[nick-garfield]

I've got to recommend refactoringui.com.

They sell a (rather expensive) book on web/mobile app design that explains how to build your design system and use it to create great looking apps. They cover all the bases you would expect like fonts, line-heights, colors, shadows, borders, sizing, working with images, visual hierarchy, using white space, etc. etc.

I'm a developer by trade and I work primarily with one other developer, so we end up doing all of our design work. This book really helped us step up our game and gave us some very simple tactics to use to improve our designs. Imho, it was well worth the price.

https://refactoringui.com

[j_autumn]

1+ for the book. It gives enough inspiration for a clean look. The guy also worked together with Adam on Tailwindcss which is a nice class-based css framework which makes designing website a lot of fun. Especially because it gives some “constraints” i.e. only a handful of size options. Makes the whole design more consistent in my opinion.

I used to do a lot of web design back in ~2004-2008 before i became a developer, and while i like that the web nowadays is more accessible the design of today lacks individuality.The brand design is more shaped by the choice of colors and fonts imho.

[jordanmarshall]

Another +1 recommendation for the book and related videos. While it has not been a silver bullet (nothing is), it has given me a lot of helpful tools to improve my designs. The book does a good job of filling the "design for engineers" gap that I have observed while trying to find good resources on web design.

[bdr]

It's expensive as far as books go, but it's still a great price. It'll save you many hours of time.

[woutr_be]

I really love refactoringui, they're small enough tips to implement in a couple of minutes, and they really make your product look better.

[d0m]

Agreed, this is a great resource for developers wanting to improve their design skills. I.e. going from zero to "more-than-good-enough"

[systemvoltage]

I don't know. Just looking at one of the things that they've posted: https://twitter.com/steveschoger/status/981606881255976961

> Overlapping images is a great way to add depth to an interface and make it look more “designed”.

I don't know if this is sarcasm. No one is asking why do we need to add "depth"? What problem is "depth" of overlapping icons solving?

I would stay away from this.

[pyronite]

I feel like you could ask similar "why" questions about everything design-related. "Why is no one asking why good-looking, modern designs are necessary?"

Many people interpret quality of design as an indicator of content or product quality.

To address your particular question, depth creates a more realistic and visually interesting representation of information on a screen. It can also serve to indicate the priority of information on a page. If depth draws your eye to or away from a particular element, it can help to achieve the designer's goals.

[systemvoltage]

This is how you get more "trendy" designs than something timeless when fundamentals are thought through.

[ulisesrmzroche]

Depth is a fundamental.

[njovin]

I can’t speak to this suggestion but I purchased the book and watched the videos and all of the guidance and material I remember is very sound and, in my experience, very enlightening for me as an engineer who’s worked in SaaS with very talented UX people but still struggle with coming up with clean UX on my own.

[systemvoltage]

Over many years, I've come to know that "Design" is a very subjective field. There are efforts to make meaningful measurements, A/B testing, etc but the domain space of possibilities is so large that it is impossible to test all configurations - layout alone has endless possibilities and which layout is better? My guess is as good as the designer's. I need to be able to see either one of the following to consume the advice - 1) Deep logic that describes the fundamental problem, an unchained reasoning leading to the solution with little ambiguity or "gray areas". or 2) Concrete experimental or empirical data that a particular solution works while making sure things like accessibility are accounted for. Otherwise, how do I know that some authority in "Design" is correct and I should follow their advice?

I am just speaking my mind, what kind of things prevent me from trusting others despite of their benevolent intentions. Time and again, I've been bitten by bad subjective advice - there is a lot of bullshit out there. Tread carefully, adopt what makes sense to you and ignore others unless evidence shows otherwise. That said, there are a lot of gems out there as well.

If the thing I am making is art and is subjective, then why can't I just be original? If a particular activity is totally arbitrary, then all bets are off.

Blindly following advice is why we as a society get stuck in a local optimum and don't try other things. Domain exploration and experimention, originality and authenticity are paramount to getting out of the local optima. Every once in a while someone does and they revolutionize the world.

[ulisesrmzroche]

Just because you don’t know what depth means doesn’t mean it’s wrong.

Anyone who can draw knows what that means.