I am on the cusp of finishing my first side-project, but I can't for the life of me figure out how to make it appealing. Even though I can easily implement functionality in React, on the design side of things I don't know what to do aside from throwing together some components from different libraries.<p>What do you guys use? Got any tips?
This is a pretty good book on the topic: <a href="https://www.refactoringui.com/" rel="nofollow">https://www.refactoringui.com/</a>
The way I do it is, use "raw" bootstrap+jquery* for development. And before deplyoing, use themes for beautification e.g. <a href="https://bootswatch.com" rel="nofollow">https://bootswatch.com</a><p>* I am not a front-end developer, so I use the easiest tools for the job.
I don't make them "beautiful"; I like to make them compact and workable, with everything relevant displayed in a compact format, and to put the rest in the documentation.<p>Show what you have and then see if it looks like good or not, I suppose. Maybe it is good for whatever it is being done or maybe not, depending what you are making, I suppose.
Website should be well designed. Good colors catch the eye, and provide an instant layer of communication. Even before the conscious mind has started thinking, the subconscious has already assessed if something is interesting or not. Purely based on colors.