Developers, learn design!

Developers, learn to design!środa, 6 marca 13

Do you remember building your first app? • You as a one-man-army, responsible for the whole idea, development, design and copywriting • Stumbling the web to find best templates or designs to reuse • Learning basics of UX and photoshop • An adventure!środa, 6 marca 13

How does it look like in “grown-ups” world: • Its designers job to provide you designs • Everyone in the team has his own role in projects, diﬀerent competences • We all stick to these narrow fields and learn to become experts in them • Team contains developers, designers, project managers, product managers and so onśroda, 6 marca 13

How keeping the competences narrow aﬀects project flow: • Communication ladder: product owner -> project manager -> graphic designer -> developer • It takes time to implement every little change or feature • Process helps you avoid mistakes but slows you down • Communication issues: designers don’t understand developers and the other wayśroda, 6 marca 13

Now imagine that you have competences to work on some small graphic changes and show right away how does it look like in live app. Two minutes instead of two weeks.środa, 6 marca 13

"But I dont have talent", you say. You dont have to be a freaking Picasso to suggest color change!środa, 6 marca 13

• Design is not a rocket science. Its set of rules, just like programming • There are few principles that every team member should know about design • Design does not have to be perfect, good enough is OK • In order to make software development process more eﬃcient we should all share some competences and the design is one of the most important. środa, 6 marca 13

Why to learn? • Do more on your own: Sometimes its easier to make some changes by yourself than delegate it. • Sharing competences make team feels responsibility for the whole project, not only its small part. Youll be surprised how this aﬀects productivity. • Communication: imagine how easier would it be to work with designer that knows basics of code? It works in both directions.środa, 6 marca 13

Stop whining, start learning!środa, 6 marca 13

Where to begin? • Take a look at twitter bootstrap. Its propably the best framework to make good-looking front-end fast • Buy "Dont make me think" - its one of the best books about UX. After you read it, you will know enough to decide what element should be where and why in the app. • Improve your aesthetic eye by stumbling well- designed apps. Just visit sites like Best Web Gallery and Screenalicious • Dont invent anything, just copy. Designs dont diﬀer too drastically from accepted aestheticsśroda, 6 marca 13

Thanks! Visit us at blog.123ship.itśroda, 6 marca 13

https://twitter.com	99
https://www.rebelmouse.com	19
http://1kpl.us	2
https://abs.twimg.com	1
http://www.twylah.com	1

Developers, learn design!

by 123ship.it on Mar 06, 2013

Accessibility

Categories

Upload Details

Usage Rights

5 Embeds 122

Statistics