Design for Hackers is the site of David Kadavy, author of a book on design principles for programmers, with posts on typography.
Commenters recommend the book for learning UI design and color, though one says it won't let you quickly 'hack' design.
There are quite a few good resources for developers to learn design.
Disclaimer: I wrote a book on this topic, but because of that, I know resources made by other people too.
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Sacha Grief’s ebook is good for an in-depth example:
http://sachagreif.com/ebook/
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Design for Hackers by David Kadavy is also well written. He explores the more traditional way to learn design, with the history of fonts, color theory, etc.
http://designforhackers.com/
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A different approach might be reading about creativity. My friend Paul Jarvis has some great books about creativity, especially his new one, The Good Creative, if you’re looking to get inspired:
http://pjrvs.com/books/
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Nathan Barry’s design books are great. He also has a course on Photoshop if you’re looking to learn.
http://nathanbarry.com/books/
http://nathanbarry.com/app-design-handbook/
http://nathanbarry.com/webapps/
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One of the best books about UI/UX/usability is Don’t Make Me Think:
http://www.amazon.com/Dont-Make-Think-Revisited-Usability/dp/0321965515/
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Great place for topic-specific books. Some of these are more advanced and intended for designers. I'd suggest these for after you read up on the basics.
http://www.abookapart.com/
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My book focuses on design fundamentals instead of advanced theory. It's intended as a starting point for things you can do right now. Actionable, focused on building skill instead of knowledge.
http://bootstrappingdesign.com
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Email me anytime if you…
I'm not much of a designer, but one thing I've picked up from watching folks build convincing designs is that it's really an iterative process. The first crack at it might be just passable, but as you learn and implement new things, you can come up with a fairly compelling design. In fact, the first step should just be some ugly, pencil-drawn wireframes.
I think the first and most important thing to get right is making sure you're solving the user's problem. Create user stories, and try to really put yourself in the shoes of the user. Training yourself to think like someone who is non-technical and perhaps a casual app user is often the most difficult step, but once you do that, it's almost like programming the experience and walking them through the app. Make the workflow as intuitive as possible ("don't make me think" principle), then worry about polish.
Some useful resources that I've found useful and that might serve you well:
http://bootstrappingdesign.com/
http://designforhackers.com/
http://hackdesign.org/
Keep in mind I'm pretty green as well, but I hope this helps. Hopefully some more experienced folks can chime in and call my b.s.
Why is it called UI/UX designer?
UX is an umbrella term covering many design disciplines, like interaction design, UI design or research.
UI is a subset of UX.
Someone who is good at interaction design, IA, research and UI is nowadays called (digital) product designer.
It’s somewhat frustrating that the design industry can’t agree to use the right terms.
Also the guide missed to mention Axure or Just in Mind, which are real prototyping tools allowing you to prototype working forms and data grids, which are heavily used in business / enterprise apps.
The other tools mentioned, apart from Framer, are closer to creating clickable slideshows rather than sophisticated prototypes.
I would recommend these resources
https://designforhackers.com/
https://rosenfeldmedia.com/
https://www.nngroup.com/
And most importantly start creating as soon as poosible… learning by doing, eg recreate one of your favourite apps or site… you will learn a lot.
Like learning to code, visual design, web design, user interface design, and user experience design are broad topics. No one book or resource can teach you all there is, but one resource can help you make a lot of progress.
People on HN have recommended Design for Hackers https://designforhackers.com/
Learn about the design process https://www.slideshare.net/Klonowsa/design-process-overview-4517950
Some resources on prototyping https://www.productmanual.co/categories/prototyping
Some resources on interaction design https://www.productmanual.co/categories/interaction-design
This book is popular for people wanting to learn a little more about design. It's on my list of things to read. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Design_of_Everyday_Things
An application of design that is useful for projects and companies is the Google Ventures sprint is useful http://www.gv.com/sprint/
One point of emphasis should be on your front-end, which is pretty weak right now. Heres a few tips.
Use a framework like http://twitter.github.com/bootstrap/ or the under rated http://foundation.zurb.com/
If you're looking for something a little more complete, spend a few bucks and grab a theme from http://themeforest.net/
Something like this http://themeforest.net/category/site-templates/admin-templates will make a HUGE difference on your products design and usability.
Lastly, I would recommend reading http://designforhackers.com/ and get a better understanding of general design aesthetics like font, spacing, color etc.
Good luck! You're off to a great start! If you want to chat about front-end, Im happy to help. You can email me through my profile
Alternatively, Design for Hackers offers as well some good advise for creating an acceptable design without having to exercise your artistic skills (not too much, at least).
Some areas could be covered in more depth, but in general it lives to the promise of the title, providing good rules of thumb for which you don't need a good eye to apply them. It also contains a historical tour of visual design, satisfying the need of knowing where these rules come from (e.g. why designers care so much about font families and their proportions, and where the basic design vocabulary comes from), which is a welcome approach for inquisitive minds who want to know the reasons why a rule exist.
https://designforhackers.com/