Ask IH: where do you find design for your ideas

Hello!

Design is definitely something you can learn and improve. You just need to dedicate some time to learn and practice. I have a similar experience (being a backend developer) and I'm trying to improve myself in this area too.

I recently discovered this website and it's pretty neat if you want a starting point: lapa LEARN.

Taking some design related courses from websites like Udemy or Skillshare also helps, the latter has 2 months of free trial. Search for stuff like UX Design, UI Design, Landing Pages etc.

When you're developing for the web: use a frontend framework like Bootstrap to make things simpler.

For creating mockups and vector illustrations you can check out Sketch. I recently started learning Sketch and I find it pretty useful. It has a 30 day free trial if you want to try it out. You can get UI kits from Sketch App Resources and some universal symbols from the Noun Project. I find these resources pretty helpful. If you're not on macOS, you can try out Adobe products as well (mainly Illustrator & Photoshop).

If you want to learn by watching other professionals, I'd recommend Zimri Mayfield's YouTube channel. It's educational and fun. Beware though you might get addicted to it!

Another important subject is color theory. I found this blog post very useful. You might want to check it out.

Design is a pretty vast subject so there's no end to it. Try to find what works best for your needs, there are a lot of design resources on the Internet. And if you find something cool, let me know too!

Good luck with your design endeavors! ✨

The best approach is to learn the theory or make some design courses, but there's also a practical way you can try.

1- Get a lot of references. Got to dribble, Pinterest, Instagram and search for specific parts of your product (login, register, dashboard, forms, charts) and areas (finance, health, education).
2- Create "frankesteins" copy and paste these parts in any photoshop like program. With some effort, you start to understand what does work and what doesn't.
3- Download sketch or adobe xd (xd is free). and look for freebies for both platforms. There's a lot of resources available for download: dashboards, components, even entire web or app designs.
4- Again, inspect the designs. As a developer, your world is about objects.
Turn on and off each part of the design, try to discover what makes that page cool? Is the shadow? Is the border? Color?

Well, if you do that, you'll not become a designer for sure, but your interfaces will have a way better look, believe me.

I think the other replies are perfect. I'll just throw out one other idea: Copy.

There are plenty of companies that have people with years of design experience, as well as the quantitative feedback to know what works.

Start with their basic design or UX, apply it to your idea, and go from there. You'll learn from the process, and then you can make smaller, focused changes as you learn and grow.

Hello magneticz!

If you are looking for specific UI tips how to make your design attractive I cannot recommend more this comprehensive post made by Designer&Developer duo. Here you go: https://medium.com/refactoring-ui/7-practical-tips-for-cheating-at-design-40c736799886

In case you aim to build SaaS specifically, I'm collecting best practices for the UX design of web applications (more about layout, logic, user journey, user experience) on my blog: https://minimumviabledesigns.com/best-practices

My aim is to recommend patterns that release you from hard decision making and provide simple tips for implementation. Also, I try to reference other extensive articles for further investigation.

Good luck with your endeavors.

elements.envato.com is a nice resource for pay once and unlimited use of millions of resources