Designing Product for Backend Developers

June 5, 2019,

I am talking about website design here, not the actual product design 🙂

I am a backend developer through and through, and while I understand the importance of a good looking UI, I have avoided it like the plage, so much so I have avoided the great javascript framework wars of the last five years. This is not to say I won’t pick it up when the time requires it. I am fully aware that Automaily will at some point need the dashboard updated to improve usability. However, I thought I would write a little guide for backend developers like myself on how to build a product and avoid the topic.

Split landing site/dashboard

I think this is one of the key parts, define a clear separation between the landing site and the application.

The application in the early days needs to be a purely functional plan. Customers will not mind about the appearance if the system is robust! As a Laravel developer, I build my first product dashboard using the Laravel default bootstrap theme. After two years it’s still going strong and I still get customers telling me how easy it is to use.

Your landing site, unfortunately, you do have to make, and for that, I recommend if your bad at a design like my self seeking help.

Buy themes!

I buy all my landing site themes! Even this one was brought, not to say I don’t spend time getting them right, changing the feel to how I want.

Normally I use WrapBootstrap or the offical bootstrap themes. Well spotted I always go for bootstrap themes, my reason, I am most familiar with its style and can easily make changes. When someone cracks tailwind templates, I will start buying them!

Do learn SASS compliers

Generally, if you get a good theme from one of these sites they provide the CSS via SASS or Less and it does pay to learn and use them makes making changes so much easier.