I am a programmer. By no means would I say I am a designer. I know a few principles and a thing or two about typegraphy. As a result, when designing user interfaces, I really do not know how to start and how to even do this. At work, I don't have this problem, as we have a corporate design. But for my hobby projects, the struggle is real.
How do you (fellow programmers) go about making a useful user design for websites and web applications?
How do the designers among us go about designing websites and web applications (very roughly)? How do you come up with a structure, who or what inspires you?
Firstly, I wouldn't call myself a designer either. I've studied it a bit on my own time, but I'm still a programmer at heart. So maybe take this advice with a grain of salt. :)
For the most part, I think I start with navigation. What does my project need to do, and how could I navigate the different parts of it most efficiently? Should there be a navbar with different options? Tabs? Sidebar menu? Modal dialogs? Etc.
From there, I think most things fall into place for me. The exact style and look of my projects tends to depend on the feel I want for the application itself, but if I'm at a total loss for how I want something to look, I tend to check out sites like behance, dribbble, or codrops for inspiration.
Hi,
@maruru a good place to start learning about User Experience and user interface design is through Steve Krug's excellent and seminal books on Software Usability Design:
Don't Make Me Think, Revisited: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability (Voices That Matter)
I think it's important to realise that User Interface design doesn't have to be a mysterious activity. Realise that User Interfaces need to be people-centric, thus you design user interfaces and user experiences for people. Start from the perspective of your audience and how your audience use software, the best UI designs are self evident, simple and follow good conventions.
Hello @maruru,
As a designer, I can say that the process is subjective and differs from person to person. There are certain conventions you can follow to simplify this process.
My process:
UI/UX design tools:
UI/UX design inspiration sources: