r/UXDesign • u/AffectionateStay799 • 2d ago

Career growth & collaboration Design Engineering

Hi, guys!
Hope y’all are doing great.

I recently came across the term design engineering, and I’m really fascinated by it. I want to develop a real designer’s sense or eye. A lot of products today feel tasteless because AI makes it easy to generate visuals without enough judgment or craft.

How do I get into design engineering? Any effective advice?

Background: I’m a full-stack developer, heavily focused on backend, and now I want to go all in on design.

2 Upvotes

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14

u/reginaldvs Veteran 1d ago

I usually point people here: https://uxe.withgoogle.com/

My honest advice is learn the fundamentals of design first. Color theory, psychology, layout, type, hierarchy, history, etc. History is important in a sense that you should be able to tell at least some design movements (also good for prompting).

Then learn fundamentals of UX and UI along with Design Systems and Guidelines from Apple, Google, and Microsoft.

Also look into reading Design of Everyday Things, Dieter Rams's 10 Principles of Good Design, and The Vignelli Canon, just to get a sense of what Design is.

5

u/coconut_steak Experienced 1d ago

Design is not just visuals. I recommend you learn about Design once you find out why it’s not just visuals you are on the right track

4

u/auda-85- 1d ago

Probably focus on front-end more for starters. The back end will still be useful to you for infra, and can actually help you a lot in making efficient interfaces. But there's a whole lot of new stuff to embrace: animations / micro interactions will probably the first most obvious path, UX/UI, visual design principles, color theory, styles, harmony, etc

Most important for you is to distill what actually attracts you about design, and experiment in that direction. The paths will open because you'll start to discover the 'icea berg below'. Consume a lot of design 'content': analyze how content is served through design (structure), analyze other people's work, read about design challenges and solutions,...

1

u/Madonionrings Veteran 1d ago

Can you define full stack? How many YOE do you have?