[ohkaiby]

I actually took a 3-month crash course on Visual Design because I was weak in that area (as a front-end developer). Probably one of the best professional investments I have made. The course taught me basically the above list.

I would add knowledge about grids and negative spacing to the above list.

[thestepafter]

I would recommend checking out Refactoring UI, there is a YouTube channel, blog posts, and a book coming out next Tuesday. Their tips and samples from the book have already made a huge impact on my designs.

[ohkaiby]

One other thing to add is that you can't make a good design without content. Unless you have all of your content ready to visually position/style, don't bother designing yet. I used to try to make the visual layout first without really thinking about content, and it was always a struggle.

[anant90]

Sorry for the plug, but since others are asking for an introductory resource, I wrote a short course on UI Design myself not too long ago. They are just 17 short tutorials: https://www.commonlounge.com/discussion/d5bae026ef6e4f949e63...

[derangedHorse]

Link hangs on 'LOADING..."

[arvinsim]

Can you point me to this specific course? I am interested.

[wpmoradi]

Which course did you take?

[linnk87]

Can I have a source for the crash course? Asking for a friend!

[diek00]

I need to take this course

[quickthrower2]

I wonder, is this a positive externality? I spend my free time doing this course but do I get paid more? Or do I just deliver more value to my employer at the same price?

[thecupisblue]

Yes and no. Why do you care?

[quickthrower2]

Why do I care about getting more money? Well...

[thecupisblue]

You're considering learning one of the most important fields that will probably impact the way you think, reason about and look at the world. And you're thinking about money.

[quickthrower2]

This is kind of my point - we would like developers to learn this kind of stuff but there is no financial incentive even if it is good for their employers. There are a lot of facets to our work that are like this, for example some soft skills would be in this bucket, except for the soft skills linked to becoming a 'team leader'.

Why would someone only do something for money? Well perhaps they have time and money commitments that makes it hard to justify doing stuff that is not for money, unless it is super important for some other reason. So charity work might trump learning visual design, but visual design is also trumped by learning React because that looks hot on the CV.