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@swinton
Created June 29, 2016 21:22
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DESIGN FOR NON-DESIGNERS

Tracy Osborn, @limedaring

  • Background:
    • Wedding lovely
    • Learnt Python, Django
    • Insight into state of programming tutorials…
    • …led to book series: Hello Web App
  • Now
    • How to teach design to programmers
    • Just enough design to create better interfaces
  • Tips
    • Clutter
      • Cut down on it == fastest way to better design
      • Widget
      • Grid == lining things up, misalignment looks like clutter
      • Bootstrap grid
    • Color
      • Complimentary
      • Mostly neutral, + 1 brighter
      • Smashing Magazine article
      • 💥 HACK: colourlovers.com 🇬🇧
    • Fonts
      • No more than 2 per website
      • Cleaner fonts to avoid clutter
      • Vary weights
      • HACK: beautiful web type, typewolf
    • Other ways to reduce clutter
      • Whitespace! Less ⬇️ is more ⬆️
        • Hacker news needs more
        • NYT redesign, more whitespace between columns
        • Can help site perform better
    • TL;DR Reduce visual clutter:
      • No. fonts, colors low, add whitespace, line things up
    • User experience guidelines
      • Make it easy to find and use primary action
        • Brighter colors for primary action
      • Pay attention to your goals, use analytics
    • Content
      • People don’t read on the web, they skim
      • Break big paragraphs into bullets
      • Bold them important bits
      • Add whitespace
    • Headlines
      • Short, concise, focus on benefits not details
      • Natural, friendly. Don’t talk like a 🤖
      • Again, helps with conversion rates 📈
    • Philosophy
      • Good artists copy, great artists steal
      • Not sure if I’m a good developer or just great at Googling 😆
      • Find a design you like, try to pick out what they’re doing well, train your design mind
    • Thought process:
      • “crap crap crap crap crap crap crap crap crap crap crap crap crap crap … yesssss!” 😆
      • Not a bad designer… simply a designer ❤️
    • This ☝️ is just the start 💥

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Wed Jun 29 13:58:10 PDT 2016
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