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Ask HN: How to learn UI/UX as a data/BE engineer?

39 points thenaturalist | 1 comments | 21 Oct 24 15:22 UTC | HN request time: 0.206s | source

Hi HN,

coming from a data/ BE background I feel extremely familiar with reasoning about systems and performance from the cloud-infra to the pipeline stack level. Or I'm super familiar with data visualization.

I feel like falling off a cliff when trying to extrapolate that knowledge to the more customer-facing world.

Despite having some tool ideas in the past, I realized I shy away from going towards the front end because I really lack any conecptual frame of how to think about and subsequently implement UI or UX.

I don't mean that in a nitty-gritty-designer focussed way but more like first-principle understanding:

What makes a good color scheme?

What makes a great wording and why?

What's a good form of presenting information?

I feel like I can recognize good UI/UX when I see it (as is often the case with HN company LPs), but I'd totally fail at distilling check boxes that such good examples tick.

Any pointers to how I can learn about these worlds and develop an understanding of what principles UI/UX should follow?

1. willio58 ◴[21 Oct 24 17:58 UTC] No.41906611[source]▶
> I shy away from going towards the front end because I really lack any conceptual frame of how to think about and subsequently implement UI or UX.

UX isn't a true requirement for frontend dev. Tech people (including myself) complain a lot about bad UX, and it's great you're interested but I just want to make sure you're not creating a false idea of dependency there. You can learn how to build UI without understanding the art of creating the best user experience for a problem.

UX is a discipline in itself and it's something a frontend dev naturally learns about over time, and if you value it I say totally learn it! But if you're a backend dev wanting to get into frontend, just get into frontend and get into UX later.