At last month’s @UXLagos meetup the inquiry into predictable websites and design brought up the usual suspects, blaming the abuse of responsive grid design, platform constraints and, front-end design frameworks like Twitter’s bootstrap and Zurb’s foundation however there are other determining factors to be considered.
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Reminds me of this post I saw the other day:
The comments are really insightful. Some folks mentioned things about the market maturing and a certain layout ‘becoming standard’. I think all the reasons are valid. Honestly I’m still seeing people doing imaginative stuff even within that layout. All you have to do is take a look at Dribbble. For instance, this is one of my favourite companies on there.
Coming from the perspective of someone who’s progressed from pure graphic design to frontend to the backend over the years I started learning more because I wanted to be able to do more with my design myself. And also, honestly, many backend folks simply couldn’t/wouldn’t transform my ideas to code the way I envisioned it. Nowadays, you’ll find many articles encouraging designers to know some level of code for this reason. If I don’t like the curve on a rounded button I want to know that I can open the file and adjust that thing myself. I’ll always prefer frontend work to the backend, but I can’t deny the independence having a knowledge of both gives me.
I will also say that mental laziness is a problem. There are a lot of developers (who have no real background in design) who have a mind of ‘why re-invent the wheel’. They don’t care. Almost like how you have JS purists who look down on people that use frameworks like jQuery. You need to really care about something to want to bypass the usual route, because it’s work. Problem is–and this was my case when freelancing–there’s also the fact that even if you care, many clients too don’t care, so they’re not going to pay you to go the extra mile, and people need to eat, so you do the bare minimum. You can’t give N100k and expect a site like say, Bloomberg.
Honestly, it’s a lot of things.
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Hi @onyeka thanks for this.
You know what we can do with all these constraints? Let’s make a list and beside each one note possible solutions.
I’ll start here with some of the ones you mentioned:
1. Mental Laziness:
Start caring about what you build - make a portfolio, post your work on dribbble/behance and ask for feedback from more creative people.
Take a small part of your next project and decide to do something creative and less predictable.
2. Time/Effort/Reward conundrum aka N100k projects
You can avoid these kind of projects by setting yourself apart with your creative work. But if you can’t avoid it try and find a team of people (say 2 others) who have a complementary skills so that in the time it takes you to do 1N100k projects you could do 3N100k projects while at the same time specializing and improving in your particular role.
These are just suggestions but the answers lie in whatever helps or encourage designers to focus on design and be creative.
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Hi @onyeka, slightly off topic here, but I’m in a similar situation to where you were a few years ago. Trying to transition from graphic design to the world of coding because having that knowledge is so essential these days.
Are there any tips for this journey? In terms of the path you will recommend, how long it took you etc. Don’t wanna bombard you with questions but any advice you can give will be super helpful I guess.
Thanks 
All easier said than done my friend.
@ADT Wow… that’ll be hard because for me it was more of an overlap, and that was like … yearssss ago. Case in point, I first took up HMTL stuff while doing my internship for school. I intentionally looked for somewhere where it was being used for client websites, a digital agency. Of course then divs and CSS where just becoming a thing. So, you know, showing my age there.
I’m not sure I have a path to recommend off the top of my head. But:
Start with the basics. CSS is so vast and there are so many quirks and tricks and hacks that you’ll come across often enough so you need to remember. I’m talking about floats and box models and ems vs pixels etc. Don’t try getting into preprocessors (SASS, LESS) before you’ve gotten the hang of CSS. Forget the frameworks like Bootstrap and Foundation till you’re good enough with CSS to wrangle that code. Seriously. I see so many Bootstrap sites where the line between the framework and the dev’s bad design technique is painfully obvious.
Forget about the JS frameworks and even JS till you’re comfortable with the above. Regardless of its current hype, JS is at it’s core, an enhancement. This guy knows what I’m talking about. Learn how to build sites that work. Read up on responsive design. It’s necessary and easier than you think. I’m not sure how far into coding you want to get, but I worked with the frontend for about 5 years before seriously taking up the backend. It doesn’t have to take that much time for you. Just don’t try to do it all at once. Same goes JS and langs like PHP and Python.
Practice and Patience. A few months ago I found the first website I built in Frontpage back in like, 2005. It’s embarrassing. To be fair, it was mildly embarrassing even then, but there’s that great saying about how knowing your work is not good is a sign that you are capable of better. Start by building a site for yourself. Go crazy. With zero constraints from a client I’ve made some of my best work. Whenever you’re not sure, Google. Seriously. I learnt more Googling than doing any actual ‘course’.
Look at what people are doing. Contrary to popular opinion on Radar, I LOVE great work. I’m always checking out talent, simultaneously humbling and inspiring myself. If I see something on a site that I love, I inspect element to see how they did it. This happens everyday. Don’t get too caught up in it though. You’re into design already so I’m sure you know all the inspiration sites like Behance and Dribbble, which I check for more unusual stuff. Real sites I love are Bloomberg, the Vox sites, NYTimes, The Guardian (their code is open source too, it’s great). News sites are doing some interesting work these days.
I’ve been doing this professionally for years and I still don’t think I’m that great, I’m always learning. Sorry about the vagueness, everyone’s journey is different and my career evolution was mostly a case of, ‘I want to learn how to do this, so i’m going to google the easiest way to start and go from there’. If you have more specific questions though, feel free to ask.
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Wow! Wasn’t expecting that. Thank you @onyeka for taking your time to explain at great length. It’s really detailed and insightful too. I’m currently using Udemy and Khan Academy as a guide but anecdotes are so much better as you have demonstrated.
Will take everything on board and i think the key here for me is patience and perseverance (as I see on quora too).
Once again, super helpful and if i have any more questions I’ll be in touch.
Now back to the topic at hand
I find it interesting when thoughts align at a global scope, here’s FastCodesign’s article around the same topic:
Thanks to Joseph for pointing it out.
Wordpress, and to a little bit of a less extent Drupal & Joomla, I feel severely limits a developer when it comes to design. Having to format a ‘theme’ for a CMS is a problem when it comes to this subject. And many people want to use wordpress no matter what. I don’t feel bootstrap or foundation are that much of a problem unless the developer is lazy, those frameworks can be made unique if you put some time into it. But again, if a CMS is needed, thats when I feel some trouble can come in seperating your site from the rest. A CMS like Perch is much better IMO.
Bootstrap and Foundation are far more limiting than WordPress.
Wordpress just holds the content and gives you apis to get it out.
Bootstrap actually gives you design constraints like how many columns your layout can have.
IMO, I think bootstrap is rather more empowering than limiting actually. What you mentioned about number of columns can be changed with a very simple CSS tweak. bootstrap has a column systems which ranges from 1-12 and I don’t think I have actually encountered any situation where I had to change it.
If by empowering you mean it allows you rapidly create and iterate designs without feeling with the nitty gritty of composing the structural style times yourself, I agree.
What I mean by limiting is that WordPress does not assume anything about your design. It gives you an interface to create content and an api to retrieve it. The styles are completely up to you.
Maybe his primary experience is editing other people’s themes. Mine’s building themes from scratch.
I can tell you there’s no limit WordPress places on your theme design. If you’re editing someone else’s theme … well … you’re limited by their design not WordPress.
This is really false. WP provides the backend, and ways to present the content, you can really go crazy with WP theme designs, especially if you use one of the barebone themes like http://themble.com/bones/ I’ve actually had a harder time customizing Drupal than WP.
True.
Some of us just don’t have eyes for design. It’s not a matter of laziness or anything. I just can’t.
I understand logic perfectly because in logic, there is only one right answer. You develop an algorithm that takes in any one plus one to give you two, you write a code for it, you test it and it works. QED.
But determining whether that two should be printed in sans-serif or floated right sets my brain in an infinite loop. There is no algorithm, no predetermined/expected result except something that isn’t ugly which is subjective because beauty tells the truth in the eye of the beholder. I can tinker with HTML and CSS, I can make a button rounded or a text italics, without that definite, problem-solving, input-process-output approach that logic avails, I’ll just be running round in circle.
Which is why I’m super excited to find bootstrap and data binding frameworks like angular. I just get a template, change a blue to red or a white to green, replace data and focus on logic.
Granted, a horrible UI has belied and belittled backend hardwork so many times, but I just don’t know design. I can’t even come up with a wireframe. I can use HTML and CSS, if you sent me a wireframe, I can probably reproduce it, but to sit down and come up with a good design? Nsogbu adi go!
So my development isn’t killing my design, my design was dead before I started development. And that is true for so many developers.
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Great conversation but Design is not UI. Especially in this part of the world, there is a lot designers can do to make the user experience much more native to people in our part of the world. However, it will require them to get out of photoshop and actually have learning conversations with people…
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Everyone has eyes for design or at least beauty which is at a higher level. You’ve seen what’s possible and this is why you think you can’t, but this doesn’t have to be the case.
If you approach design from the elemental perspective you’ll find that harmony, proportion, balance, etc are some common elements of beauty that are identified and applied in design.
This identification and application could be more or less in a person because of education or profession as is this case with designers.
But even as a developer you can grow in appreciation and identification of beautiful design.
Beauty is both subjective and objective.
The aspect of it’s objectivity is what allows you and I to have a perfectly rational discussion around the topic and come to some agreement.
Thanks for joining the conversation!
Design encompasses UI. I think what you meant here was, Design is not UX, from your reference to culture ala “native” and “in our part of the world”. But even then Design encompasses UX too.
In order to build better products, technology companies have to embrace good design principles that put user experience at the centre of their development process.
Design is not arbitrary. Design is for a purpose and as such it must meet certain criteria that will enable it reach its goal.
The most comprehensive summary of the principles of design you’ll ever find, and one that continues to inspire the design of Apple products, is the Ten Principles for Good Design by Dieter Rams:
- Good design is innovative.
- Good design makes a product useful.
- Good design is aesthetic.
- Good design makes a product understandable.
- Good design is unobtrusive.
- Good design is honest.
- Good design is long-lasting.
- Good design is thorough down to the last detail.
- Good design is environmentally friendly.
- Good design is as little design as possible
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There is a good read on aesthetics and the elements of beauty here: http://www.iep.utm.edu/m-aesthe/
Thanks for helping the conversation!
The reason you can identify these is because you know how to think in design. You can identify these things whether you are a web designer, a photographer a painter or a sculptor. Html and CSS are just tools you use to express that flow in your mind. The rest of us can simply appreciate the harmony but we just don’t know how it works.
Just like a developer thinks in logic, tries to solve any problem in his mind before finding a tool (PHP, Python, etc) to express it with.
It’s much easier to learn CSS or PHP than to learn design or logic reasoning. I think the level of our acquaintance with one or both of them is also the level of our deflection towards UI/UX or backend.
Design reasoning can be learnt, but that is a steeper learning process than simple coding and whether or not you can do that simply depends on you involvements and specialization.
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- you can identify someone who’s beautiful or handsome
- you prefer a MacBook to a Dell Vostro
- you prefer Obudu resort to Banana Island
Now, design thinking is to ask why now and again, and apply the results 
Don’t worry you’ll manage rather well 