Hi there dev.to community,
Are there any resources that you'd recommend to a developer for learning design and UX. I am solo developing products for real users and want to go beyond the basics, want to do better than the bare minimum. My design experience is lacking. I've read books on the theory.
I am looking for material (books or articles/blogs) that is practical and to-the-point about how to apply the theory for each element of design: Font, Color, Spacing/layout
Looking forward tools or resources you'd recommend.
Top comments (6)
Refactoring UI is great and is worth it. Note that besides the book, you also get three video tutorials (redesigning apps).
There are lots of topics covered: hierarchizing elements, designing shadows, spacing, working with colors, images, texts.
The only thing that's missing from my point of view is that you don't learn a design tool such as Sketch or Figma. But if you're looking to step-up your design skills and want to better understand what makes a great UI, go for it.
Try Refactoring UI Book.
What helped me quite a bit is to actually take a step away from digital design.
Graphic design will teach you the basics of everything you‘ll need when designing interfaces.
The advantage is that graphic design in general is much older then UI/UX design. So it will be easy for you to find resources on everything from basic shapes, layouts up to typography and layering.
All of these principles can be applied to your interfaces.
I‘m currently completing the „Graphic Design Masterclass on Udemy“. Even though it teaches you a lot about non UI stuff, the graphic fundamentals section is quite strong.
In addition it will help you when you have to create a poster or your next PowerPoint. ;-)
In my experience,for some reason it's really hard to find practical resources for UI/UX based on the latest research.
I find the best stuff actually comes from the material-ui docs explaining how to do things and the reason behind them (the docs on how to create a dark theme is a great example).
A lot of React's documentation, especially about new features like concurrent and suspense, are based off Facebook's research about creating better UX.
Otherwise medium articles from design publications are okay... But the quality is very variable
Design for Hackers: Reverse Engineering Beauty is a great book. It covers a lot of theory, though. Psychology, etc.