

Want to move fast?  Just do this - sghael
http://codefastdieyoung.com/2011/03/want-to-move-fast-just-do-this-part-1-design/

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notahacker
This is excellent, very practical advice.

The one caveat I would add which the author glosses over is _Test in IE_ as a
high priority unless you have a very tech-savvy audience. Compass/Blueprint
abstract away most of the uglier CSS box-model hacks and I agree that IE users
_can_ live without gradients and rounded corners. But if the site looks
awkward without the CSS3 tricks that don't work on the browser that >60% of
your audience uses, you're going to need to tweak that aspect as well .

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tomkarlo
>60%??? I haven't worked on a site in a while that had more than 45% IE
users... most of mine are now below 1/3.

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thibaut_barrere
I do maintain a website that still has 65% of IE users (this month
statistics).

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tomkarlo
MSDN?

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thibaut_barrere
MSDN is probably a lot lower (rough guess) :)

No, it's a corporate intranet site with multiple companies.

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simplify
Relating to Haml/Sass, you may have heard of the ruby gem StaticMatic. It's a
great tool that lets you use Haml/Sass to building quick, static prototypes.

In fact, I loved the concept so much that I began improving upon it myself[1],
adding support for CoffeeScript and Amazon S3. For anyone who might find it
useful, any testing or feedback would be greatly appreciated.

[1] <https://github.com/mindeavor/staticmatic2>

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glasner
I used Staticmatic, but I never liked having to move all my HAML/SASS over to
my app. I recently replaced it with the showoff plugin [1], which is basically
Staticmatic inside a Rails app.

[1] <https://github.com/adamlogic/showoff>

~~~
simplify
Interesting, thanks, I'll consider using that next time I'm building a
prototype that will eventually become a Rails app. But who knows, I might
write a rails-app-exporter for StaticMatic just for fun :D

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sunjain
I liked it. Lot of folks may already know some or most of this. But it is
distilled all in once place, and as the post mentions, it will surely help in
quickly moving forward with a polished looking app.

~~~
swanson
I agree, there wasn't anything groundbreaking, but I definitely bookmarked the
page halfway through.

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sniW
_using pure black as the text color is a mistake_

Why is this?

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mikeklaas
Using #111 or #222 softens the page a tad without making it harder to read.

Hypocritically, the text on this article's page is black.

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sghael
Great catch. Although, in my defense I'm always looking to save time so I just
used out of the box settings on the wordpress "Platform" theme. If you're
starting from scratch on your own site, dont make this mistake :)

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nbashaw
There's a difference between moving fast and doing sloppy work. IMO, this post
is a recipe for mediocre design (at best). Don't confuse movement for work -
when you approach a design with the a rushed attitude it slows you down in the
long run, because you have to clean up your mistakes and possibly start over
again when you realize that your first attempt just didn't work at all.

I'm not so much arguing with the specific suggestions in the post as I am the
general approach and worldview. There are some useful ideas in there, but
they're weakened by being presented in "recepie" format. Sometimes they make
sense, sometimes they don't. It depends on the context. Better to learn
principles than methods. It's quicker in the long run.

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DennisP
The article is aimed at programmers without design skills. If you can teach
them to create great designs instead of just half-way decent ones, write
something up!

~~~
nbashaw
Good challenge! I think I'll take you up on it. That's a good Sunday project.

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Raphael
This is certainly one not-terrible way of coming up with an uncontroversial
design quickly.

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jblomo
One of the most practical articles I've seen in a while, thanks. What are your
thoughts on using UI frameworks like jqueryUI or YUI grid?

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hammerdr
My advice wasn't the one solicited but: UI Frameworks are great at helping you
get things done. If that is your primary goal, then you should use them. Plain
and simple.

The only drawback is that you're incurring some technical debt because you may
not be able to easily add needed features to the framework. That's okay for a
MVP but needs to be considered before buying into the YUI Control #12
wholesale.

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theoj
Does green convert better than red? Performable seems to like red over green.
<http://blog.performable.com/631526233/>

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cabalamat
I wonder whether orange would perform better than red. Orange is a striking
color, and doesn't have the same connotation of "stop".

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count
Orange has 'warning' and 'slow down' associated with it here in the US though
(think of every traffic warning/construction sign and highway equipment you've
seen).

It couldn't hurt to A/B test though!

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tomkarlo
This is a good article, if for nothing else besides that button gem which I
somehow haven't heard of before.

The downside is, there will be a bunch of sites that look the same, so folks
will want to do some real work and find their own components.

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_Lemon_
I'd contest that it would only matter if you're the same as everyone else if
it's contrary to your goal(s). What is your goal? For most it would be to get
users to purchase something (aka, make money).

There's the other upside that if your website isn't radically different from
others, a lot of your users will already know how to use it. There could be a
lot to gain with a lot of your visitors knowing how to extract information
from it.

I guess the only real way to know is by testing!

~~~
tomkarlo
Yeah, I'd agree. I've seen far more UI design crime done in the name of "doing
it a new way for the sake of it" than is caused by being similar to other
implementations.

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bryanh
I was super surprised at how well SASS let me move quickly with coding
3pics.me! The lighten, darken and mix functions make getting appropriate hex
codes pain free.

Wonderful!

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FPSDavid
anyone have a mirror to this?

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sghael
Sorry the server is on fire right now... got a tweet from smashing magazine.
Working to bring it back up.

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FPSDavid
no problem, thanks for the update!

~~~
sghael
back now.

