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It's not a long book, but it is all about usability. It's called "Don't Make Me Think". It's informative and concise.
That Amazon Link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0321965515/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_5Ohuzb82F6BEF
The best book to read as a developer is The Design of Everyday Things. If every developer read it, the software world would be a better place.
Commonality of design.
Both are objects meant for throwing by hand. It would follow there is an ideal size for handheld thrown objects, and therefore handheld thrown objects would be the same size.
Same reason doors you push and doors you pull have different handles and it feels wrong when the wrong handle is used for the wrong side.
Read The Design of Everyday Things to learn more.
I would have also included:
JavaScript: The Good Parts
https://www.amazon.com/JavaScript-Good-Parts-Douglas-Crockford/dp/0596517742
However at this moment in time I can no longer recommend it... we've just moved too far ahead in the JS world.
If someone doesn't know basic color correction, and you just told someone to do an ACES workflow, you just sent them down a path of Confusion, Destruction, Dissolution and Death..
ACES is the wrong answer..
Color Correction Handbook is the right one..
It was originally for board games, but the textbook Rules of Play is so foundational to the creation of the language used to talk about games I can't justify not having it on a designer's shelf
>DON'T MAKE ME THINK -Steve Krug
Came here to post this as well. I used and older version, but it's up to 3rd Edition now. ISBN: 978-0321965516
I’m surprised I didn’t see this already. But this is usually the go to for beginners since it covers most and explains it well and on a low level which is great for understanding. It’s called head first design patterns. https://www.amazon.de/First-Design-Patterns-Brain-Friendly/dp/0596007124
Fellow enterprise developer turned manager here. Me and my cohort are about to release our first title. It was developed using .NET/C#.
AMA. :)
I'll start with the questions you have above.
Assuming you already have a solid foundation in OOP, Design Patterns, some basic RDBMS, etc, you actually already have 60% of what you need. Code is code.
The other 40% depends on the type of game you are making. 2D? Basic algebra. 3D? Now it gets tougher on the math (though thankfully today's engines do most of the heavy lifting for you, but you still need to understand what is used for what).
Doing multi-player? Now networking is the tricky part because you are likely to use some sort of UDP communication layer and all the REST/SOAP you learned at work, while still useful for managing latency-agnostic stuff like player lists, matchmaking requests and such, won't cut it for real-time multi-player games. Writing solid "netcode" that delivers a great experience at 60+ FPS requires some creativity in managing perception (extrapolation and interpolation when latency is present) and fault-tolerant algorithms. It is no fun when you get a headshot in an FPS, see it happen, but your opponent runs away, apparently unscathed.
As far as graphics, I solved that one easily... I had a friend join my project who was the graphics guy. I provided the framework for doing the graphics and turned that area over to him. He went above and beyond though and learned shaders and added all sorts of special effects.
Meanwhile, I focused my energy on the game engine, networking layers, AWS cloud stuff, matchmaking and lots of behind the scenes stuff.
The other thing I did was read as much as possible about Game Design. I ordered a dozen books from Amazon, including my absolute favorite Designing Games by Tynan Sylvester, the developer of RimWorld (link: https://www.amazon.com/Designing-Games-Guide-Engineering-Experiences/dp/1449337937).
Hope that helps!
And Head First Design Patterns is a perfect follow up.
The Design of Everyday Things by Don Norman is a really good general design resource.
In fact, doors that are ambiguous in the direction in which they open are named "Norman Doors" after him.
I always tell beginners to start with Don't Make Me Think by Steve Krug
Try Craig Perko's Concrete Play series for an intro to game design.
Also in my totally objective opinion, <em>Designing Games</em> by Tynan Sylvester is a way better book than all the others mentioned here combined. The Art of Game Design by Jesse Schell is too vague and esoteric to be useful in practice, and Game Design Workshop is too industry-focused.
Well, the best sellers on amazon are a place to start. These will give you a good intro.
But I would recommend also checking out Code Academy and Treehouse. My local public library has a deal with Treehouse where if you have a library card you can get a free account.
I had a great deal of luck with the book "Javascript: The Good Parts". It's a quick read and is aimed at people who are not new to programming.
O'Reilly Publishing: http://shop.oreilly.com/product/9780596517748.do
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/JavaScript-Good-Parts-Douglas-Crockford/dp/0596517742
Oh, the whole book is super cringey, but that's the point.
The methodology of the book is that this format will actually help you learn, instead of just stroke the ego of the author by writing super complex sentences. Amazon has the first pages of the book you can read. Start at xxv.
It is the ONLY textbook I read cover-to-cover in college.
If you are just getting started, yes, they are fantastic. They’re a great foundation to build off of.
The downside is “HTML & CSS” is from ... 2011? 2012? and so the latest and greatest methods of doing web layout aren’t mentioned. “JavaScript and jQuery” isn’t as outdated, but you’ll still need to find another text to catch up on ES5/6.
If you opt for them, Amazon has a package deal to get both books for less than $30. I believe list price for each book is normally $30!
*no referrer link is included above
Your site is bad and you should feel bad!
Study this book, will take your web UI skills to the next level: https://www.amazon.de/Dont-Make-Me-Think-Usability/dp/0321965515
codeacademy.com and freecodecamp.com doing bother of these courses was great. I got to grips with the basics. and FCC introduced me to frameworks as well which definitely reignited my learning. I would say that FCC has better projects as you go through and the course is all about the web development. But starts with the basics of HTML and CSS.
Also this book was a great reference for me. HTML and CSS: Design and Build a Website. Lovely designed book with great information in for beginners.
If you're looking for a book, you might check out Rules of Play, although it's a bit more centered around general game design theory, it's a pretty good read.
> Laravel is a PHP-exclusive framework, making its use of the word wrong.
FTFY.
Seriously, there's a reason why we use common terminology in engineering. Imagine the look a mechanic would give you when you suggest that your steering wheel needs an oil change.
Design patterns share a name (and in general, naming conventions exist) so that any SW engineer can look at something and know roughly what it does, or quickly describe a component without walking through the implementation.
OP - I like this book for learning about design patterns. It's not perfect and java-heavy, but overall gets the terminology right and has decent examples.
Wikipedia can go surprisingly far here, too. Each of the five pieces of SOLID design have their own article, Dependency Inversion included. That specifically tends to have over-complicated phrasing and examples. It basically means keep new outside of your class definition, and instead accept an object of the same type as an argument.
I can recommend a good books for you to read for JavaScript. Try find JavaScript: The Good Parts by Douglas Crockford. It's very short (176 pages) for a technical book and makes it a lot easier to understand the language.
What specifically do you hate about JS?
Mae, hay un libro llamado Dont make me think, y este otro Refactoring UI; mae este libro dicen que ha hecho varios millones de dólares en venta, es como una recopilación de sugerencias o trucos para UI, si tuviera que escoger entre los dos, probablemente el segundo sería mejor opción
Instead of Qazi, I'd say the YT channel Learn Color Grading and any videos with a senior colourist that actually works on big films.
Also read this book.
Yeah. There is something hilarious about an extremely highly up-voted post calling 85% of all people idiots. Presumably a decent chunk of them up-voted this post.
Also presumably the OP considers them self in at least the top 15% intelligence of all people - and they work in retail...sure guy.
A customer walking into a store they've never been to before will face some level of confusion/disorientation compared to a retail worker where that store is their entire world - they know every corner of it. Doesn't make either of them "dumb as rocks".
I worked with mechanics who struggled with pretty basic math but could take an engine apart with their eyes closed. Which of is more "intelligent"? People are people. We are good at different things.
There's an interesting book, The Design of Everyday Things, which really describes in detail how people interact with objects/environments. A big theme is that if someone is struggling to interact with your object/environment/system they aren't stupid - your thing sucks.
I haven't read that one but the Heads First Design Patterns sits on my table for easy reference https://www.amazon.com/Head-First-Design-Patterns-Brain-Friendly/dp/0596007124/ref=mp_s_a_1_3?adgrpid=58930408954&gclid=CjwKCAjw7eSZBhB8EiwA60kCW7u-H0qzAlCpN07VttNCg33d39bZ-vP5-gx1gBKR6a2dn2o1HlGNQhoC4FgQAvD_BwE&hvadid=274706083835&hvd...
I would recommend learning the fundamentals before getting into data patterns because they are based on OOP and if you are having trouble with interfaces or polymorphism, it's going to be hard to learn everything at once
forget YouTube for a second, read this first: https://www.amazon.de/-/en/Alexis-Van-Hurkman/dp/0321929667 and then check out Cullen Kelly and the likes and try to run away from wakas quazi or whatever his name was.
Hi op, I realize I'm a bit late to this discussion. Others have given some really good notes already, so I just want to point out a couple things that haven't come up yet.
I very briefly examined the serebii site with an accessibilty tool that I like: https://tota11y.babylontech.co.uk/. I noticed some pretty bad accessibility issues right away, like lots of images without alt text and no accessible label on the search bar. If you're studying UI/UX I highly encourage you to spend a bit of time considering this side of your design!
As some others have already mentioned, the serebii site is very visually cluttered but it's also very "busy" from an informational point of view. For first-time visitors especially it's rather overwhelming. I highly, highly recommend a book by usability expert Steve Krug called "Don't Make Me Think". I found a copy at my local library and adored it. If you haven't read it yet, I would consider it essential to anyone interested in UI/UX/design - it's a relatively short, very entertaining read and jam-packed with so much great content. There's a chapter specifically about website home pages, and serebii's home page basically goes against every piece of the author's advice lol
I hope your project goes well and it's a valuable learning experience for you, and I hope those resources I linked to prove helpful as well. Best of luck!