Recipe for Non-UI Developers to Build Great Web UI

Ingredients

1. HTML concepts including DIV (Key ingredient)
2. CSS basic concepts
3. Javascript basic concepts
4. JQuery
5. Bootstrap

Preparation Time (2-3 Weeks)

If focused for an hour a day on an average with possibly few extra hours in the weekend :-), one could get hang most of the above in as early as 2-3 weeks time to be able to become ready to start building some good UI. The best part is that there are online playgrounds which would help you get started in no time. My personal favorite is http://www.codecademy.com/. They have the online playground to learn above all of the above except Bootstrap.

1. HTML/CSS Concepts – 7 Hours course time (URL: http://www.codecademy.com/tracks/web)
2. Javascript – 10 hours course time (URL: http://www.codecademy.com/tracks/javascript)
3. JQuery – 3 hours course time (URL: http://www.codecademy.com/tracks/jquery)

Preparation Method

1. Download Bootstrap from http://getbootstrap.com/
2. Learn basic concepts. It should not take more than an hour or so if you are done with your preparation.
3. Check code samples of UI widgets/components on getbootstrap.com website. They provide copy and paste code to get started quickly.
4. Get Started with Hello World by using Bootstrap PageHeader or Jumbotron classes.
5. Get hands-on with building forms using Bootstrap. Your concepts around HTML (Div) and CSS (id/class) would come to great help.
6. Get hands-on with handling simple Javascript events such as click event and processing HTML DIVs using JQUERY
7. Optionally, get hands-on with processing AJAX requests/response using JQUERY
8. Gather your learning and keep practicing for few weeks
9. Serve Hot whenever required. 🙂

Try and let me know if you were able to serve Great UIs to your end users and if they loved it. All feedback are warmly welcome! Enjoy your cooking. 🙂