Developers, learn to design!

środa, 6 marca 13

Do you remember building your !rst app?

• You as a one-man-army, responsible for the whole idea, development, design and copywriting

• Stumbling the web to "nd 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:

• It's designers job to provide you designs

• Everyone in the team has his own role in projects, different competences

• We all stick to these narrow "elds and learn to become experts in them

• Team contains developers, designers, project managers, product managers and so on

środa, 6 marca 13

How keeping the competences narrow affects project #ow:

• 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 way

środa, 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 don't have talent", you say.

You don't have to be a freaking Picasso to suggest color change!

środa, 6 marca 13

• Design is not a rocket science. It's 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 it's 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. You'll 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. It's propably the best

framework to make good-looking front-end fast

• Buy "Don't make me think" - it's 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

• Don't invent anything, just copy. Designs don't differ too drastically from accepted aesthetics

środa, 6 marca 13

Thanks! Visit us at blog.123ship.it

środa, 6 marca 13