How to improve the skill of designing good websites?

Question

User interface

Question for connoisseurs.
How can you improve the skill of designing good websites? By good, I mean sites that are convenient for visitors to use, that bring profit to their owners, and that are made with a backlog for the future. A kind of "golden mean".
Experience shows that smart books help least of all in this matter. You can gain knowledge from them, but the skill does not grow a bit from this. On the other hand, just practicing is also not the best solution - the speed at which the industry develops is higher than the speed at which you can pump up a skill with practice alone.
Therefore, I would like to know from people who know what, in principle, there are provenmethods to improve this skill, and at the same time, perhaps you will share some tips: what to pay attention to, what not to, what tools are better to use, whose articles contain more practical meaning than dry knowledge. I would be grateful for any advice and comments on the essence of the issue.

Answer 1

No, I do not agree that contemplation of other people's sites gives the skill of designing good ones. Maximum inspiration. And here you need a mindset, skills, a certain technique.
I recommend turning to the User eXpirience (EX) direction - creating user-friendly solutions.
This is a big trend. There is a little bit from the artist, but a lot from the user himself. You need to give users tasks that can be solved on your site, so that they do and tell you what they want to do, which interface element they would click on, what expectations they had in their head before the click, what they got after the click, whether they got what they wanted was it enough just to get what you wanted. This is generally called User / Usability Testing. We need several such reviews. Then a decision is made whether users are satisfied with your way to satisfy their needs, whether it is worth simplifying or complicating user behavior scenarios, changing sizes or colors, rearranging elements.
After some time, on N + 1 project, you will start to get a correct understanding of what users expect, how it is more convenient for the user to implement solutions to his problems in the interface. There will be no perfect solution. What you come up with for N projects may not work at all for N + 1. The main thing is to know how to determine what exactly is causing the failure and have ideas on how to change it.
There is also such a technique as A / B testing, split testing.
In general - do, check, fix.
A small overview for seed www.zenexmachina.com/what-we-do/user-experience
This section is called marketing and, in particular, Internet marketing. The first task is to find a need and satisfy it. The second task is to satisfy the needs of a larger number of consumers, that is, to "hook" a larger percentage of the audience or increase the audience. The third task: to find the optimal price, that is, to balance the possibilities of production, costs, consumption and purchasing power. Well, there are many more tasks.
Look for new needs of new consumers. Look for new needs of old consumers. Let me call it diversification.
Look for new ways to meet old needs that are more efficient or less expensive. Including new client technologies, more modern design, if it is convenient for the user.
Do not stop. Develop.
Here is a mini-review to help: uxmastery.com/resources/process
Disagree. But I won't give specific books. I just didn't write down exactly what I read.
MIF publishing house translates many modern foreign books. Lots of sources in English.
But most importantly ...
It doesn't grow that fast. And yet, it often happens that knowledge grows, but in practice nothing changes. The purpose of learning is not to know, but to act. Usually it is better to remember exactly what you encounter in reality. And also, knowing how to do it, you begin to experiment.
PS There is some kind of "silver bullet", and not a "golden mean" Well))

Answer 2

Books on design and psychology, and in terms of technology - changes no more than once every 5 years, incl. enough time for them. The main thing is not to spend a lot of time on such philosophical questions :)

Answer 3

Alexander, first of all, improve the understanding of the UI, that's all. The better you know how to design interfaces for people, the better your sites turn out. Also visit dribbble.com, be.net every day - these resources will allow you to tune in to modern design, learn something for yourself, adopt work techniques and understand what people need. Just like Anton said above, read about design and psychology - these are the two most important things in designing any website.

Answer 4

Sell ​​a car, apartment, grandmother's cow, etc. Buy the latest and greatest Apple iMac 27" with Retina Display 5K. Buy a subscription to the entire Adobe Creative Cloud. Buy Sketch.app, and 20-30 more gadgets and plugins. Buy accounts on various trendy stocks like shutterstock or istockphotos, sign up on envato services and buy as many cutting-edge templates as possible on graphicriver or themeforest.Buy the coolest fonts, pictures and video intros.And...
None of the above will make you a good designer. I often encountered such thoughts. "I'll buy myself a more powerful poppy, put Sketch there and I'll make the coolest interfaces and make money." You won't. Until you learn how to think correctly, find inspiration, learn the basics of technology and put it all into practice. And the Internet is littered with articles, video courses, trainings and other junk. Free and paid. Take it and learn. There would be a desire and time. What are you interested in? Same sketch? We google about the sketch and find a lot of sites with tutorials or even entire trainings. They are paid, of course. You will have to pay 7-10 kilo rubles, but in a month they will make you a real sketch ninja, who will really quickly and brutally rivet interfaces for iPhones.

Answer 5

Make up your own TK and follow it. It used to be called "setting a goal for yourself", but this way you will immediately tune in to a working mood. Sign up for BiHance and join the community so that people watch your Work in Progress, comment, and it stimulates you.

Answer 6

Start by learning analytics. Without understanding user behavior, there will be no good interfaces.
Learn to use analytical tools.