I spent my summer at a not-so-small start-up called Mark43. Now this is the interesting part of the journey: guess what the company does? Here is what they say they do:

Mark43 is reinventing public safety software applications from the ground up, delivering unparalleled data integration and efficiency gains to first responders.

Or, in simpler terms, they make software for cops.

So here’s what I learnt:

Being an engineer makes you a way better designer

This doesn’t mean if you aren’t an engineer, you are bad at design. I think it gives you an advantage by being able to better understand the product. Good designers and good developers actually have a lot in common. I wrote an article about being a unicorn designer previously where I mentioned the benefits of being a designer with the ability to code. Like John Maeda said in an article,

“When you can do both, you can do things that no one else can do”

Data-driven only design is a lie

When I was working at BookMyShow, we recorded a traffic milestone of hitting 30 million users per month. When you have so much traffic, testing out a feature with an A/B test is really helpful, but there are downsides too. Numbers and metrics can look good on paper, but they don’t necessarily speak to your users’ emotions about your brand and image. It was a totally different story at Mark43, the volume was really low, so A/B testing a feature was not an option. That’s when user research came in really handy. And remember, your ideas are just your own assumptions. Therefore, all assumptions should be tested.

Design is the easy part

When I got my first internship project I was so excited, I fired up Sketch and started working on it in full swing. Just a week in, I had my first design critique and I presented my designs. They assured me my designs weren’t bad or wrong, but I was asked to take a step back and think about the bigger picture. How does this feature fit into the entire product? I was encouraged to conduct initial research that maybe the product manager wasn’t able to provide. You need to be a product designer and not a visual designer because design isn’t about how things look. Remember Steve Jobs?

Learn-Design-Show-Repeat

One thing that I loved and took away from my internship is the value of design critiques. A design crit is your first audience and it’s important to give them context, and clearly define your problem and audience. Ultimately, know what kind of feedback you’re looking for and make it clear during the presentation.

Know when to relax

I have worked in relatively smaller design setups in my previous experiences and that means fewer designers and more work was often the case. But at Mark43 it was a different story, there were 8 members in the design team, which balanced out our workload. So make sure you have fun, make friends, get to know your coworkers — work will be more enjoyable that way.

In conclusion, I’d like to mention that I completed my project before the anticipated date and did have some time to get my hands on code. It was difficult to say goodbye to all the awesome people and my team, but as a thank you and parting gift, I created this Atom theme called Atom Mark43 UI, which I am sure that are going to love using.

Thanks to Katarina Yee for the editing!

Today, it is my pleasure to share with you’ll Bulmaswatch — free themes for Bulma.

What is Bulma?

Bulma is an open source CSS framework based on Flexbox and built with Sass. It’s 100% responsive, fully modular, and available for free. It is an upcoming and modern CSS framework and has 13k+ stars on Github.

How Bulma works is you simply drop the bulma.css in your HTML and you can make a good enough website in a few minutes.

Why Bulmaswatch?

Theming is a big plus for any modern CSS framework like Bulma and Bootstrap. The Bootstrap theme and template marketplace is huge!

One such big community project for Bootstrap is Bootswatch. Bootswatch is a collection of themed swatches that you can use for your Bootstrap site. Back in 2012, I contributed to the project by introducing Flatly (which is now one of the top themes at Bootswatch) and later Darkly.

Enter Bulmaswatch!

Basically, Bulmaswatch is Bootswatch for Bulma.

As of today, Bulmaswatch has 20 swatches of different palettes and varying aesthetics.

I built Bulmaswatch with a simple goal, to enable developers using Bulma to try on a new look, without investing much time or energy. The best thing about it is that it doesn’t significantly alter your code or your workflow.

So how can I use Bulmaswatch?

It’s pretty much the same way you would use Bulma. Head to Bulmaswatch and download the bulmaswatch.min.css for the theme you want to try. Simply drop the CSS file as a replacement to the bulma.css and you are good to go. Read more on the help page.

What next?

Try it. Test it. Use it. Share it. 💯

This article was originally posted on my blog.

So what is it like to be a developer who can design (or a designer who can code)?

Take a brief look at this image -

As you may see, design is more associated with creative, “right brain” thinking and engineering is seen as a more analytical, “left brain” exercise. The more of a designer you are, the less of an engineer you are, and vice versa. In reality, this is a false polarity, as both developers and designer need to use a combination of divergent and convergent thinking to innovate and problem solve.

“Good designers and good developers actually have a lot in common.” — Austin Bales

Now here are six good reasons why I think designers should code.

1. Achievement unlocked

The combination of a designing in Sketch (or whatever software you use) along with HTML & CSS is greater than the sum of their parts. Learning code opens up a whole new realm of creative possibilities.

2. Execute your design

As a designer, there always comes a time when you have to go to the developer and explain him parts of the design and how the interaction works. As an unicorn, your designs will be executed by you in exactly the way you want them to be.

3. Think Technical

Today, as a designer there are multiple technical challenges one faces. You have to think of various aspects such as screen sizes, operating systems, responsive design, browser support, etc. But if you are a designer who can code, this wouldn’t be a daunting task at all.

4. Never stop learning

After starting with HTML/CSS basic, you can move on to adding a level of complexity by making your UI interactive with Javascript and jQuery. Once you are comfortable enough with these, you may move to advance branches of these by learning SASS or another CSS preprocessor and Javascript front-end frameworks like Angular or React.

5. Jobs… Jobs… everywhere

Learning code lets you tap into a plethora of career advancements. We all know that Developers’ salaries are higher than Designers. Be sure you Market yourself as a Developer AND Designer so companies pay you right.

6. Creativity doesn’t lie only with Designers

Developers are also creative in their own way, even if they don’t consider themselves to be one. If not more, Developers are just as creative as your average designer. We all solve problems; we just do so in different ways.

In Conclusion

Do keep in mind, when I say that you learn how to code, I would recommend you limit yourself to front-end development (HTML/CSS/Javascript/Processing) only. Getting into back-end development (Database, etc.) will be far out of scope.

Original posted on my blog.