Design for Programmers, Button Bar Uses, Seth Godin

An very in-depth look at considerations of design for programmers, such as grids, typography, and color theory.

The author, Ria N. Carmin takes an actual education online ad and completely reworks it.

Design is not as elusive as people think it is. It is a learnable skill. Design has rules that anyone can apply to their work. If you are an engineer working on an application or a business guy putting together a slide deck, there are a few tricks you can learn. I will show how to apply three base principles of design: grids, typography and color theory.

I particularly like the animated gif showing the different grid elements in use:

Grid Elements gif

Expect to find lots of specific, actionable advice, from the three components necessary to design anything–Esthetics, Empathy, and Means of Production–to an in-depth discussion of color schemes–Shades/Monochromatic, Analogous, Gradients, and Complementary.

Well worth deep study.

Source: Design for Programmers — Prototyping: From UX to Front End


David J. Weiner’s second post about using the Button Bar in ways not imagined,

In this post, he shows how to use the Button Bar’s calculation engine to replace merge fields and merge variables with Style:

Merge fields can be useful, but without resorting to a calculated field, they can’t dynamically change depending on various criteria (as when using a case statement, for example). Further, one of the biggest problems with merge fields is that the data in the field can become too long to fit in the area allotted for the merge text (not to mention the problem with stupidly-long fully-qualified field names that won’t fit in layout Button Bar usemode). Using the calculation engine in a button bar label, you can resize or truncate text as needed for the purpose of making it fit. Additionally, you gain the benefit of all the button states available (hover, active, pressed, etc), plus an icon if you want it.

Recognizing that the calculation engine in a Button Bar has such great uses was a true “Aha” moment.

Source: Button Bar Techniques! Part 2 – App.Works


Seth Godin on the Signals We Send:

Some people go through their day unaware that every action they pursue has more than its obvious intent.

A glance is worth a thousand words. Asking for the check can be like a standing ovation–or a put down. A handshake is always more than just that.

You think you’re merely putting on a blouse or typing an email or making small talk, but of course, you’re also sending signals.

What we choose to do (and what we choose not to do) turns into a signal to the people around us.

Godin is worth reading every day.


Rudeness is the weak man’s imitation of strength.

Eric Hoffer
(1902 – 1983)

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