How to improve your UI design skills in 5 minutes a day

To make cool UI designs, you’ve got to be well-watched and experienced. But what if you are not? A small picture explaining do’s and don’ts can help. In 2017, such visual UI micro tips became a buzz topic. There are lots of them now, and they cover a large number of design issues.

Here is our list of experienced designers who are masterful at explaining rules and patterns through visual tips. We, UI/UX designers from the Icons8 team, send them our respect.

Steve Schoger — a trendsetter for quick visual UI tips

Steve is a designer at Tailwind Labs. He was the first who started the trend of UI micro-tips on Twitter. After a while, he published Refactoring UI, a book where he described in detail the basic principles of creating a beautiful UI.

What makes his tips special is that he shows them using realistic interfaces. It helps you see not only how a small part gets better, but how it looks in the context of the whole interface component.

Now Steve rarely publishes new tips. But he collected all the legendary ones into a handy collection of tweets.

One of Steve’s micro-tips says that too many borders can make a design look really busy

Dmitry Bunin — explains design topics via simple pictures

A designer-entrepreneur who creates and sells UI kits and icons. His tips are organized by topic, which is very handy when you need answers to a broad question. For example, how to design a dark theme or how to use grids in UI design.

Dmitry explains each tip in great detail. It helps you get to the root of the matter.

All the materials are organized on his personal website, where you can also follow updates. But if you need notifications, the best way to get them is via Twitter.

Dmitry recommends avoiding or limiting white on pure black colors

Marc Andrew — shares tips in batches

A designer, creator of Cabana Design system. Shares UI & UX design tips mostly in his personal blog. Some tips are paid, but there are many useful free ones.

Mark also packed all his micro-tips into an e-book. You need to buy a subscription to get it, and then a PDF document will come to your inbox.

Marc says that error messages should be instructive, not confusing

Victor Ponamariov — shares tips via Twitter and email newsletter

Victor is a web developer who fell in love with user interfaces. He runs a Twitter account and YouTube channel where he shares his experience. But the best way to keep up with micro-tips is through his email newsletters. Each newsletter covers a specific topic (for example, Typography, Proximity law, UX Gestalt Rules, etc. ).

Many of Victor’s visual tips are clear without reading the email text

About the author:
Denis Danilov, Product Designer at Icons8