Comments on: Bootstrap Design for Geek-Powered Startups

By: Distinction between “Graphic Designer” and “UI Designer” « CTOWatch

Sun, 30 Dec 2007 19:54:34 +0000

[...] Tony Wright dot com » Bootstrap Design for Geek-Powered Startups Finally, let me emphasize that when I talk about designers, I am ALWAYS talking about UI designers, NOT graphic designers. Sure, pretty websites are nice… But artists are a dangerous breed, and are often tempted by the design equivalent to “guitar solos”: Swanky web forms that have so much CSS goodness that they no longer look like web forms, links that don’t look like links, buttons that don’t look like buttons, etc. Any chance to be unique is an opportunity to confuse users. At the end of the day, a lot of audiences don’t think web UI is actionable unless it’s a form element, a beveled button, or a blue hyperlink. You don’t want Jakob Neilsen designing your site, but you want a designer who will sacrifice aesthetics for usability if the need arises. [...]

By: links for 2007-12-24 « Simply… A User

links for 2007-12-24 « Simply… A User — Mon, 24 Dec 2007 00:27:52 +0000

[...] Tony Wright dot com » Bootstrap Design for Geek-Powered Startups (tags: design webdesign startup business resources logo tools startups **) [...]

By: Tony Wright

Tony Wright — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 17:15:28 +0000

@dw: “If you cannot ‘afford’ a real designer then I would suspect something is amiss in your budget”.

The post has the word “bootstrap” in it for a reason. There are lots of people (oftentimes founders who are using their small savings to cover expenses like food and shelter!) who don’t have a lot of control over their budget.

Regardless, tho– I think many businesses can benefit greatly from “design groceries”… Totally depends on the type of web app/site you’re building. Does a blog need a great custom theme to win? Nope– it’s the content. Did Google need a UI designer to win in the grassroots way that they did? Nope. The app was too simple to need it. Did Craigslist need a UI person? Nope… Simple and content-driven. For many startups, UI is not a core problem. Could all of these scenarios benefit from UI person? Absolutely. Is it critical to test the value prop? Not remotely.

Now, if you’re going to try to build the next great webmail client, productivity tool, etc do you need a UI person for v1? Absolutely. Can you get away with using chunks from a “design grocery” to test a few theories in your alpha version? Maybe. Whatever you want/need, sometimes necessity demands that you make do with that you can get for a few nickels.

By: Recent Reading - Usability and Rhinos « Jaffer Haider

Recent Reading - Usability and Rhinos « Jaffer Haider — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 11:21:35 +0000

[...] Bootstrap Design for Geek Powered Startups: Not a regular reader of Tony’s … stumbled on the post from del.icio.us. He’s basically highlighting factors to think about when making your own startup. Although everything that he highlights is true, two of his suggestion “a UI designer should be baked into your organization as early as possible” [...]

By: links for 2007-12-20 « toonz

links for 2007-12-20 « toonz — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 23:25:54 +0000

[...] Tony Wright dot com » Bootstrap Design for Geek-Powered Startups (tags: design resources startup logo business) [...]

By: dw

dw — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 21:41:55 +0000

Bidding sites and prefab design groceries are not a good place to find decent designs or designers. A good designer will speak with you and find out as much as they can about your project before they even take the job much less discuss pricing. If you cannot ‘afford’ a real designer then I would suspect something is amiss in your budget, as your web software despite its great functionality will be hidden and lost without a decent interface that is thoughtfully designed by a professional. So think about this and decide if you really want the lowest bidder or a prefab designer creating the part of your site that receives and allows users to what they do best, use.

My two cents.

By: links for 2007-12-17 at iJump.co.nz

links for 2007-12-17 at iJump.co.nz — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 04:24:47 +0000

[...] Tony Wright dot com » Bootstrap Design for Geek-Powered Startups (tags: WebDesign design) [...]

By: Kalid

Kalid — Sun, 16 Dec 2007 19:42:27 +0000

Hi Tony, great post! I like the quote

But artists are a dangerous breed, and are often tempted by the design equivalent to “guitar solos”

as it captures the “it’s really for me, not the user” mentality. The book “Don’t Make Me Think” by Steve Krug is an awesome usability primer as well.

By: Dan Mayer

Dan Mayer — Sun, 16 Dec 2007 17:56:23 +0000

Good post, I agree it is good for site design to find someone local with UI experience. For logos I also recommend Designs Outpost, a bunch of graphic designers compete for the money you put up for the design. We got both our company and product logos from design outpost for less than $200 each. I think in each case we got to choose between 40+ different designs. If you want to check out the final results: Pretheory Seekler

By: mike

mike — Sun, 16 Dec 2007 08:11:31 +0000

Great write up Tony! Very useful leads here. Being the artist/web designer type of YC Winter ’08 myself I understand the need of having someone with your best interest in mind when it comes to your baby. All the logo design attempts I have made have not hit the nail on the head for our company so we will probably be looking into some of the options you listed above. Again, many thanks!