Free Design Advice
Hi guys,
I've seen some posts asking about design advice and since I've got some extra availability these days I thought I might spend some of it giving out free advice. I'm a freelance UX/UI designer and developer as well as a fellow indie hacker so feel free to ask me about anything
Here are some examples of things I can offer advice on:
- Web and app design
- Usability review
- Front-end code review
- Speed test
- Opinion on whether or not I think a certain designer, developer, tool, platform, etc would be a good fit for you or your product.
- How to find the right designer/developer
- Web designer / company opinion
- How to improve at design
- Anything else
Comment below with what you want my two cents on. If you'd rather want private advice, feel free to send me a dm or reach out on my website at https://gilli.is
I might not be able to reply to everyone today, but I'll do my best to reply to everyone eventually, if there are so many people who reach out.
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Hi Gilli !
How nice of you offering some advice. That's really kind fo you.
I am in need of advice regarding:
Curated library of colors and fonts for Web Developers & Digital Designers.
I have installed a cookie message and a subscribe popup right at the end of the landing page. so it does not come in the middle.
I would be thrilled if you could provide me with some feedback on the general aspect.
Thank you so much Gill.
Have a great day.
Hi @Michael_Andreuzza, well first off you must have done a great job because I already had your website bookmarked! I'm very picky with what I put in my bookmarks so you should take that as a great compliment, haha :)
Ok let's dig in, as I remember when I bookmarked it, which was a couple of months ago I think, I instantly knew what this website was offering without digging deep into it, so I think your hero is doing it's job nicely.
However from a business perspective, it's not clear to me at all what you are getting out of it, if anything at all? As in are you selling anything? My impression would be that you made a resource for yourself and decided to share it with others without getting anything in return, if that is your goal then thats great. But if you are selling anything then you need to do a better job of promoting that. If you are doing it to promote yourself and your services, then maybe feature an intro to you and what you do in a section of the landing page and other pages? Or at least maybe in an about section.
I'll dig into some of the sub pages now.
## Color palettes
They are clear and easy to use, not much to say except thank you for the resource!
## Gradients
Same as the palettes, very clear and simple to use.
## Fonts
This is a nice way to present pairing and be able to get a quick glance at some options. Definitely useful for people like me. My main gripe with it is that there are some nice actions available that are not obvious to me. For example the copy buttons above each section are not clear that they do anything. The only way to find out what they are is to interact with them and click them, which I'm guessing most people wouldn't do. So maybe add some title above or icons or something to communicate that they are buttons and what they do. Same with the "Black, Blue, Yellow" I didn't know what that was until I hovered over it. So perhaps a title above it saying "Change background" would suffice.
## Material colors
It's an interesting concept, my main problem with it is that when I click to select a color it's not clear that I have it in my clipboard now. It's missing the nice notification I get when using the color palette.
## Resources
Simple and useful. Not much to criticise here :)
Overall it's a very nice and useful resource. Good job!
First of all, thank you so much for that.
I appreciate that you have bookmarked my site, and even months ago. It made me realise how long I have been working on it. I wonder where you saw the link...:-)
Thank you also for the kind words. It's really motivational.
with you
Yeah , you are right about the buttons. They need more info.
The buttons with the names of the palette, Gradient and the ones you are talking used to have a code icon < > but I removed it maybe 3 or 4 months ago because it looked overcharge...
But I agree with you, they need more information but I just can't find the way on how to approach that to be honest...
I thought I should put the code icon back or a text saying.
Get all 5 . in palettes instead of the name.
Get CSS in gradients " " "
Get import, Get family 1, get family 2.
I will definately work on the hover tags...
And yeah I can fix a snack bar on click in material colors.
Bussines perspective
I used to have adsense ads, I got 78 € in 3 months..........
I removed them because the UI was ugly and the UX became bad, a lot. Plus I did not liked then from the beginning and I didn't want my users to go through that to be honest.
Since then a lot has happened....
I decided to make the resources page because I am going to make the website more interactive for the users... and those two will give space to ask for sponsorships.
Also I have started a newsletter which I will send them the updates and companies can sponsor that too.
Otherwise I don't see any monetization way.
Then I am soon going to start to work on something that many has requested , palettes by example and I am studying on how to approach that using the created palettes.
Also something that is interesting to know is that Persp ( https://persp.info/?ref=caf ) has changed their code so their users can copy the 5 numbers on the palettes and paste them as 5 different numbers in their code editor.
You can see it here.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/5uked8lb75whgkr/caf.mp4?dl=0
Again , thank you so much for your feedback... it was nice and interesting to know you had it bookmarked already.. it made me proud of myself.
Thanks Gilli
You're welcome, it's a great resource so keep up the good work.
If a lot of people requested that feature about color palettes by example then maybe that's what you should monetize. Some pro membership or something where people get more things like that?
It's cool how Persp integrated your palettes into it.
Anyway good luck with everything!
A pro membership, that sounds good. I should have a look at it.
By the way, I did what you said regarding the material colors, now they have a snack bar too. I do not understand why I haven't done it before...
I also added some Copy paste icons on the palettes, gradient names and the fonts as you mentioned. Hope it helps the user to understand it better.
Thank you so much and have a good day Gilli. Good luck to you too.
Yes please! I've launched my new site https://rply.co and am on the second iteration of the front end, any feedback would be great!
If you were interested in giving some advice on the backend just pm me and I'll create a free account for you.
Thanks!
Hi @tim103,
Overall it looks like a decent landing page. You made it clear from the headline what it was so I could decide if I was interested in reading more.
It does look a bit monotone though. You are using the same navy blue for all text and elements of importance which doesn't help me see what you want my eye drawn to. Which are the CTAs, like the hero button and "Get Started ->" links. You could try making the text black and keep the CTA navy, which makes the CTA buttons and links stand out and draws your eye to them, like you can see here: https://gilli.xyz/index.php/s/JctG4DJfxHcTbM7
If I were to nitpick a bit the mobile device around the screenshot feels like it doesn't quite fit in. It feels a bit odd since it has shadows, gradients and feels a bit faded while everything else has sharp edges and contrast.
I hope this helps!
Amazing, that's so much for that feedback - I'm going to put it into action! I agree with you and I do think the mobile does seem a bit out of place, so will try and find another one to replace it with.
Thanks!
Oh and feel free to send me a pm if you want me to look at the app itself :)
Thanks for your offer to help.
I'm a non-designer, non-technical person. I have an idea for a mobile or web app that's relatively simple - think restaurant reservation system like OpenTable. In my mind I have an idea of what it should look like, functionality, user flow, etc. I'd like to create a mockup of at least a few screens. Are there any tools you would recommend which are easy to use for something like this?
Simple Google search shows things like moqups, balsamiq, fluidui. I'd welcome any thoughts you may have.
Thanks!
Hi @RSB1,
I think you are on the right track, of those tools you mentioned, I've only tried balsamiq. Low-fi mockup tools like that are a good way to test out your idea quickly, and even user test it, and verify that what you got in your head works when it's taken out into the real world. I'd recommend that you just try them out and see if you like any of them.
If they don't work then paper and pen is always a classic and usually how I start my designs. I find it to be the quickest way to get something out of my head and see if it makes sense. Then I usually create a high-fidelity mockup right after that. Or even just head straight to code if it's simple enough.
I hope this helps, let me know if you have any more questions.
Thanks. That's helpful.