Jackie Chan and Perseverance in UI/UX Design
Posted in Design on August 21, 2020
As web developers, we're often trying to simply get to a solution the fastest. We may have to take detours along the way, but we generally want to go from point A to point B in our coding. The better the design, the straighter the line.
With UI/UX design, that's not so much the case. In this post I want to talk about an important idea to keep in mind if you're starting to design more interfaces in your work.
One major lesson I learned when creating better interfaces, is being okay with enjoying the process and spending time iterating, and reiterating and trying different things out. It reminds me of a quote I heard by Jackie Chan when talking about the effort he put into getting the shot when making a complicated fan sequence in one of his films.
"The most difficult thing is when I throw the fan and it's coming back... more than 120 takes. Those kind of scenes, "oh Jackie's good." It's not good - you can do it. Except do you have the patience or not?"
It's comforting to hear that from someone who excelled at what they did because it reminds us that it's not always about having the right training or being naturally great at something. You don't need a huge budget or to be a seasoned expert. In Jackie's case, he tried something for 120 takes before getting it right. If it takes him 120 takes, you can at least try out a few different versions of an interface.
Sometimes it's just a matter of putting in the time and perservering to get something right. When it comes to design, that might mean spending time getting the right link colour, or aligning everything, or fixing the spacing between things, or designing a modal style, or doing extra responsive tweaking for your mobile menus.
The nice upside is that the more time you spend now learning how to do it, the faster you will get anyway. And then your users and clients will end up with something nicer than whatever you just threw together.
If you're looking for help with UI/UX design on your website, module, or mobile app, I can help! Check out https://wolfxmachina.com/ui-design-and-development-for-programmers
Aaron Lopez
Founder & Lead Developer at Wolf X Machina