UX Designer/Strategist/Researcher from San Francisco, CA

[elove]

I'm Ellen, a UX designer, strategist, and researcher in SF for a small tech company working with remote developers in South America. I do desktop, mobile, iOS and Android design, mostly using Sketch or Adobe XD and exported for production via Zeplin. I am recently very interested in optimizing mobile design for Google AMP but have had a hard time finding resources for AMP design online. I'm hoping this community can give me more insight on AMP as well as link me to developers who need a designer's touch for their projects.

 

[adam]

Welcome @elove! Great to have you here thanks so much for joining in.

What draws you to AMP?

 

[Michael]

Welcome to the community, how do you find designing for the various devices/operating systems? Do you tend to try to stick close to the design recommendations of each OS, or do you try to have a standard look/feel across each?

 

[elove]

Hey Adam, Thanks for the welcome! I try to wade into developer spaces as much as possible as I am constantly learning how to best design with them in mind.

I'm a bit obsessed with accessibility and expanding access beyond the digital world we've created for those of us privileged enough to have a great internet connection. I also work for a media company and see 50%+ of our traffic come through via mobile, with a decent amount coming from Google AMP. I recognize the importance of providing value to the user as simply as possible while also improving SEO. Our current AMP pages are a shell of our mobile pages and I'm concerned that we're losing valuable users because of this. More and more I see media companies optimizing all their content for AMP, even in elements of their desktop web designs, and I really think this is the way of the future for a more equitable web.

And thus, how are there no design resources for AMP pages? Everything seems to be geared toward developers, which is helpful regardless, but there's a huge opportunity to lead the way for designers...if I can figure out what I'm doing.

 

[adam]

Hey Adam, Thanks for the welcome! I try to wade into developer spaces as much as possible as I am constantly learning how to best design with them in mind.

I'm a bit obsessed with accessibility and expanding access beyond the digital world we've created for those of us privileged enough to have a great internet connection. I also work for a media company and see 50%+ of our traffic come through via mobile, with a decent amount coming from Google AMP. I recognize the importance of providing value to the user as simply as possible while also improving SEO. Our current AMP pages are a shell of our mobile pages and I'm concerned that we're losing valuable users because of this. More and more I see media companies optimizing all their content for AMP, even in elements of their desktop web designs, and I really think this is the way of the future for a more equitable web.

And thus, how are there no design resources for AMP pages? Everything seems to be geared toward developers, which is helpful regardless, but there's a huge opportunity to lead the way for designers...if I can figure out what I'm doing.

Interesting! You’re right there definitely seems to be a gap there. I think striving for a lighter experience overall is great and I am against huge JavaScript bundles for loading a page that should just be content. Though I also have concerns about the AMP project and Google’s treatment of these pages (viewing content via Google rather than sites themselves). Early days though and I’m sure things will improve with time as more big players get involved. 😄

I would be interested to see a comparison between an AMP page and a HTML page specifically designed to be lightweight with feature parity and see the difference.

 

[elove]

Welcome to the community, how do you find designing for the various devices/operating systems? Do you tend to try to stick close to the design recommendations of each OS, or do you try to have a standard look/feel across each?

Hi Michael! Thanks for the welcome. I think I do a hybrid of both and really it depends on the client. I would prefer to stick with the design standards for iOS or Android (see accessibility post above) but many clients don't want that approach and are looking to be more unique. I use sizing and spacing from the design standards throughout but when it comes to nav and flow, I go with what works based on research. Sometimes this aligns with the standards but not in all cases.

It also depends on project management and priorities. Sometimes I'll end up building out the iOS version of a page first and just translate that design for the other 3 layouts. Other times I start with desktop web and try to figure out how it will work in iOS down the line when setting up on web, most likely ignoring iOS design standards somewhere along the way.

tl;dr: I'd prefer to use OS design standards across the board for accessibility purposes but it really depends on the client's wishes and what order I'm designing the different layouts.

 

[tom]

Welcome @elove!

This sounds really interesting. Do you possibly have a showcase of your works that you could share with the community?

 

[JoyFreak]

Hello and welcome! :D

 

[elove]

Updating my portfolio this weekend, I'll check back in on Monday and post a link! :)

 

[Gummibeer]

And thus, how are there no design resources for AMP pages? Everything seems to be geared toward developers, which is helpful regardless, but there's a huge opportunity to lead the way for designers...if I can figure out what I'm doing.

AMP doesn't allow you any real styling - if any at all. I think colors are nearly the only things.

AMP - a web component framework to easily create user-first web experiences

Whether you are a publisher, e-commerce company, storyteller, advertiser or email sender, AMP makes it easy to create great experiences on the web. Use AMP to build websites, stories, ads and emails.

amp.dev

The speed benefit of AMP is exactly this: no super fancy **** which requires tons of JS, Images, Fonts and so on. These limitations are the reason why it's not this common. It's hard to get ads in and so on. The amp.dev page helped me a lot and convinced me that a fast normal HTML page has more value.

 

[adam]

Updating my portfolio this weekend, I'll check back in on Monday and post a link! :)

How did it go? 😄