A List Apart

Nice article, the comments here are kind of amazing for a nominally technical audience. It is almost as if people have no idea how difficult automatic page layout and formatting is. There are literally PhD thesis topics on it[1]. And to expect that complexity to be abstracted away into some sort of simple "do-what-I-mean" expression? That just isn't going to happen.

Go look at Gwern Branwen's web site[2]. That is art. But the trick is decide how you want the site to look and then constraining your written material to be expressible in that style.

I've been looking at web page layout since 1995 when I joined a startup that was doing the "first magazine on the web about Golf!"[3] When the Zen Garden folks did their web site and started the 'A List Apart' mailing list which is now a website[4] it really helped me understand just what one was up against if you wanted to produce web content that rendered nicely on a wide variety of projections. And yes, the term projection is intentional because the function of going from semantic content to presentation on a screen or paper or other flat surface of finite size, is a mapping (or projection) from a native space into the rule set of the destination space. That rule set consists of both physical constraints (pixels per inch, total pixels horizonally and vertically, color capability) and software constraints (how much of the underlying capability can the browser software that is currently running express). Not to mention that every…

I can't quite tell if you're having trouble with front-end architecture (code structure/design, separating things effectively across HTML/CSS/JS) or design (UI, UX, look/feel, application layout and navigation structure) or both.

If the first is the problem, it's probably worth running through some tutorials to build a full application on whatever set of libs/framework you've chosen. For example, there's a course on Udemy called "Modern React and Redux" that'll introduce you to (surprise) react and redux, as well as demonstrating how to structure your application and build some basics. There's any number of similar things from other people for other ways to structure an app with jQuery or Angular or whatever.

If the design-side stuff is the problem, the first and easiest thing to do is look at examples of good design. Showcases like https://www.thebestdesigns.com/ will have tons of beautiful, well-designed websites you can look through and examine. This is more useful if you put some effort into it (What do I like about this design? Why did they do things this way? If I play with the CSS and adjust these things, how does that change the look/feel? How did they get this effect?) Sites like https://alistapart.com/ and Smashing magazine will have some useful articles to read, sites that sell templates can give an idea of current design trends that are popular/sell well (themeforest etc.), Dribbble and the like will have detailed design mocks, UI kits and guidelines will have…

It's absolutely fine to be a not-great UX designer. I'm also not a great UX designer.

The way you wrote and posted this article, there was an implication to me (and I'm guessing to others) that you think this design philosophy is better than what most other people are doing. The article would benefit from some qualifications, e.g.: "I'm still teaching myself UX and aesthetic design," for example. As it is, it comes across as a strong argument from someone who thinks he's an expert (and thinks other people's design decisions are wrong).

In terms of resources, you could take a full-semester class just about typography. Designing UIs is really hard and requires a ton of research. I've spent hundreds of hours over the last 10+ years just reading books and articles, and I still consider myself an amateur.

My strong recommendation is to pay someone who is great at UX and understands how to accommodate people with physical disabilities. Even people who are just 40+ years old (and not disabled in any way) are getting significantly less light coming through their retinas, and it's possible to choose fonts and colors that are difficult for them.

You can find someone who could revamp your stylesheet in a couple of days, and it shouldn't cost you more than $1k-$2k with the right person on Upwork.

You seem to be great at a lot of other things, so why not find someone who has equal depth at UX design? As a generalist myself, I often rely on specialists because it's truly impossible…

Web design is a really broad field. You need to understand HTML and CSS, you need to understand the limitations of web browsers as a medium, you need to understand how users interact with webpages, and you need to have a decent handle on typography/visual design. I don't have good tutorials/articles for all of these areas, unfortunately: they're things I've learned over a pretty long period of time by reading a lot of different disparate articles. In general, A List Apart (http://www.alistapart.com/) is an excellent resource for articles on design. While it's frequently linked, a lot of the stuff on Smashing Magazine (http://smashingmagazine.com/) is awful. Their articles on how to do things with HTML/CSS are usually decent, but their articles about actual design usually demonstrate a complete lack of understanding of what good design is. I'm also haven't really found any resources with good exercises. One of the things about design is that you really need to be getting feedback from a real person. If you're doing things and would like design-related feedback, I'm usually happy to give it. (My email is in my profile.)

For learning HTML and CSS I recommend HTML Dog (http://htmldog.com/). It's a bit dated and won't cover HTML5/CSS3 stuff at all, but it does teach good practices, and I haven't found anything better.

I also haven't found a good article/tutorial on web browser limitations. You need to be aware of web browser width (people generally design for a 1024px wide…

"Life without enquiry is not worth living for a man", think that's Socrates.

Good luck, I remember doing a 3 months internship at Agilent Tech yeeaaaarrss ago where at the end I was like - "No way am i ever working in this Dilbert socially backwards environment" Not to say it was a bad place, just not for me.

Since then, I've had 6 or 7 real jobs, in 4 or 5 different industries, travelled round the world, asked loads of questions, tried loads of things and still not satisfied.

It's a tough one, everybody's different and very few people figure 'it' out, hence why you most advice is stupidly simple, short and unhelpful like 'be yourself', 'do what you love', etc... the list goes on.

'Wear sunscreen' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTJ7AzBIJoI

there is a good line in there

"Don't feel guilty if you don't know what you want to do with your life. The most interesting people I know didn't know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives, some of the most interesting 40 year olds I know still don't."

My 2 cents:

- try everything while still young and while your responsibilities are small, and monthly nut is small. It's much more difficult to have a mid life crisis when you need $4000 a month for mortgages, cars and kids.

- don't chase the $$$ - you'll never be as good as the guy who's doing it cause he loves it

- most people aren't satisfied with what they do, which is why books by Tim Ferris and Chris Guillebeau sell so well, they sell the 'dream'

- as far as…

I got similar complaints about my designs, (which can be super frustrating..."i gave you a website...now you want it to be gorgeous too...sheesh").

So I started taking note of what I liked and didn't like about site designs. I made a delicious list and tagged the sites i liked with "webdesign-inspiration" if they have something that specifically stood out to me. Design is an art, and every artist learns by imitating. Find a feature you enjoy and try to duplicate it. Firebug is your friend.

But never get too attached. Just because a child spends hours on a macaroni picture doesn't mean everyone will love it. Listen to your users/friends and take their advice with a grain of salt. Re-design, is just part of design.

Find a few design blogs that you can relate to, i like css-tricks, and check them every once in a while. If you like sparten designs, read http://www.alistapart.com/ . A typography based webpage design takes more skill and patience to make look good than just throwing some blue web 2.0 buttons on your nav bar.

Keep a folder of screen shots of web designs you like and constantly ask yourself what makes you like them, and how can you incorporate those features in your site.

Finally, if you have any limitations (mine is colors) there are plenty of resources to help you out, just search for them. Such as http://www.colourlovers.com/ Good luck!