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How do you usually make a program beautiful?

How can I make the application beautiful, and not an amateur, hid it together?

I mean graphically.

Is there any book you can read about the beautiful layout of the program, etc.

I put this on the Community Wiki, so please feel free to leave your opinions the way we can all learn .: D

Edit: Oh my god. I completely forgot to mention that kind of program. I mean desktop applications. Not web applications .: D

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Find a graphic designer.

I'm not trying to be funny, I'm just talking. I present myself as a pretty good developer, but I'm at the figure level when it comes to graphic design.

The skills (and tools) for good graphic design are fundamentally different from the skills of the developer.

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Three things:

  • Hire designers who know business models and customers; if you do not get it yourself

  • To provide you with constructive feedback from a designer, read a book like I Like. Don't Make Me Think: The Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, Second Edition by Steve Krug

  • Explore the many good apps that have been successful in your business. Be inspired (aka copy) good ideas from them and mix your ideas. A prime example is the Google search “inspired” by Microsoft Bing
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The following terms are really important when it comes to the appearance of the application.

User Interface Design This shows how the application has uniform soft colors, controls with the same size, smooth fonts, corresponding groupings of data elements, etc.

User Experience This is much harder to achieve. This is an intuitive application: "Are you sure?" and "Are you really sure?" message boxes, elimination of pop-ups and dialogs, automatic saving, flow from one stage to another, data saving accuracy and many other things that make the user really amazing.

You cannot have a good UX without a good user interface, but it is entirely possible to have a good user interface without a good UX.

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Just redo it. Seriously, take all the external criticism. Ask them to be specific. If you do web work, browse as many websites as you can. Sometimes, depending on the creator, you can email a website to ask why they did what they did and got a response. If you are making a desktop, find your favorite library that might look good (not Swing, hate me if you want). Then create, destroy, create, destroy, etc., until you are happy.

The biggest problem that I think people are learning to just throw away a component that doesn't work for you.

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I found that looking at various desktop design guides can be quite useful.

I don’t think that any of them can be considered “right”, but they will give you a good basic idea of ​​what is expected in general, since the basic theory, such as alignment, spacing and widget layout, is.

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I recommend reading the AskTog website :

Bruce Tognazzini ... founded the Apple Human Interface Group and acted as the evangelist of the Apple Human Interface.

In the past, there was some great material, for example, how to make buttons more directly proportional to their likelihood of clicking, how mouse movement affected the design, etc.

But if you are not studying, be sure to find a professional designer.

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For views: follow the interface instructions for the platform. Use Golden Mean to please the eye. Simplify, simplify, simplify .

Behavior. Watch how users use your application. Do not help them, do not correct them. If you can, take care of the double-sided mirror. You will quickly find many places where your user interface can use the setting.

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I try very hard to convince my users of the beauty of the command line interface.

In addition, I think there is nothing better than “hallway testing”. You can always hire an expert for GUI design.

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Save your encoding outside of the design work and make your layouts in Photoshop or something similar before trying to implement them. Good coding and good visual user interface design can be directly opposed to each other very often - what looks good on the outside requires some internal work, which most coders find monstrous, and good user interfaces often require individual behavior when using standardized libraries may seem more meaningful from a technical point of view. Having a goal for a functional interface will help you go beyond the “good” results you can get if you allow the fact that your libraries determine by default what the site or application will look like.

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I really like the book Interface Design . It presents many user interface templates and when they are suitable for use. It does not teach you how to make things “beautiful,” but it can help you create your application for an intuitive and simple user. He also presents patterns in an agnostic way to the platform.

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There are many books there: graphic design, interface design, web application design, css design, etc.

General rules:

  • think about networks
  • Do not be afraid of white space.
  • keep it simple.
  • understand hierarchy
  • understand basic color theory
  • hire a user interface designer.
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First of all, usability should always be # 1 priority and should drive your design:

However, this does not mean that your application should be ugly. And I do not agree with those who say: "You either have or not." I think that almost everyone can develop basic design skills if they pay attention to it. The fact that you are asking about this proves that you are interested, which is a big step towards learning. Indeed, even as a developer, this helps at least make good sense for what looks good and how to make an attractive user interface. And if that matters, you can always hire a professional designer to go to the next level.

There are a few fundamental details for developing a job that helped me:

1.) Use colors wisely. Dim colors are not bad, but they can make the design boring and boring for yourself. If you add interesting, more saturated colors, you can emphasize more important elements. This will not only improve the look, but can even be used to improve usability by drawing attention to elements that you don’t want your users to miss. Again, if you overdo it, it's kind of like highlighting everything in your physics book. If you do it everywhere, it makes no sense. I wrote more about colors and contrasts in my answer here .

2. Use the spacebar wisely. This is huge. It doesn't matter if you are talking about a website or a Windows application - a cluttered application is ugly. There is a good article about this related to web design , but the same basic rules apply to a desktop application.

3.) Do not be afraid of large fonts . Another way to emphasize is a large font. Combined with the right spaces, the call to action, written in big words, can be visually visually.

Think about it, all of these suggestions are about creating an accent.

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There are many sites that offer graphical user interface (GUI) tips. Google for the "GUI Design Guide" and you will find some. While these tips may not make your application look “beautiful,” they can make it look professional. If you need beautiful graphics, you may need help from a graphic artist.

Check here for a good list of books on GUI design.

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I really like this book from Joel Spolsky: [ http://www.amazon.com/o/ASIN/B001O9LB86/ref=nosim/betteraddons-20]

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General recommendations that we use:

  • Make it easy: use the toolbar or the side menu to access various parts of the application.
  • Make the information for viewing as simple as possible and in different formats.
  • Change the information as consistent as possible. Ie, set the "Create", "Change" and "Save" buttons in the same place.
  • Making the most common action the easiest.

The specific recommendations we use are:

  • Use the same or similar font in the application. Resize or bold to get attention.
  • Use colored backgrounds to group and select types of information.
  • Combine the most relevant information and make the most frequently used button bigger than the rest.
  • Do not use the drop-down menu in which there are only a few options. Use a list control large enough not to scroll or use the radio button.
  • Adding a space can make reading a screen or report easier.
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Does anyone have any tips for a programmer who doesn't have a budget or is working on a project at home for fun? We cannot hire a designer, but we would like to make a little effort to make our applications look less home.

I suggest showing a screenshot of your creation to family and friends. You will hate their offers, because they will be different from yours, of course. But it can help.

Researching applications that are similar, and some that are not, then pinch one small idea out of each!

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Hire a specialist. Design is what you have or not. It looks like you (like me) are in the "no need" category :)

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This will give you an idea of ​​where my head is in my answer to the question "How do you usually make a program beautiful?" begin with:

  • Short methods
  • Matching Spaces
  • Agreed Naming Conventions
  • Agreed formatting conventions

It's probably nice to ask me what I think for a good user interface.

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