Why this design?
A month or so ago, when I redesigned my portfolio and blog my friend came to me asking me about where, when and how do I come up with these posts. He also brought some criticism about the UX of the blog, which I think was very good criticism. Before anything, I’d like you to check him out first, he’s a really cool dude @rrodrickk.
One of the questions he brought to me was “Why don’t you put a small arrow near the top for easier navigation?” - well played, you beat the designer at design - and to that my answer is quite simple: you don’t need it.
Why not?
Let’s start with UX reasons and then we go over to UI reasons.
UX: This blog is made by a developer to developers. What do developers have? Usually, a strong preference as to how they use and navigate their system. For me, I navigate my browser/system with keyboard shortcuts and the mouse 4 and 5 buttons, of course I use the mouse to click things too. Other devs might use similar ways of navigating, after all, most of their work is spent in front of their browser or a code editor and they should be fast at navigating these environments - as am I with my side mouse buttons. Even if you rely on using the mouse to navigate, your browser already has buttons for this purpose! Maybe you’re reading from a phone? Look down at those ugly android buttons if you still have them, use them - otherwise use your gesture navigation! On an iPhone? Refer to gesture navigation once more. Macbook? Gestures. Laptop? Gestures. PC/Mac desktop? What are you doing with your keyboard if not using it for more than texting your friends on Discord? Sorry, I went on a bit of a rant there. What I’m saying is that I’d be adding duplicate, useless, functionality that can only really hint at some navigation and that’s where the UI comes in.
UI: You may have noticed already that this blog/portfolio is meant to look like a notebook with a little touch of small effects so it doesn’t exactly feel boring. Have you seen chevrons at the corner of the pages of the book you read (or not)? I surely haven’t. The goal is for it to feel like a modernized book, where you can read all about what I do/did, my opinions (like this one) and so on. You don’t look at a book and think - hmm, I wonder if turning a page is possible? - you just know you can go forwards and backwards whenever and however you want. So why would I hint at that with a chevron? I don’t need to.
But why a book style?
This is a blog about my opinions, myself and a memo of my experience around the dev world. I could go for many styles, but the look of a book feels personal, doesn’t it? To me it feels like coming back home and contemplating how much you did for the day, opening a your notebooks and writing about it. It’s cozy, with a touch of me in every corner. What do you do with your own little space on the internet? You certainly would want it to look good, but above all, make it feel personal. Not only do you enjoy making it more, but also, maybe maybe maybe, an employer will look at it and think - I like this personality.
So what do we conclude?
I certainly conclude that you should get a cookie for yourself over at the footer of this page! Come on, it doesn’t track you. This is, make your stuff feel personal. Leave that calculated, meticulous, cold, everyday design for the company you’ll eventually work at (or already do). Just remember, personal does not mean messy. Which might seem contradictory, I just told you to not do calculated design on your stuff? But what are you doing by listening to me?? I told you, go grab a cookie already! Goodbye, thanks for reading. <3