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Refactoring UI
by
Make your ideas look awesome, without relying on a designer. Learn how to design beautiful user interfaces by yourself using specific tactics explained from a developer's point-of-view.
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ebook, 252 pages
Published
December 11th 2018
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I literally read this in 2 hours.
This book is great but it’s aimed primarily at developers who are looking to improve their UI designs when there’s no designer on a project (or similar situation). For that audience, it’s perfect. For designers coming from a primarily print background, I’d recommend this book in a heartbeat. As for the seasoned web or UI design veteran... a lot of it is stuff you’ll likely already know. But I found at least a couple of practical tips that I’m definitely going to include in my design toolbox and
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A message to my younger, experimental person who thought you mostly learn by doing:
Read this first. You would have a boosted run.
Read this first. You would have a boosted run.
An excellent primer on how to make simple design decisions that could greatly improve your designs. No fluff; 100% signal, 0% noise.
I want every tech book to be that good.
I love this book, because it doesn't mess around: there's a title page, the table of contents, and then you're immediately presented with some great design advice:
That's the title of the first section of the first chapter of this book. The authors explain that design is different from aesthetics. When you're developing a product like an app or a website, the most important thing is that it's functional. Decide what UI elements you need to satisfy that func ...more
"Start with a feature, not a layout"
That's the title of the first section of the first chapter of this book. The authors explain that design is different from aesthetics. When you're developing a product like an app or a website, the most important thing is that it's functional. Decide what UI elements you need to satisfy that func ...more
I'm starting to realize that as a front-end developer, I had no idea of designing UI's before. It explains it's ideas with nice examples and sketches and also, for example, gave me nice approach in using white space in my designs: "A better approach is to start by giving something way too much space, then remove it until it you’re happy with the result." It may seem simple but I wasn't aware how much this can help me. I would recommend it to you if you are a developer or a junior product owner/m
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Best book on UI/UX design. Great re-read value as well. Helped me clear a lot of fundamentals for designing good UIs without needing a designer.
Thought this one was great. Good, hands on advice on how you can bring your designs to the next level, will definitely go back to this one!
Tonnes of good practical tips
Awesome book!
I highly recommend it for UI/UX and Web designer, and also for backend developer who want to learn some quick tips to make thiers own UIs feel designed and well organized.
Me as a backend developer, sometimes when I need to build some frontend for my APIs, I often waste time making decisions like : what perfect color to pick, what font-family to choose, how to position headlines, etc. I think this book will help me a lot :)
I highly recommend it for UI/UX and Web designer, and also for backend developer who want to learn some quick tips to make thiers own UIs feel designed and well organized.
Me as a backend developer, sometimes when I need to build some frontend for my APIs, I often waste time making decisions like : what perfect color to pick, what font-family to choose, how to position headlines, etc. I think this book will help me a lot :)
Concise guide to User Interfaces. Really helped me as a non-designer.
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
click here.
This is a really good book.
Because:
-lots of practical and specific tips and tricks to improve visual designs
- a beautiful, soothing layout
- easy to read language
- good reasoning and fundamentals about many of the 'tips'
I wish I had read a book like this 5 years ago.
(This one came out in 2018)
The authors know what they are talking about. Visual design can feel overwhelming because blank pages are overwhelming, and everyone is an expert on what looks good to them.
If your work/passion involves des ...more
Because:
-lots of practical and specific tips and tricks to improve visual designs
- a beautiful, soothing layout
- easy to read language
- good reasoning and fundamentals about many of the 'tips'
I wish I had read a book like this 5 years ago.
(This one came out in 2018)
The authors know what they are talking about. Visual design can feel overwhelming because blank pages are overwhelming, and everyone is an expert on what looks good to them.
If your work/passion involves des ...more
This book is full of simple UI examples and comparisons: what is better, why, and how to control user focus. Refactoring UI doesn't dive deep into details and I think it's a good start point for Web Designing. If you are familiar with Bootstrap and Material Design then this book gonna fill your gaps and help you to see the full picture of UI and even UX.
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Absolutely outstanding. It's only over 200 (easy) pages, but it's so packed with valuable tips and insight into creating great UI. I've definitely leveled up from reading this, and this will be my number one recommendation to developers looking to get a firmer grasp on design basics. Pricey, but well-worth it in my opinion.
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Adam Wathan had done an awesome job in this book. With just the right balance of design theory and examples, here you will find some clever tips to step up your User interface game.
This book is a gem for web or UI developer.
Learned a lot while reading this book and I never read a book which explains aspects of design with fewer words and good example side to side. I would definitely recommend to any web or UI developers to read this to bump our design skills.
Learned a lot while reading this book and I never read a book which explains aspects of design with fewer words and good example side to side. I would definitely recommend to any web or UI developers to read this to bump our design skills.
Every software engineer should read this book. On the same level as "Don't make me think" by Steve Krug
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Perfect for a solo-dev, who want to create a decent looking UI for his app.
Great book. Used Images to describe the points. Anyone will understand the views. Designers should read the book to grow their confidence.
If you're developer who uses bootstrap but wants to level-up your design skills, I highly recommend this book.
This book has practical details on how to think and design boring items such as Forms, dropdown, images, grid.
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This book has practical details on how to think and design boring items such as Forms, dropdown, images, grid.
...more
Must read design book for Frontend Developer, Great guide which helps you make some design decisions for User Interfaces which will improve the look and feel far better. I love those visual examples. Short and Content rich book.
It is a really great book to get into modern applications design it works for designers and developers. Really nice examples easy to read.
The bible for ui design. Every chapter is excellent and teaches you a lot of fundamentals of what makes a web app visually appealing.
My favourite bit of advice was the last chapter under the header "Levelling up" -
Look for design decisions you wouldn't have made - Ask yourself "Did the designer do anything that I would have never thought to do?". Paying attention to these sorts of unintuitive decisions is a great way to discover new ideas that you can apply to your own designs.
The book covers ...more
My favourite bit of advice was the last chapter under the header "Levelling up" -
Look for design decisions you wouldn't have made - Ask yourself "Did the designer do anything that I would have never thought to do?". Paying attention to these sorts of unintuitive decisions is a great way to discover new ideas that you can apply to your own designs.
The book covers ...more
I loved this book. The main idea is that you can learn great visual design by learning the right techniques; you don't have to have some innate talent. And I think the book delivers on its promise!
First, the actual designs consistently look great so the end result is credible. Second, the writing is crisp and easy to understand. Third, the insights are genuinely, well, insightful. For example, I like how the author talks about all the different ways in which you can emphasize and de-emphasize co ...more
First, the actual designs consistently look great so the end result is credible. Second, the writing is crisp and easy to understand. Third, the insights are genuinely, well, insightful. For example, I like how the author talks about all the different ways in which you can emphasize and de-emphasize co ...more
Hats off to the authors of this fabulous book. I had intended to read it all in one day, a symptom of interest mostly but held off a couple of weeks through the holidays.
The holidays are now over and I once again, hungrily picked through the remaining treats left with its last pages. As a graphic designer of many, many years and web designer/developer for the last 5-6 years I was amazed at just how many things I picked up. You always try to design great work, as fast as you can but just in the f ...more
The holidays are now over and I once again, hungrily picked through the remaining treats left with its last pages. As a graphic designer of many, many years and web designer/developer for the last 5-6 years I was amazed at just how many things I picked up. You always try to design great work, as fast as you can but just in the f ...more
Read this in an entire afternoon.
The underlying concepts that make UIs great seem simple, but implementing and mastering them is not. The book aims to cut through the clutter of fads and trend-driven designs and design systems, and teach you practices that will apply equally to small apps as well as complex ones.
It's a timeless book, inasmuch as browser vendors won't change the way things are measured on the web anytime soon. The authors give you enough knowledge about broad design areas to he ...more
The underlying concepts that make UIs great seem simple, but implementing and mastering them is not. The book aims to cut through the clutter of fads and trend-driven designs and design systems, and teach you practices that will apply equally to small apps as well as complex ones.
It's a timeless book, inasmuch as browser vendors won't change the way things are measured on the web anytime soon. The authors give you enough knowledge about broad design areas to he ...more
This book is the equivalent of talking to an experienced designer, where he pours his wisdom and tricks.
This book covers the aspect of layout, colour theory, whitespace, typography which are essential style elements which are needed to compose a wholistic UI. However, apart from the technical aspects the book also rolls out advice like adapt the competitions layout, type etc.
This book is essential for non-designers who are breaking into the field of UI design. A book mentor if I daresay.
The one ...more
This book covers the aspect of layout, colour theory, whitespace, typography which are essential style elements which are needed to compose a wholistic UI. However, apart from the technical aspects the book also rolls out advice like adapt the competitions layout, type etc.
This book is essential for non-designers who are breaking into the field of UI design. A book mentor if I daresay.
The one ...more
5 stars: very practical information in easily digestible parts
The information: I learnt a great lot from this book, and will probably open it up a few more times for reference. Very practical tips and tricks that you can use in your designs.
The readability: the way the book was built up, in tiny doses of information, made it very readable, and the writing style was easy to follow as well.
The structure: I don't have too much to note about the structure. It was very logical, but nothing special.
Be ...more
The information: I learnt a great lot from this book, and will probably open it up a few more times for reference. Very practical tips and tricks that you can use in your designs.
The readability: the way the book was built up, in tiny doses of information, made it very readable, and the writing style was easy to follow as well.
The structure: I don't have too much to note about the structure. It was very logical, but nothing special.
Be ...more
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