I Design For U
25 Feb 2021Welcome to Design 101
“Design can be art. Design can be aesthetics. Design is so simple, that’s why it is so complicated.” -Paul Rand
As someone who entered the realm of computer science by typing up HTML snippets, I felt like learning HTML and CSS was like coming back home to where I started. It was a brief walk through memory lane, and I felt glad that after almost 3 years in college, I was getting into what I desired to learn: to design and develop beautiful, well-made websites and webpages. I believe that is why picking up HTML and CSS and creating everything from scratch to design an aesthetic concept for a webpage was enjoyable for me. That being said, design is no simple task, and as much as people hate to admit, I think it is just as important as writing elegant code. The only difference in code and design would be that code is the backstage crew working behind the scene, while design is the actors attempting to win their audience over. (Image retrieved here.)
Semantics as the unknown “magic”
I didn’t mind creating webpages from scratch without the assistance of Semantic UI or any UI Frameworks for that matter. It seemed simpler when I had full control and the idea of what the page would look like when I could use pure HTML and CSS (even if it was tiresome and frustrating to get the correct margins and layout for early projects and assignments). But then Semantic UI came into my life. The thing with Semantic UI is that it works like magic, which is intriguing, exciting, but can get confusing at times. I remember getting frustrated with Semantic UI, and the shortcuts or the idea of guessing the possible key word was more stressful for me than not. I don’t believe luck (or even a seemingly logical guess) is ever on my side, so I was hesitant to give UI Frameworks a chance.
Creating magical design
I don’t believe learning UI Frameworks are as difficult as programming languages such as Javascript or C, but there is definitely a learning curve, and like with anything, patience and dedication is crucial in order to succeed and thrive. I think for many software engineers who are more focused on the programming aspect rather than the visual aspect might be entranced and use UI Frameworks, such as Semantic UI to quickly create elegant web pages/websites without focusing too much on core design aspects. The time used to learn UI Frameworks will eventually overtake the time used to create with pure HTML and CSS. If you think about it, wouldn’t it be easier to get hints to solve a difficult problem than a medium-sized problem from scratch?