

Thank HN: Design for Hackers  - kadavy
http://www.kadavy.net/blog/posts/d4h-the-book/

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enjo
_I plan to send out about an email a month, and have already started drafting
some sample content. A lot of this stuff I had thought about releasing on
kadavy.net, but it’s too valuable to just put out into the ether. I want to
make sure only those who are really interested in it learn these secrets. Find
out:_

Just sounds like an infomercial to me.

~~~
kadavy
Thanks for reading that far - I'm not sure if I understand, are you implying
that is a bad thing?

~~~
bricestacey
It was an interesting read until the heading "So, here we go." Then, it turned
into a creepy infomercial about professional blogging.

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St-Clock
I agree, it was my first time on the website and I genuinely liked the idea of
"design for hackers", but when I read things like see "How 6 of my last 9 blog
posts made it to the front page of Hacker News", I got irritated. Was this
book and newsletter supposed to be about design? Maybe a refocus is in order
here.

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shrikant
Just did a bout of gratuitous clicking and selecting text all over the page a
few hundred-odd times to confound the profoundly annoying Crazy Egg tracking
script.

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kadavy
What do you find annoying about the Crazy Egg script?

EDIT: since this person is being upvoted, I removed the script (yay?); but I'm
still interested to hear why it bothers people. Thanks.

~~~
MichaelGG
If it's like other trackers, every time you click/select, it loads a resource,
causing the status bar to flicker.

Many people read while clicking and selecting text. This means sites that do
stupid things when the user selects text (popup definitions, ads, change the
status bar, etc.) become very annoying.

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swecker
My thought process were as follows; "Oh great, it's just an ad for a book." to
"It's a future book, could be interesting." to, "Hey this is the guy that
wrote that article on Monet's use of black!" I guess it's a really good idea
to give a good sample of what you have to share. I really love implementing
more real art into design, rather than simply following web trends. I'm
looking forward to reading more.

~~~
kadavy
Whoa, someone just referred to me as "...the guy who [did certain thing]..."
Pardon me while I e-mail this comment to my mother.

~~~
swecker
I only get on hacker news once every couple of days and usually read only a
couple of articles. I thought it a huge coincidence that I read two articles
by the same person.

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subbu
_Hackers are used to teaching themselves whatever is necessary to achieve
their vision;_

Can't be more succinct.

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martinkallstrom
Congratulations to the book deal! I'm happy for you! Don't burn out that flame
of yours too soon, it's a long way from here to the finished book. I'm looking
forward to reading it!

My suggestion is that as soon as you've written one chapter you're sort of
happy with, put it on HN for for feedback.

~~~
kadavy
Thanks, Martin - yeah, I have a ton of work ahead of me, but I'm having a
blast so far.

I'll definitely be seeking input and feedback from the HN community every step
of the way.

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christopherslee
Congratulations! The original blog post was pretty awesome, and I look forward
to the book.

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lukev
This is _exactly_ what I've been looking for. Will definitely buy.

~~~
kadavy
That's great to hear! I'd love to learn about your situation RE learning
design. I hope you signed up for the email list, but feel free to say hi:
david at kadavy dot net

~~~
lukev
My background is general back-to-front development. However, I've always
worked on teams that had dedicated designers so I never had to actually make
something look good. I have pretty strong CSS and HTML skills, but it was
always for implementing someone else's design, not doing anything on my own.

I've recently been doing some of my own projects and realized that pretty much
everything I make looks like ass. It's the one piece missing from my ability
to do a complete website by myself.

Plus, for personal philosophical reasons, I'm growing more appreciative of
visual aesthetics in every aspect of life, so being able to incorporate that
into my chosen profession is important to me.

There are some good resources out there, and I feel that learning even just a
few things about design makes a big difference. Learning to recognize
different font families, the importance of alignment, etc. have all made a big
difference. But I still feel there's something lacking - I still find it
difficult to cross the boundary "doesn't suck THAT bad" and "beautiful." Aside
from getting a degree in graphics design, I'm still not sure how to get the
knowledge and techniques needed.

I suspect part of it is that I just need to practice a lot more, and design
lots of sites just to see what happens and develop my style. But some "hacks"
to make the process faster would be very welcome.

~~~
kadavy
Wow, thanks a ton for that, Luke! Your feeling that this is the final piece to
being able to produce a complete website is exactly why I'm exploring this
topic. So much friction can be reduced in the development process if a single
person is self-sufficient.

I don't know if I'll be able to provide "hacks," but your observation on it
requiring a lot of practice is right on. My goal at this point is to change
the way you see things, so when you see a good design, you understand what
about it is making it great.

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DanI-S
Sounds pretty good, I look forward to reading it.

If anyone clicked on the link looking for information, I posted an 'Ask HN:' a
while back on the same topic. Loads of people responded, with some great
advice. It's here:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1839022>

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mortenjorck
Increasing design literacy among hackers is a great thing.

Now who will step up with a "Hacking for Designers"?

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petewailes
I'll do that.

~~~
Shamiq

      I'll do that
    

Now we have you on record. Please deliver :)

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petewailes
It'll have to be in the new year, but it'll come. Look for posts around Jan
announcing the start.

