Effect: Users often perceive aesthetically pleasing design as design that's more usable.
• Fitts's Law: The time to acquire a target is a function of the distance to and size of the target.
• Law of Proximity: Objects that are near, or proximate to each other, tend to be grouped together.
• Law of Similarity: The human eye tends to perceive similar elements in a design as a complete picture, shape, or group, even if those elements are separated.

Use a colour palette
Unless you've studied colour theory, colour harmony doesn't come naturally to most of us. And trying to come up with colour combinations that complement one another during the design process can be a real bottleneck to beautiful aesthetics or at least seriously slow down the process whilst you try to work out if this colours works here and there... As a solid starting point for a new project I'd suggest a tool like Coolors, and check their Trending palettes... which gives you seemingly endless options.

Over time, you'll develop your own preferences and learn to recognise which colours complement each other, but this is a great starting point...

Full show notes available at https://uitherapy.fm/episodes/7

Links

• Laws of UX
• Sneakpeekit
• Free Online Graph Paper
• Gridzzly
• Coolors
• Canva
• Colormind
• Adobe Color
• Designer News
• Codepen
• Dribbble
• Awwwards
• Episode 4

Full show notes available at https://uitherapy.fm/episodes/7

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