Ask HN: How do you design your web pages?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=603910

by JeremyChase • 17 years ago

15 39 17 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

For years I have emulated the look and feel of other websites because my design skills are lacking. I want to be able to make my web-apps look attractive on my own, and would love to hear the experiences you all have had.

dualogy2• 17 years ago

Start ugly, refine until you love it.

dualogy2• 17 years ago

It's the "fast track to everything", if you humbly accept that is not going to be fast AT ALL -- depending on for how much perfectionism you strive.

tokenadult3• 17 years ago

until you love it

Is there any role for user input in your design process?

kineticac• 17 years ago

It's hard to ever be happy with a design, at some point it takes too much time to design it yourself if you have a lot of other coding to do. I resort to hiring a designer to just make one and be happy with it.

mixmax• 17 years ago

I have a friend who is a designer. I help him with some basic code for clients (newsletters, wordpress installation, etc.) and he does design stuff for me.

_pius• 17 years ago

Here are two things have been useful for me:

1. Looking at a bunch of nicely designed sites and inspecting the background images and source code so that I can see conceptually how effects are achieved.

2. Using a CSS framework that abstracts many browser-specific idiosyncrasies away.

noodle• 17 years ago

whats wrong with emulation?

even in building a slick, new, innovative startup, you're rarely striking out into purely uncharted, untouched territory. (for example, if you use a framework, a big chunk of your code will look exactly the same as a lot of others out there). odds are you're just taking solutions and concepts that previous people have pioneered and combining them in an new/innovative way, possibly throwing in a unique idea/element or two into the mix.

whats wrong with doing the same with respect to design?

ErrantX2• 17 years ago

Agreed. Take Facebook; one of the biggest sites in the world, is changing not so subtly to emulate Twitter.

dasil003• 17 years ago

I don't like the example. Facebook is a master of interactive design, and is pushing the envelope of large-scale AJAX design while remaining surprisingly agile. Twitter is just a utility.

staunch• 17 years ago

An important thing is to try multiple radically different ideas. Oftentimes I'll feel like a design is okay, then try a new one and realize how much I would have regretted staying with the old one. So now I always try to create at least 3-4 different layouts/designs before I settle on using one.

tokenadult3• 17 years ago

How do you test each design?

noblethrasher• 17 years ago

Keep emulating but start studying design principles as well (color theory, composition, typography, UI fundementals, etc.). That way you'll be able to identify the elements in the design and why they work.

mahmud2• 17 years ago

I am budgeting to hire a designer, having accepted that I, for once, am not good at something. Graphic design traumatizes me: I have photoshop, gimp, paint.net and inkscape. It will take an act of God to help me figure any of it out.

mattyfo• 17 years ago

I have also accepted that I am not good at designing but I will not accept that I cannot get good at it.

In the last couple of months I've come along decently (working in the few spare hours I have!). I recommend that you narrow down to ONE package, IE Photoshop, and then start doing online tutorials.

There is a wonderful collection available to start with, my favorite place are the *tuts.com sites. psdtuts.com or nettuts.com

mahmud2• 17 years ago

I have gotten good at following tutorials, but I can't make anything original. This might have been made worse when I visited a designer friend of mine at his work place; if the pro spends a whole day on one logo or photo, what hope do I have? life is too short, and my "friend" is affordable ;-)

spencerh• 17 years ago

I agree that learning a new design application can be done, and is even a worthwhile activity. However, I don’t think that knowing a software suite equates to being good at design.

Knowing the tools is a part of the package, yes, but there is more to design than knowing how to use the software. A designer with an eye for aesthetics and an understanding of both your product and your target users can be a very valuable asset.

sho• 17 years ago

"having accepted that I, for once, am not good at something"

This is an excellent point. I am in the same boat. At a pinch, I can bluff, hack or brute force my way through pretty much anything to do with programming, sysadmin, databases, whatever. Not as fast as an expert, ugly as hell, but it'll work. Mostly, heh.

This doesn't cut it for graphic design, however. When we're talking about the aesthetic appeal of a web site, it needs a real artist, an aesthete, a professional. It needs to be done well, and it needs to be done right - mashing stuff together is not an option. "Ugly but works" is inapplicable and anyway unacceptable.

Know your limitations. The front end is not the back end, and "good enough" is not good enough. Hire a pro, choose them carefully, and get opinions from non-techies before you commit. If you're serious, nothing else will do.

felideon• 17 years ago

"Good artists copy, great artists steal." -- Picasso (attributed to)

huhtenberg2• 17 years ago

"Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away." -- Antoine de Saint-Exupery

i.e. minimalism rules :-)

grinich• 17 years ago

Real artists ship. (steve jobs)

tzury• 17 years ago

http://99designs.com/

callmeed• 17 years ago

I tried them for a logo once (side-project). The candidates I received were, for the most part, amateurish and weak.

I'd worry the web designs coming from there would be the same.

raquo• 17 years ago

I routinely take screenshots of design elements that I like on the web and when brainstorming on some design work I have to do I first check out my small collection.

larrywright2• 17 years ago

I do the same thing, and store them in iPhoto. I sometimes take screenshots of an entire page, if I like the layout of the overall thing, but I also frequently just take screenshots of individual page elements: comments, a sidebar, a well done chart, etc.

My iPhoto library is synced to my iPod Touch, so I always have that library of design elements with me.

PStamatiou• 17 years ago

i do the same but save them in LittleSnapper http://pstam.com/i/66d19e0143126fadb748220c5c642ef1.png

wlievens• 17 years ago

Good tip. This is something I should be doing but I always neglect, and then when I really need a particular design element, I end up thinking "I once found something suitable, but where was that again..."

tokenadult3• 17 years ago

I'm amazed that all answers posted as I post this don't refer to one of pg's key ideas about making a successful start-up:

"4. Understand your users."

http://paulgraham.com/13sentences.html

I would think that the very most important thing to do in designing a website is to build in usability and user-friendly information architecture, and to have a process to test how well the users like the site for getting their tasks done.

Ask HN: How do you design your web pages?

Related Stories