Should designers code?

I sit on the side of "probably." You should probably have a decent understanding of how code works on a fundamental level. Learning will make you a better designer, help you communicate easier with engineers, and ultimately develop better solutions.

I'm biased, though. I love coding. I'm not the best at it. I can write production-level HTML and CSS, but the rest is usually chucked together in a way that works and achieves its goal but isn't optimised and probably best saved for my own projects rather than anything others have to suffer.

Building apps is something that's defeated me again and again though, I've tried in the past and created fun projects like soundboards or simple games but never to the quality that I can design them.

Why SwiftUI?

When I started hearing how low the barrier to entry is for SwiftUI or how fast you can build interfaces, I became very interested.

If I could learn the fundamentals of building apps, I know that it would improve my interaction design skills and help me communicate easier with mobile engineers. But, if I could also learn just enough to be dangerous, I could build realistic prototypes for testing or contribute to the app by polishing the UI and sweating out the details without pairing with engineers (letting them focus on the more complex parts of engineering).

How am I learning?

There are many resources out there for learning SwiftUI from DesignCode on YouTube to SwiftUI tutorials from Apple themselves.

One of those awesome engineers put me on to 100 days of SwiftUI, a 100-day crash course that goes through the fundamental concepts of the programming language to creating real-life apps.

I'm currently on day 33 of this course, but knowing that I need some accountability. Everything is easier when you are learning with colleagues (a mix of designers and iOS engineers) - I started a "Peer to Peer learning group" at work. Hence, we have some accountability when we meet and a support group for asking questions.

Are you learning SwiftUI as a designer?

If you are learning and need an accountability partner feel free to ping me on Twitter @Grxnt and we can make sure we keep each other accountable as well as share our progress.