"Design is not art. You don't get points for being original."

Indie hackers are all about minimalism and MVPs. Should design ever play a role, or is it just a distraction from building?

I caught up with indie hackers with design chops to understand if/when it actually makes sense for us to focus on UX and UI. Here’s what they had to say. 👇

Opinion #1: Design matters (even for indie hackers)

👤 Vasil Nedelchev of Designcrafter:

It doesn’t when you are the only solution for a specific painful problem on the market. People will use your crashing app and gladly pay for it. I've seen that happen many times in my career and it’s a good early sign for a product-market fit.

But design does matter when you are one of many options on the market. It matters for initial credibility. Onboarding UX design matters for conversions. And key feature UX design matters for retention.

👤 Michal Malewicz of Hype4:

UI design (i.e. the visual side) is what gets people interested in your product via a great first impression.

UX design is how easy a product is to use. It’s what keeps them in.

So I’d say design is essential to success, right after the main product selling point and value.

👤 Daniela of CtrlAlt.CC:

I am probably biased, but I think design is an underrated asset and a thing that people (more often than not) compromise on. It’s sometimes seen as a waste of time when people could ship X feature instead, or do one of the million other things indie makers have to do.

But especially as a maker with limited resources, I think good design will help build trust, and show that you care and you’re committed to spending time on the product — you’re not just gonna disappear into the sunset after a few sales.

👤 Dante Cardines III of Rosebud:

It matters so that indie products can stand out among other similar products. How many task managers or AI copywriters exist out there, all with similar looking UIs and experiences?

Standing out and having a unique look and feel lets you become memorable. Indie Hackers' design is primarily blue and has unique components versus other communities out there, and I think that that simple design decision helped it stand out.

👤 Sarah Hum of Canny:

Back in the day, design wasn’t too big of a deal. As long as the product worked, it didn’t matter that much what it looked like. Products were much more utilitarian. Users were willing to jump through hoops to get value out of them.

It’s very different today. There’s much more competition on all fronts, and users have much less patience for poorly designed products. Any friction in your product may cost you a customer. Source

👤 Dustin Stout of Magai:

Even though I was a designer first, I recognize that a product has to do more than just look good.

But I still spend hours making sure that the design is as perfect as possible before deploying a new feature. I just can't bring myself to release something that doesn't look good.

Opinion #2: Design is for chumps

👤 Yasen Slavov of BetaPeak:

Design is rarely how you deliver value to your customers. So I'd advise you to focus on what creates value for your users. Build that, iterate over your core offering to make it as valuable as possible, and only then focus on the UX/UI. Source

👤 Pawel Dotio of flat.social:

In general, my advice is that it's better to have a product first that has very minimalistic and simplified design but works well than having something beautifully designed but overcomplicated and working like crap.

If you're building the thingie yourself, you have limited time and energy. Done is better than perfect and if you get stuck on polishing the designs too much, you might get nothing done at the end (been there done that). Source

👤 Chris Tsongas of Onboardlist:

I'd say if all your side projects look unique and exciting, you're focusing on the wrong thing! Source

UX: Care about it pre-MVP

👤 Dante Cardines III of Rosebud:

I think UX matters in the beginning. Strip all of the complexities, get to the solution straight away. That's UX, and that matters right? Especially if you want people to try a new product.

👤 Daniela of CtrlAlt.CC:

I actually think UX matters from the get-go. Again it doesn’t have to be anything astronomical for the first few versions, just try to keep things as simple as possible and get people from A to B in as few clicks as possible.

👤 Vasil Nedelchev of Designcrafter:

As a designer, I'm obligated to say that UX matters at every point.

But as a business owner, I have to say that no amount of UX work will save you if you build something people don't need.

One early point where it makes sense to invest in UX is once you start generating a good amount of traffic to your landing page. At this point, you don't want the hard marketing work to go to waste.

👤 Michal Malewicz of Hype4:

UX matters right from the start, but luckily it’s not really rocket science anymore. Most products are just a blend of a few existing patterns.

UI: Care about it after validation

👤 Daniela of CtrlAlt.CC:

The truth is, the absolute first version of your product will, more likely than not, end up being rubbish (even if rn you might love it). So UI-wise, at this stage the only thing that I would do is keep things as clean as possible.

After your MVP is ready, you will either get validation fairly quickly OR you will have to try a few different positionings, or even pivots, before it makes sense to potential users. If you are in the latter batch, I would get a nice, clean landing page that you can try different copy on until something starts working.

Once you’ve validated the need for the product, then I would start worrying about UI. But I still wouldn’t put together design systems etc. until getting some sort of product market fit.

👤 Vasil Nedelchev of Designcrafter:

It doesn't matter until you validate your offer with a landing page. If you can't convert people on a landing page, why build or design anything based on that page?

Once people are signing up, you might need to put some effort into the UI design of the MVP. The amount of effort is determined by the customer expectations in this market. If you are entering a crowded market, you can’t afford a sloppy UI.

👤 Michal Malewicz of Hype4:

I believe you should make your product beautiful right away — you only make a first impression once.

It’s better to have fewer features on a super-polished app, even in the testing phases. People simply appreciate a high level of detail as users.

👤 Dante Cardines III of Rosebud:

I think validation matters far more in the beginning than design.

But that doesn't mean that the MVP can look like shit. I personally have never found a product with terrible UI and UX that I want to use just because it solves a problem of mine. There are usually far better alternatives.

Tips for effective (and quick) design

Define your target audience

👤 Sarah Hum of Canny:

You need to know your target audience extremely well in order to optimize experiences for them.

If you’re not sure how to define your ideal customer profile, try this: Think about who’s most likely to benefit from your product. Take the time to really dig into their demographics, psychographics, and personality. The clearer you can get, the better. Source

KISS

👤 Daniela of CtrlAlt.CC:

Overall, keep things simple - I know it’s harder than it sounds, but it’s a good base that never disappoints. For UI, whitespace is your friend. For UX, the fewer clicks the better.

👤 Sarah Hum of Canny:

Don’t overcomplicate your design. The more unfamiliar the interface is to the user, the more potential for confusion. Unfamiliar design patterns also hurt conversion rates. What’s more important (especially in the SaaS industry) than conversions? Source

Be a minimalist (as a beginner)

👤 Michal Malewicz of Hype4:

Clean, clear design always works best.

👤 Michal Malewicz of Hype4:

Beginners should use just one typeface. Something clean, similar to sans-serif, like Inter, Plus Jakarta Sans, or Figtree. Simple white background with dark gray text (think 2E2E2E instead of pure black) and just one accent color with no more than 90% saturation.

This is how the best products are made even without skills. Keep it safe, but look at all the little details and try to move towards perfect.

Ignore trends

👤 Michal Malewicz of Hype4:

Without great UI skills I wouldn’t suggest running after cool looking trends. Instead, go with that safe and beautiful, readable design, then add a personal touch through branding or copywriting.

Make design rules for your product

👤 Vasil Nedelchev of Designcrafter:

Make simple rules that you can follow so you don't have to make a design decision on every feature.

Remove friction

👤 Dante Cardines III of Rosebud:

Try to remove as much friction as you can between your solution and the user.

👤 Sarah Hum of Canny:

Remove distractions and focus on helping users complete their task. Decrease the chance that they could make any mistakes.

How can you, as a designer, make that happen? Remove unnecessary navigation and distracting text, while including things that add clarity. Source

Be helpful; not annoying

👤 Sarah Hum of Canny:

Obviously, we want our users to use all of our features. Especially when we release new ones, we want our target customers to adopt them.

There are various ways of bringing attention to new features. The key here is to be helpful in the right context. This goes back to understanding your users, knowing where they are in their journey, and serving them. In other words, show them what they need to complete the task at hand. Source

Nail the fundamentals

👤 Michal Malewicz of Hype4:

Beauty is, of course, subjective, but I’d say the best starting point is strong fundamentals. I made a free ebook a few months ago with a guide on a selection of safe fonts, colors, margins and so on.

👤 Michal Malewicz of Hype4:

I’d suggest nailing the basics, then double- and triple-check every little spacing, color, and font.

Focus on UX first and foremost

👤 Pawel Dotio of flat.social:

I do get stuck quite often with the UI/UX - for me the problem usually stems from going straight into high-fidelity designs without giving it too much conceptual thought beforehand. The solution usually is putting a product-owner hat on and spending a day or two to do design without not touching the code at all.

Zoom out. Ask these questions: What is that I'm actually trying to build? And what is the main goal for the user? This is text only, no design.

Then create a rough storyboard of different screens, how they connect, and what data flow looks like. Research similar products. They invest a lot into A/B testing and have probably solved a lot of problems already.

Take a stance

👤 Sarah Hum of Canny:

Sometimes, there are many ways to complete a task. Every so often, it's best to take a stance on how it should be done instead of trying to support every use case.

This goes back to minimizing the chance of error. If users don’t have options, they’re much less likely to make a mistake and get confused within your product.

We always aim to reduce complexity by being prescriptive with our designs. Instead of offering endless flexibility, we design for the fastest path to value for our users. Source

Be consistent

👤 Mack Seraner of Cakedesk:  I think consistency is worth so much. You can have a very basic, unimpressive design but if your spacing and use of color / fonts is consistent, it will appear very well thought out and reliable. Source

Check your visual hierarchy

👤 Mack Seraner of Cakedesk:

Another thing to pay attention to is the "visual hierarchy". When you're working on a design, glance at it and see what your eye catches immediately. If it's not the most important thing, like your (or your user's) content or a CTA, then you can make some tweaks in that direction. Source

Don’t use AI for copy

👤 Michal Malewicz of Hype4:

Definitely don’t use AI for writing copy in any product, as it just makes it look average and sound like a cheap SEO page. Quirky, fun, personal, and “yours” should be the future.

Talk to customers

👤 Vasil Nedelchev of Designcrafter:

Learn to talk to customers and uncover insights. Don't rely on assumptions.

A great resource is the book, The Mom Test.

Learn to say “no”

👤 Sarah Hum of Canny:

The reality is—you need to be selective. You can’t (and should not) build everything. That’s the art of prioritization — selecting the most impactful ideas.

Occasionally, we have to push back on ‌requests that we get from customers or other team members. Sometimes, a feature just isn’t a priority based on how much effort it would take and/or the impact it could have. Other times, features don’t add to the long term vision or might negatively impact overall user experience. Source

Iterate and optimize

👤 Sarah Hum of Canny:

If you’re finding that some of your users aren’t acting the way you want them to, this is a clear signal that you need to optimize that design. The design process doesn’t end when flows/features are launched. Take time to revisit experiences to see if they could be optimized. Source

Design can be learned

👤 Daniela of CtrlAlt.CC:

Overall, just like any other skill, you have to learn it. Design isn’t this magical, intangible thing. All of us have learned it, some of us are just more interested in it than others and become better at it. But we can all do it to some extent!

Gain experience

👤 Daniela of CtrlAlt.CC:

After you’ve built enough, talked to enough users, and redesigned something enough times, you will start to understand what users like and what they don’t

Ask for help

👤 Dante Cardines III of Rosebud:

You can try to consult with plenty of designers — like me, haha! I like chatting with founders and giving advice for free :) https://twitter.com/dantecardines

Observe

👤 Michal Malewicz of Hype4:

Design has become pretty commoditized and most products are just a different blend of a couple of existing patterns. So by observing how others achieve great UX, an indie hacker can easily replicate most of it even without full-on research or design skills.

Look at non-digital design

👤 Daniela of CtrlAlt.CC:

I would also get out of the digital world and look at other types of design. Read about product and architectural design, and you will see how creating physical spaces and experiences translates online too.

Borrow, steal, and cheat.

👤 Vasil Nedelchev of Designcrafter:

Borrow, steal, cheat.

Kinda joking but not really. Design is not art. You don't get points for being original.

Being an indie hacker, you are already at a disadvantage building and designing alongside teams with big budgets.

Do the research. Collect references.

👤 Dante Cardines III of Rosebud:

Try to copy components that you need as closely as possible and you'll do well.

Leverage tools

👤 Daniela of CtrlAlt.CC:

Regardless of experience there are so many tools out there that can help you with anything from branding to product UIs. And depending on your budget, there are even options out there to work with designers on a flat fee per month.

Design tools and resources

👤 Dante Cardines III of Rosebud:

Check out Flowbase, Tailwind UI, or design pattern libraries such as Mobbin or my own product W3Design. With these, you can copy the simplest component and just put a twist on your product.

👤 Vasil Nedelchev of Designcrafter:

I'm gonna cheat on this one.

Two months ago I did a design workshop for the dev team of one of my clients. The topic was how to make design decisions on the spot as a non-designer.

After the workshop, the guys ask me to do a cheatsheet with the main takeaways so they can refer back to it. With their permission I'm sharing it here.

Some of the context might be lost so don't hesitate to ask.

👤 Michal Malewicz of Hype4:

Get a simple UI kit and work off that. No need to get anything robust with thousands of screens. As for tools, Figma is still king, but it’s worth being cautious and backing up the .fig files locally to not keep all the sources in the cloud.

👤 Pawel Dotio of flat.social:

I do designs in Sketch.

👤 Yasen Slavov of BetaPeak: When building side projects, I always try to move as quickly as possible - my main objective in the very beginning is putting the product in the hands of my prospective users. That's why I tend to use ready-made components built around Material Design, Bootstrap, Bulma, etc.. Source

👤 Kyle Platt of Tactycs: A UI toolkit is absolutely the way to go. It significantly lowers dev time and as you use it you learn what works and what doesn't design wise.

I decided to pull the trigger on TailwindUI and so far it's been worth it. Source

👤 Pawel Dotio of flat.social:

Using Dribbble / Fiverr as a source for how things should be done UX-wise might not be the best idea. Very often they will focus on design over function. They're good for look and feel but shouldn't be a source of truth.

To see how features should actually work, go to products of big established successful companies that have spent a lot of money on UX and marketing research. Very often, you'll get answers immediately and then you can style it the way you want. Source

👤 Sarah Hum of Canny:

Try tools like FullStory that show you what users are doing. Is there any unnecessary friction? Free tools like Google Analytics can also help uncover friction points. Source

👤 Daniela of CtrlAlt.CC:

There’s just so much helpful stuff out there and I think the problem is actually finding it! Which is actually why I started my directory of tools for startup founders (ctrlalt.cc) and try to keep it up to date with all sorts of useful products. Here are some for design specifically: )

For branding I would recommend tools like Typogram and Color Hunt.

For websites, depending on your experience and needs, I would use a drag & drop website builder like MMM, or if you want something a bit more structured, I love Framer - their new AI feature comes in super handy for putting together something nice looking quickly or you can get started from a template (here are some that I made with a little 30% off for 30 people: INDIEJAN30). Or if you want more hands on code, try a boilerplate like Shipixen.

When it comes to actual app design, I love design thinking as a methodology and wrote an article about it on IH previously.

And lastly, looking at overall UX, go read Laws of UX again and again and then start implementing them in your projects :) You will not regret it.