

Ask HN: Design for Developers? - poppysan

I am thinking about doing either a workshop or web class about design, especially for hackers.<p>For those that don't know me Ive been doing design and animation (plus frontend dev) for forever, and I have noticed that every developer seems to want to increase their design skills.<p>Here's the question - Should I focus on the theory, the tools (more photoshop/illustrator, less css/js that everyone already is pro at), or the a combination of both?<p>Would anyone even be interested?  Thanks in advance for the comments and suggestion!
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frankdenbow
I would definitely be interested in this. Focusing on the theory would be
best, since we can probably figure out the tools with practice.

David Kadavy is also writing a "Design for Hackers" book, so there is
definitely an interest. <http://bit.ly/hazXRX>

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Sargis
You should focus strictly on theory and css. For example, you can give advice
on how to align certain things on a web page in order to make it visually
appealing. Then you show the css required to make it happen.

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joshuacc
I would suggest using a rule/guideline based approach that will allow
developers to rack up some quick wins with comparatively little effort.

1\. Show a horribly crowded page of text.

2\. Give them the rule: "For most text use a line-height of about 1.5 to
increase readability."

3\. Show how much the page is improved.

In order to demonstrate all of the rules at work, you might want use one
example page and show the process of applying one rule after another, till the
end product is quite presentable.

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poppysan
Good idea! I can visually collect samples of typical issues, then give quick
overall solutions that support a broader theory, so that they have tips to use
immediately, as well as the theory to apply to other issues that may arise.

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JoachimSchipper
I'd steer clear of Photoshop - it's a big investment, both in time and in
money, for someone who occasionally does a little web design on the side.

Focus on typography, as joshuacc suggests: a simple page with good typography
is fine for most purposes, and an extremely elaborate page with bad typography
is almost always bad.

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petervandijck
Do the "Hello World" of design. Developers like that approach.

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peteypao
Definitely would be interested.

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poppysan
my portfolio : <http://storyofcarl.com>

