UI/UX: How I Learned To Love Design

2025-05-13

UI/UX: How I Learned to Love Design

Introduction

I've never been good at art.

At age six, I was told off for colouring sheep purple (I stand by it, as evidenced by my work). I wasn’t allowed to use a pen until I could write “properly.” My art teachers? They gave me the same look I give CSS when I make a minor change and it feels like I’ve taken a sledgehammer to a building.

So in my adult life I've had an aversion to all things "Design" and all people considered "Artistic". My opinion ranged from “overrated” to “self-indulgent. Naturally, I avoided design like the plague, whether Posters, PowerPoint Slides etc. I’d present the idea and logic behind what I wanted and leave the visuals to someone else.

If you told me a few years ago that I’d not only tolerate design, but enjoy it? I would’ve asked what brand of crazy pills you were on.

Then something changed. And here's how.

The Shift: Resentment to Respect

Early on in my development study, I covered CSS. That’s when my nightmares came true and you’d think Freddy Krueger had taken up a seat at my desk. I found it tough, it was one thing to have an idea of how a webpage should look, but to accomplish that, almost impossible. Even when I managed to throw together a vaguely good-looking page, something always felt… off. While I certainly did not love design at this point, I at least respected the difficulty of putting things together.

Things really started clicking in my final year during my Interaction Design course. It wasn't picking colors, or layouts - it was understanding how people think, how they interact, why they have issues, what is a succesful layout - UI/UX (User Interaction/User Experience). It also helped that our teacher had a solid grasp of her own UI/UX principles. She provided an overwhelming amount of resources, but let us explore and connect the dots at our own pace. She didn’t handhold, but the support was always there when needed. Looking back, her teaching style was good UX: intuitive, empowering, and never obstructive

I enjoyed this class so much, I’ve continued my final project into an ongoing real-world build:

Healthcare IoT App on GitHub

It wasnt about being "artistic" it is solving problems with empathy, logic and consistency. It started to feel the bricks were clicking into place. Then during my internship, where I was helping re-design a website, the lightbulb exploded.

Delving into concepts of UI/UX design it made complete sense logically and began to feel less like design and more like good software development.

Design is problem-solving, not decoration.

The Core Concepts That Changed My Perspective

1. Visual Hierarchy is Controlling the User
   I used to think visual design was "making it look nice". Actually, its telling people where to look, its directing them to what you want them to do. Size, color, contrast, spacing all help guide attention.
   Resources:

   • Laws of UX UX Principles as cheat codes
   • Visme's Visual Hierarchy Guide Excellent article covering concepts.

2. Consistency is Key
   Being predictable is a feature not a bug. When starting making websites, I thought everything looks the same now, no individuality, and I wanted to be different, I was wrong.... Its not about being boring, its about being usable. Reusing layouts, button styles and spacing breeds familiarity. Think of different operating systems, how difficult it is to switch and why Windows has been so succesful, because its comfort in knowing how to navigate.
   Resources

   • Material Design Guidelines Googles official design system
   • Apple Human Interface Guidelines Apples Guidlines.
   • Design Systems Repo A library of public design systems for companies like Atlassian, IBM, Spotify etc.

3. User Empathy over Aesthetic Taste
   Its not about what you think is Cool, it's about what works for them. It's a hard impulse to control and its about picking the right time and place to implement. What is important is:

   • Can they get the job done without rage-quitting?
   • Do they know what to do next?
   • What happens it they mess up?
     Try watching a real user try your interface without your help, prepare for part funny, part horrified. Its pain, real pain, the learning kind of pain.
     Resources
   • Usability Testing 101 A great article on usability testing.

4. Microinteractions
   When I discussed earlier about something feeling off, this is what was missing. Its the polish, the little things. A satisfying hover, gentle spinners, checkmarks saying "hey, you did it". Its subtle but makes everything feel intentional.
   Resources

   • UX Design - Smashing Magazine A compendium of UX articles.

Practical Skkills Developers Should Learn for UI/UX

The MVP of Learning:
Reverse engineering great UI- Whenever I saw a site I liked, Id inspect it, How was the layout structured? What was the spacing? What Animations did they use? I learned a ton just breaking down what worked and why.

Useful tools and resources

• Bootstrap The go-to CSS framework. Excellent for whipping up a quick prototype.

• Figma The McDonalds of wireframing and prototyping

• Tailwind Design system for devs. Learn utility classes and spacing scale.

• Radix Excellent site for creating color pallettes

• CSSnippets A great library of ready to use components.

• Color Finder Like a color but don't know what it is, Color Finder is your tool.

Why I know love UI/UX Design

UI/UX has made me a better developer, not because I use fancier fonts, but because I think more holistically, I care about:

• Who I'm building for
• How they interact with the product
• What makes the experience feel smooth

Design isn't fluff, its a vital layer between the user and the logic you've worked so hard to build. And the more you understand it, the more your work actually gets used and enjoyed.

So Yeah, I used to hate design.
Now? Its my secret joy.