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Ask HN: How do you design your personal (toy) projects?

9 points by sjp602 ↗ HN
I am about to start a personal web-based project, it is of no commercial value - just something fun.

How do you go about designing your personal projects? Do you hack them straight out or sit down and design them first (pencil and paper/UML)?

7 comments

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threebutton
Always always pencil and paper. Even if it's a wireframe, and that's all you "design" (meaning no graphics, etc). Even on a personal project, don't waste time! Do the process right.
ambirex
It really depends on the scope of the project. Simple projects I just hack through, which acts like a design process.

In 2004 I built a personal delicious clone, which I pretty much hacked together in a week. Overtime I added more and more features. Now, I'm contemplating rewriting it in a framework. It has grown past a weekend hack so now I'm mapping it out.

It's best to know how you work. For me its better to have a working prototype that I can tinker with, even if I know I'll rebuild it eventually.

jparicka
Break it into 100 tasks and start chipping them away. One a day. I started on this in Septeber http://alpha.beepl.com currently stuck on broken down computer.. Kind of sucks.
stonemetal
Typically I do work flow UI drawings for high level design. Then do what ends up looking like a dictionary of class names and descriptions of their responsibilities|interactions but only at a high to intermediate level of the program.
hasenj
"hack them straight out"

Any design would be totally just in my head. I'd only sketch something on paper if it's a GUI.

The design that's in my head is basically a short list of what it should do and what it should not do.

weirdcat
I usually start with some rough pencil drawings and a lot of thinking about the flow of the site, then hack out a prototype. Then I sit in front of it and stare, tweaking a thing at a time, until I'm happy with the result. Then I leave it there for a few hours or a day and stare some more. Whenever I have an idea that would substantially change the look, I usually sketch it again before implementing it.

The pencil and paper thing in my case works as a way to organize my thoughts and define what I'm actually going to do, rather than a formal design process. Usually I have an A4 sheet (or rather several) scribbled with ideas and sketches regarding a single project.