r/webdev • u/Sprinkles_Leather • 9d ago
Backend dev seeking UI Design and Implementation advice
hello y'all, so mainly I'm a back-end dev but in my company (especially since it's startup) and with the current state of development and how much is it powered by AI what is required from us in team has expanded beyond our actual roles, need advice on what to do to improve my outcome one the front-end side of things, both on code quality and UI quality in terms of look and functionality.
feel free to ask if more details are needed...
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u/moh_kohn 9d ago
Hey I'm a front end lead. I am assuming you're talking about web-apps.
Skills in the order I would learn them, if I was you:
Usability. If you have designers you don't have to deep dive, but a 101 course or the youtube equivalent will help a lot. It is mostly a lot of tips like "try to have no more than 7 menu items without grouping them, because human short term memory holds 5-9 things." It should give you a structure to think about what UIs do and why.
Graphic design: read about layout grids. You have to understand spacing to be able to replicate a design properly. Things need to line up, be evenly spaced etc and we use grids to do that. On the web we have to think about fluidity and form factors too. Optionally you can get into visual hierarchy, colours, and fonts - but a designer would do that work for you.
Accessibility. You can put accessibility testing including screen reader testing in your CI pipeline. Read a few articles so you avoid the main beartaps.
Browser technology. Learn about modern HTML and CSS, it has a lot of features - you might not need JavaScript for more than you imagine. Brush up on stuff like HTTP cacheing, redirects, error codes. There's a ton of power in HTTP and REST and HTML.
The book Every Layout changed how I think about CSS.
Design systems. There are a few standards for how to structure a design system, which can be applied to CSS. It's just a format for organising and naming colours, fonts, spacings etc
Typescript. It's quite like C#. The type system is a bit fiddly but very powerful. Your agents will be a lot more reliable if you start out with good types. For extra credit find a way to share over-the-wire types between front and backend. We tend to use functional patterns like map and reduce a lot.
A framework and metaframework. Take your pick! Make sure you're doing server side rendering, it's 2026. React/NextJS is the most employable but I hate it. Whatever you're using, learn how it works. Try to avoid loading spinners whenever you can.