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UI Design Skills

Since, we are on the subject of frameworks I think it is appropriate to discuss my UI design skills. I can whip up UI wire frames with no problem, but I lack any and all skills needed to design visually appealing interfaces (i.e. graphics, color pallets, etc.)

Do not get me wrong, I am not totally UI design deficient and can most certainly identify hot, trendy, and usable interfaces. I am working on a couple of personal projects and the UI design has been the biggest challenge or pain point!

I cannot count the number of times I have redesigned the UI and struggled with the CSS, so what I am to do? There are frameworks for virtually all areas of software development, how about interface design and CSS?

Score! Below are some UI design frameworks (you may be familiar with some, but here they are anyway):

• Blueprint (I am using this with the Zend Framework, so far so good!)
• Elements
• Logicss
• YAML (Yet Another Multicolumn Layout with builder)
• YUI Grids CSS (style sheet with builder)

I have read various arguments on using CSS-based frameworks, but for now it allows me to move forward with UI design and focus on business services and database. I do not have to worry about master resets, grid layouts, browser-specific tweaks, etc.