

Design Secrets For Engineers - jeanhsu
http://eng.pulse.me/design-secrets-for-engineers/

======
Anechoic
I hate to be that guy, but this isn't "Design Secrets For Engineers", it's
"Design Secrets For _Software_ Engineers." (or developers/UIX/etc).

"Keep visual hierarchy in check" and "Use designer fonts" isn't very useful
advice in designing an instrumented hammer...

"Engineering," especially in the colloquial usage of the word, covers a lot
areas that have things in common, but there are lots of things those areas
don't have in common. Software engineering /= all of engineering anymore than
mechanical engineering represents all of engineering.

~~~
nl
_I hate to be that guy_

Then don't be. It's posted on HN - the context makes it pretty obvious.

If a computer could trivially work out it was likely to be about software
engineering using Bayesian reasoning ("engineer" in title AND posted on HN)
then a person should be able to as well.

~~~
aaronblohowiak
Bayesian reasoning is actually "given the Prior X, what is the likelihood that
Y is true" ?

What you are referring to is the far more simplistic Boolean reasoning.

~~~
nl
Sorry, you are right - I was lazy when I wrote that.

I should have stated it like this: given "engineer" in title AND posted on HN
what is the likelihood that it refers to a Software Engineer.

------
kleiba
What _secrets_? It feels like I'm reading the exact same design tips
(alignment, fonts, colors) at least once per month on some blog linked from
HN.

~~~
dodo53
yes! Maybe would be better to have a commentable hacker wiki section.

------
pnathan
First sentence:

 _If you are a designer like me, you must be asked on a regular basis to “make
it look pretty.”_

I thought this article was for engineers?

~~~
ashishgandhi
Here engineers do end up doing some sort of design. To a designer these things
I imagine are bare basic. To an engineer maybe not.

------
dkrich
I like it, and most of the advice is pretty good.

However, I have one concern- for the past few years, it seems all engineers
and designers have been feeding off of each other's ideas, and this has
resulted in websites that look nearly identical in color schemes, typeface,
and wording.

This makes each successive product less and less distinguishable and boring. I
think breaking free from design norms (as long as rules of simplicity are
followed) is a good thing. It is what will make users think "wow, this is
something I haven't seen before" and thus probably more likely to use it and
tell others about it as well. Of course this assumes clever design sense which
I believe is something people possess naturally and can't really be taught.

~~~
vladimirm
What are the design norms we need to break free from?

~~~
dkrich
I think it largely depends on the product and audience you hope to attract.
But for starters, I would like to see fewer sites with a large, bold,
Helvetica font against a plain background with an intro that says something
vague about what the business does. Then the large "Sign Up Now For Free"
button with rounded corners that slightly illuminates when you mouse over it.

Look, I'm not shitting on other people's work. Building something original is
tough, but I do think that clever design is one of the best ways a new service
can set itself apart from the rest, and I think that it is an opportunity that
is often missed.

------
typicalrunt
I never thought of using KeyNote to design a UI. I always thought designers
use Photoshop or InDesign for that purpose.

Is KeyNote used just for the ease of use, or is there some other requirement
that the Adobe products don't measure up to?

~~~
joelhooks
Keynote is really nice for mockups. It has more than capable drawing tools and
the snapping is excellent. It's major benefit over a Photoshop or Illustrator
would be its relative simplicity. With mockups that is a big factor. Less
complexity in the tool can mean less opportunity to add complexity in your
design.

~~~
lloeki
Not only drawing, but as the author suggests, sequence. Keynote makes it
trivial to play and reorder the deck to try how things could flow from view to
view. Quite harder with PS or AI.

------
idan
Yes, YES, a thousand times yes.

------
mchusma
Advise is good, but the author says you should have 2 or less fonts and 3 or
less colors. The picture he uses to show this: minimum 5 colors.

~~~
aaronblohowiak
In the H/S/L view of color overal, "2 colors" may mean 2 different hues,
presented with many different Saturations and Lightnesses.

------
vladimirm
Good general advice. One remark though: while it is generally better to use
designer typefaces, it's important to remember a lot of them weren't designed
for the screen, but paper. As such, Garamond, for example (it's mentioned in
the post), which is probably one of the best typefaces made, often doesn't
work well on the web.

~~~
cpeterso
Beware that designer fonts are expensive! Most people don't realize that fonts
bundled with Microsoft Word or Adobe Photoshop might require a license for
commercial use!

~~~
movingahead
Just take a typekit account. For $50 a year, you get unlimited fonts on
unlimited number of websites. There is an upper limit on traffic, but if you
hit that number, you won't mind paying more.

~~~
cpeterso
But what about printed materials like business cards and letterhead? You would
want these to match your web style.

------
kirillzubovsky
Very good advice, although this is more of a reminder for designer-wanna-bees,
like myself, as opposed to a guide for software engineers. Chances are, really
good software engineers are really terrible designers, and they won't
understand what you are talking about or why, no matter how hard you try. But
try!

------
dadads
A Rosetta Stone for design. About damn time.

