HACKER Q&A
📣 brainlessdev

What are comprehensive resources to learn digital product design?


I'm a software developer (mainly web) with an interest in design. I believe I have a good intuition from my experience working with designers, but I would like to turn this into more solid knowledge.

I'm struggling to find a comprehensive resource that teaches me graphic design and digital product design foundations such as color theory, spacing, rhythm, and most likely other concepts I haven't heard about yet.

I need something that guides me through the world of design, and not an aggregation of articles (of which I already read a lot).

Any ideas?


  👤 ArtWomb Accepted Answer ✓
I usually point folks to a few top-notch online courses:

https://www.coursera.org/calarts

https://dschool.stanford.edu/resources

https://designlab.ucsd.edu/education/online-education/

https://www.gv.com/sprint/

But what I find particularly helpful is looking at how elite firms do "process". Before developing the product, it may be necessary to cement the pipeline, the workflow

https://www.pentagram.com/work/mit-media-lab

http://www.appliedaesthetics.org/ART132-01/19/NEXT.pdf


👤 rchaud
The PDF book "Refactoring UI" has been a helpful reference as it focuses on UI design for apps and websites. Some free articles from the book are available on the site:

- Building your color palette: https://refactoringui.com/previews/building-your-color-palet...

- Labels are a last resort: https://refactoringui.com/previews/labels-are-a-last-resort/

This article from learnui.design provides a quick and dirty overview about some basic design principles that non-designers tend to not think about:

- https://learnui.design/blog/why-beginning-designers-dont-nee...