Design Sense for Developers

Introduction

For most developers, design is a nightmare. In my experience, developers are terrible at design. Not all of them, but many of them. And that’s okay because traditionally, it hasn't been a developer’s job. In today’s article, I will take a look at this subject.

What is design sense?

In other words, "Design sense means knowing what looks good and works well, almost like a natural feeling." So it doesn’t mean that you need to know everything about designing and such. You just need to know what looks good and where. Also, it’s not a curriculum thing; you need to train your mind to adopt this by exploring other good designs.

Do you need it?

This question depends on various factors, such as:

Preference

First of all, it’s purely based on your preference. If you don’t like it, you can just skip. If you love to design stuff or are excited about learning new stuff, then you can at least give it a try.

Job Role

If you want to be a front-end developer, then mark my words—you will need this for sure. Nowadays, companies expect that you will have at least a good design sense.

Job Place

If you plan to join a big established company, then if you don’t want to, you can skip this. You can just focus on your work.

If you plan to join a startup, then you will need it for sure. Because, as startup culture goes, most startups want developers to be a one-man army. And on top of that, if you also have good design sense, then it’s just a lucky jackpot for them.

If you want to work as a freelancer, then most of the time, you may not need it, but if you do, it can help you impress your clients.

Where to start?

Everything has its fundamentals. So, here are the top 5 fundamental topics I would suggest you study.

1. Typography

Typography is an essential thing in design. There are different types of fonts, and each of them has a purpose. Also, there are some standards for font size, spacing, and line height.

2. Colors

There are some standards for colors as well. It plays a great role in user accessibility. You need to know at least about:

• Different shades of color.

• What are the most common colors for designing user interfaces?

• What should we consider while building a color palette for any product?

• What do different colors mean?

3. Spacing

White space is a very important thing that we don’t notice often. People don’t like things that look cluttered or messy. To prevent that, the design should have enough white space.

4. Alignment

There should be a proper alignment that guides user flow. You shouldn’t just place elements randomly. This creates a negative impact on user flow.

5. Consistency

Everything should be consistent across the whole design. Even if changes are needed, the transition should be smooth.

You don’t need to master these concepts right away, but understanding them will help you make better decisions in the future. Along with these, start exploring designs on Behance, Dribble, or Figma Community. This is the main thing. You need to train your eyes to recognize good design. You also need to keep up with design trends, which will help you stay relevant to industry changes.

After completing the basics, you can start making some designs on your own. To make it easier, just open Behance, choose a design, and start copying it in Figma. This will help you gain hands-on knowledge and build your Figma skills as well. And that’s it! In your free time, just copy some designs, and after a few days, you will notice the improvements.

How I Improved My Design Sense as a Developer

As a self-taught developer, I didn’t have formal guidance on design. I’ve never been great at it, but I started noticing that many senior developers were saying that having a good design sense increases the chances of getting hired. So, I decided to learn the fundamentals and explore Figma. I copied several websites, and over time, my design skills started improving. I’m not claiming to be great at design yet, but I now know what kind of design suits each section of a website. I can take elements from multiple designs and combine them into a cohesive one. As a result, my clients have come to appreciate my design sense.

For reference, you can visit my Behance profile. I uploaded some of my works at that time. While learning these things, I got this YouTube playlist from Ansh Mehra, which helped me a lot to clear the basics.

Conclusion

If you’ve reached this point in the article, then I must say that you’re interested in learning about design sense. I’ve been working in this industry for the last 2 years, and based on that, I know that having a design sense will help you in a lot of places. It will also help you make a good impression at your company. There’s a line called "Appearance comes before qualities." This may sound harsh, but it’s the reality. So, having a good design sense is a plus point.

Now, if you’re not the type of person who likes design and such, don’t worry at all. Just focus on what you love and be good at that—that’s what matters most. As I said, having a good design sense is just a bonus, nothing else. With that, I’ll wrap up today’s blog. I’ll see you in the next article.