My discovery journey into No-Code, Low-Code as a designer and entrepreneur (Part 1)

For people who have never heard of no-code or low-code, here are a few articles that explain it (sort of). Warning: the exact definition is highly debated and has constantly faced challenges from the developer community and a growing no-code community.

What is Low-Code Development — Forbes
Decoding the no-code / low-code startup universe and its players — Pietro Invernizzi

If you took the time to skim through the articles above, I strongly recommend checking out these 3 apps, Webflow, Airtable, and Bubble. We will come back to analyze them in-depth in the next few blogs. Also, there’s a group of no-code evangelists and educators on Youtube. Name a few that I enjoy the most here.

Automate All the Things, Mackenzie Child, Coaching No Code Apps, Pixel Geek,

You can see how far they have pushed the boundaries of these tools. After that, don’t be surprised if you are still confused by what exactly the line is between no-code, low-code, and regular software development. Let’s put on our designer hat and try to debunk this from a user’s perspective.

No-code applications enable users, with no technical background, to create applications that otherwise will require a team of developers. This sounds too good to be true, right? But it really is not. It is almost inevitable. Take food preparation for example. (Of course, I will be using a food analogy, my Asian heritage can not resist the urge.) Today, we no longer need to plant the food, harvest them or process them. Every single part of this process has been standardized and automated for maximum efficiency. Does that mean we have fewer choices? Sure, for one, you can not have naturally dry-aged meat in America. It’s prohibited by FDA but household tradition in Mexico, China, and many other places. Very few people in the U.S. make tortillas at home either. However, that doesn’t change the fact that you can enjoy a homemade burrito or taco after a trip to your local grocery store. You get the point. Every ingredient in that burrito can be pre-prepared to some degree, and you, the chef, need to decide how to put them together. Many people believe these emerging no-code low-code tools will change how future software is created on all platforms. App chefs can now focus on the “recipe” of business logic, decorate the “plates” with the best possible user interface, and not worry about where or how to source the “ingredients” or write code. Nevertheless, why is this important to a designer like me? I have 3 reasons.

1. I want to own the front-end entirely. Ensuring that the user experience I designed in Figma or Sketch will be fully mirrored in the final build.
2. I want to turn my next idea into a working PoC, not a clickable prototype that is nothing more than a dress on a manikin.
3. I want to understand the architectural design on the backend without learning the code.

Reason one, own the front-end

To me, the single biggest frustration working as a product designer is the inability to control what actually gets built at the end. Designers can spend weeks or months “crafting” the most thoughtful, pleasant experience but only to hand it off in a set of static graphics and redlines. Sometimes, I feel a little mortified when using the word “craft” to describe my work. The word is a reminiscence from the pre-industrial age when artisans design and make the artifacts in their own studios. I truly envy that. That’s the very reason why I chose product design as my major in college. At the same time, it’s simply impossible to single-handedly build a complex app without coding knowledge. But maybe, things have changed in recent years.

Reason two, maybe founders can do it all

Every time a small product idea hits my brain, I quickly write it down on Notion. While I have never been able to turn any of those ideas into a product, sometimes, I do fantasize. What if I can build a PoC to test out some of these ideas on my own. Even more amazing, what if this can all happen in a matter of weeks instead of months. Is this just a dream, or are we actually on the cusp of democratizing app development? Hopefully, I will find it out in the next few days.

Reason three, understand how it’s built

My personal experience taught me the best learning technique is creating. Most coding languages have a steep learning curve which made them quite prohibitive to people of my age. The moment I hit 30, I started to shiver whenever I heard the word commitment. I briefly entertained the idea of applying to law school. I even took several LSAT mock tests. But I simply can not convince myself to devote 3 years of my life to learning a new domain. I had gone through the same process 7 years ago when I first coded my portfolio website. I was able to acquaint myself with HTML and CSS but not much JS. Now three years have passed, my knowledge in coding has not gone past the front-end. API, application programming interface, may allow developers to facilitate communication between different systems. To me, it’s nothing more than a giant theater screen concealing all the real actions. If my understanding of low-code development is not completely off, this journey should take me through the entire app development process. I will be able to say things like endpoint, PATCH/POST request, or JSON schema with confidence.

If any of the three reasons above are in line with your interest, please follow my journey and bookmark. I will update this series of blogs every few days as I venture into this new and exciting territory. In the meantime, I hope you had some inspiration checking out those tools.

My next blog will be “How I built a wedding planning app with no code.” Yes, I am building an app for picking my wedding venue!