# I need more bling! **URL:** \ **Category:** Rails\ **Created:** [February 24, 2006, 7:49am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/i-need-more-bling/54148 "2006-02-24T07:49:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![dgm](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/d/df788c/32.png) [@dgm](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/dgm)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2006, 7:49am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/i-need-more-bling/54148/1 "2006-02-24T07:49:14Z")
Hello everyone, I just showed a friend a prototype of a site offering a service I’m trying to sell (sorry, not on the Internet yet - he saw it at my house). His comment: “Looks like it does everything, but also looks pretty ugly. You’re not going to wow anybody with that”. Sitting back and thinking about it, he’s dead right - it needs some bling to make it sell itself, rather than have me trying to convince people to use it. Functionality-wise, it hits every button there is, but it looks like crap. Not having a visual design bone in my body, I’m stumped to know how to proceed. Sure, I’ve looked at the Ajax APIs for Rails and I can see that using them could add the bling, but I just don’t have the bling gene. Side note - I’m sitting here typing this in bare feet, old shorts with > 1 hole and \>1 torn pocket and a T-shirt with torn collar & no logo in > a dull grey/green/olive sort of color. My watch is a Casio; my > toothbrush is cheap and electric; my car is dented; my OS is Gentoo; > my office is piled high with stuff that looks totally random except to > me; advertisers stop me in the street to ask me to pose as the “Before > using…” person for products they’re trying to sell. I am, however, > brave, honest and true. My core, my life experience, my very being, > is robustly anti-bling. Where does a guy like me turn to learn how to _use_ these cool Ajax-y things, without making something that looks ridiculous? I understand the technology side of things; it’s the “make it look stylishly enticing” part of things I’m struggling with. I have a graphic designer friend I could call on, but she’s not across Web 2.0 stuff at all and I don’t think we actually speak a common language when it comes to design vs. functionality. Thanks in advance for any suggestions Regards Dave M. ---
**Author:** ![dgm](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/d/df788c/32.png) [@dgm](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/dgm)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2006, 8:07am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/i-need-more-bling/54148/2 "2006-02-24T08:07:18Z")
Clearly you’re a hacker and not a designer. Hire someone to design the site for you. I don’t know what your hourly rate is, but I save a ridiculous amount of money by subcontracting the design work to someone else. It lets me do what I’m good at - write code - while wasting no hours visually designing the thing. Pat ---
**Author:** ![dgm](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/d/df788c/32.png) [@dgm](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/dgm)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2006, 8:22am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/i-need-more-bling/54148/3 "2006-02-24T08:22:23Z")
On 2/24/06, David M. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > Hello everyone, > > I just showed a friend a prototype of a site offering a service I’m > trying to sell (sorry, not on the Internet yet - he saw it at my > house). > > His comment: “Looks like it does everything, but also looks pretty > ugly. You’re not going to wow anybody with that”. Not having a visual design bone in my body, I’m stumped to know how to > proceed. Sure, I’ve looked at the Ajax APIs for Rails and I can see > that using them could add the bling, but I just don’t have the bling > gene. Hi David, I can totally relate 🙂 I’ve always valued function over forum to a fault. Old school Web design stressed that where ‘bling’ is concerned, less is more, for two reasons: 1) Visual overload and 2) slow dial-up connections resulting in slow page loads. AFAIC, #1 still very much applies, but technology has somewhat mitigated #2. As things changed over the years I found myself struggling to ‘catch-up’ a bit and come into the modern world. Not knowing anything about your design background, I’ll toss [www.webstyleguide.com](http://www.webstyleguide.com) out to you, just in case you might find it helpful. Where does a guy like me turn to learn how to _use_ these cool Ajax-y > things, without making something that looks ridiculous? I understand > the technology side of things; it’s the “make it look stylishly > enticing” part of things I’m struggling with. Whoa, horsey! Before you go getting all jiggy for the AJAX, you haven’t mentioned a thing about you’re CSS, partials and layouts. I’d look long and hard at them before you move on to trying to trying to ajax up your site. When you do though, I’d suggest you make sure you’ve read the Curt H. OnLamp tutorial on AJAX at [Radar – O’Reilly](http://www.onlamp.com/pub/a/onlamp/2005/06/09/rails_ajax.html), The script.aculo.ussite, and Chad F.s new Rails Recipes book from Pragmatic Programmers. HTH, Dean ---
**Author:** ![dgm](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/d/df788c/32.png) [@dgm](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/dgm)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2006, 9:19am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/i-need-more-bling/54148/4 "2006-02-24T09:19:41Z")
David M. wrote: > designer friend I could call on, but she’s not across Web 2.0 stuff at > all and I don’t think we actually speak a common language when it > comes to design vs. functionality. Don’t conflate usabilty and visual design. You may be better off contracting out your look, but you may have good skills when it comes to feel, which is the domain of AJAX and JavaScript. You can get some potential users to test your user-interface design even before much of the bling is added. – We develop, watch us RoR, in numbers too big to ignore. ---
**Author:** ![dgm](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/d/df788c/32.png) [@dgm](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/dgm)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2006, 9:47am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/i-need-more-bling/54148/5 "2006-02-24T09:47:45Z")
When i’m lazy i just borrow something from [http://openwebdesign.org/](http://openwebdesign.org/) . I can implement a design pretty fast, so changing it later should not be a big problem. ---
**Author:** ![dgm](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/d/df788c/32.png) [@dgm](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/dgm)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2006, 10:29am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/i-need-more-bling/54148/6 "2006-02-24T10:29:17Z")
Thanks guys for your suggestions. I think the biggest problem is that what I’m presenting is 90% rows of data out of tables (duh), and it looks like … rows of data out of tables, with a bunch of links thrown in for each row. I’ve got the alternating colors going for each row, but it really doesn’t look that great. I haven’t got embedded “font” stuff in HTML - it’s all CSS - but that doesn’t make me a Web designer by a long stretch! I’ve got my graphic artist friend looking at it at the moment, in exchange for pizza, beer and watching football later on - lots of giggles, which may or may not be a good sign… There _must_ be a market for teaching color- and taste-blind people like me how to make minimally nice-looking sites. If you know anyone capable of doing this, tell them to get into business doing it sooner rather than later - they’ll clean up financially. Regards Dave M. ---
**Author:** ![dgm](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/d/df788c/32.png) [@dgm](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/dgm)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2006, 2:45pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/i-need-more-bling/54148/7 "2006-02-24T14:45:19Z")
> His comment: “Looks like it does everything, but also looks pretty > ugly. You’re not going to wow anybody with that”. Sitting back and > thinking about it, he’s dead right - it needs some bling to make it > sell itself, rather than have me trying to convince people to use it. > Functionality-wise, it hits every button there is, but it looks like > crap. One word - ‘Myspace’ Total \*\*\*\* Thousands of users Sold for $$$$$ If they want it they will come. \_T ---
**Author:** ![dgm](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/d/df788c/32.png) [@dgm](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/dgm)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2006, 9:48pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/i-need-more-bling/54148/8 "2006-02-24T21:48:29Z")
On Feb 23, 2006, at 10:48 PM, David M. wrote: > Not having a visual design bone in my body, I’m stumped to know how to > proceed. Sure, I’ve looked at the Ajax APIs for Rails and I can see > that using them could add the bling, but I just don’t have the bling > gene. Yes, that’s _exactly_ true. Hoping to gain the bling gene is like an artist hoping to become a programmer. Now, admittedly, some can do both. But, I think we can all agree that generally speaking you don’t want engineers creating bling, just as you don’t want artists creating code. – – Tom M. ---
**Author:** ![dgm](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/d/df788c/32.png) [@dgm](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/dgm)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2006, 3:12pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/i-need-more-bling/54148/9 "2006-02-24T15:12:41Z")
On Fri, Feb 24, 2006 at 05:48:47PM +1100, David M. wrote: > my OS is Gentoo One of these things is not like the others. – - Adam \*\* Expert Technical Project and Business Management \*\*\*\* System Performance Analysis and Architecture \*\*\*\*\*\* [[http://www.everylastounce.com](http://www.everylastounce.com) ] [[Adam Fields (weblog) - - entertaining hundreds of millions of eyeball atoms every day](http://www.aquick.org/blog) ] … Blog [[Adam Fields Resume](http://www.adamfields.com/resume.html) ]… Experience [[Adam Fields | Flickr](http://www.flickr.com/photos/fields) ] … Photos [[http://www.aquicki.com/wiki](http://www.aquicki.com/wiki) ]…Wiki [[http://del.icio.us/fields](http://del.icio.us/fields) ] … Links