Something that sounds as simple as picking a color palette is often the very thing that scares developers away from diving into design. Design decisions feel so open ended and exposed, and everyone's a critic. Plus, there is no compiler throwing an error or tests failing if your colors clash. No wonder I’ve seen amazing developers clam up when it’s time to make some design decisions, deferring to “someone creative, who knows more about design” even if I know they want to learn more about design themselves.
After my presentation, developers will be able to do the basics of color theory, and to feel confident about learning more if they are inspired. How will I do this? The developer way - by abstracting away my domain knowledge as an artist into variables and functions and sharing that information with others. My goal is to demystify design decisions and reveal them to be logical, predictable, and driven by principles that anyone can learn. Designers get something out of this talk too, not only do I encourage every developer in the room to appreciate the domain knowledge designers have to internalize, the many decisions that they have to make, and the hard work it takes to wield color intentionally and skillfully, I also show them how to better communicate these decisions to developers.