Tools like Bootstrap are a means to an end for a lot of people. It's enough to get theme there, and not be horrible — gets them back to focusing on their original problem.
(Also: thanks for SexyMap, my wife and I loved it! On default settings.)
I see a lot of these, but I just think to myself that without bootstrap those websites would have probably ended up being some ugly wordpress theme instead, so I'm thankful!
Back when Bootstrap 2 was the most popular UI library one of the biggest problems with it was that the defaults were good enough that no one changed them, and consequently every SaaS startup's product looked the same for about 5 years. Pushing people to tweak things while still giving them a solid foundation is a good thing.
I'm not saying that's necessarily the case here, but there is a strong argument in favor of not making the default theme for a UI library look perfect.
Bootstrap served me well. I'm a developer. I'm OK with CSS but I have little design "sense": I can tell if something is ugly or beautiful but I can't make something beautiful. Ugly yes. That's where Bootstrap came into help: it gave me reasonable defaults that customers without designers are OK with.
Customers with designers often end up with a custom Bootstrap theme. I can't remember the last time a designer sent me a totally custom layout not based on some framework, usually Bootstrap.
Personally, I've found bootstrap extremely useful in this regard. Since it's widely used, people have written themes for it. If you stick to the simpler ones, it's not a lot of work to customize after you start with it.
That's an interesting point -- Bootstrap can really help out on projects who don't have the time or money for a designer, where that project would otherwise look like a Geocities page.
At the foursquare hackathon in SF last weekend, there were at least three teams using it. I think it'll get old very quickly unless someone writes some sort of generator to customize the way it looks. But until then, I think it looks solid and has a lot more uses than anything on ThemeForest.
In all fairness, what this proves is that there is a fairly large market for such packaged customization themes which are built thoughtfully and work on all resolutions.
Good observation, and I think it lines up with the "good enough out of the box" argument.
Most non-designers probably feel lost when trying to come up with an initial design framework, and Bootstrap gets them up and running, then once it passes the "this doesn't suck anymore" line, they just stop worrying about it.
(Glad you enjoyed the addon. On the default settings. :)
I've found the best use for Bootstrap is internal sites and tools. The public never sees these tools so they are usually stuck with terrible UI and UX. Bootstrap makes these tools so much easier to write.
A lot of people try to knock down Bootstrap (just like they do jQuery and PHP) because it makes all websites look the same.
But Bootstrap has eased a lot of pain for a lot of developers like me and made a lot of bad websites look very good easily.
I greatly applaud everyone associated with this project esp Mark Otto and Jacob for this amazing thing they have given to the web and their non-stop efforts to make it better and better.
I really love the default theme. Like a lot. And reading the source it makes a lot more sense to me than Bootstrap (eventhough, I'm sure, that bootstrap has a way bigger community/ecosystem in place.)
I'll make a superficial branch for some of my work and see how it ends up :)
Biggest problem with Bootstrap was non-distinct visual design. All sites created with bootstrap had same loon and feel which is bad for visual distinction and mind-space.
Themes will be useful in solving that problem. Way to go.
Totally agree. Sometimes I think bootstrap is moving us toward a more consistent UI across the web which means users benefit by not having to learn yet another set of interface metaphors. A fresh set of colors can keep things interesting, but people shouldn't be discouraged from using stock bootstrap.
Sweeping generalisation there on people in "real companies" not being able to use Bootstrap's default theme.
That's precisely what we do at my place. We don't do it for customer facing things, but for back office tools why would we spend time customising Bootstrap? There are better things we could be doing with our time.
What you might not get is that people used to be as lazy but without the framework. So, you'd get really ugly websites without any good design touch. Bootstrap gives these people a way to have something that doesn't look like shit; still letting more design oriented people to improve and making it stand out.
BUT, I'd say that people seems to only use the SAME bootstrap page; I.e. it's a big framework with lots of useful snippets.. it's sad that we only see the black top bar thingy everywhere.
Exactly. For someone like me who likes building websites for fun (and by myself), but sucks at design and CSS, Bootstrap is a godsend. Because of it, I can concentrate on the stuff that's fun for me while having a pretty reasonable-looking website.
I think that it's not for those people that know how to modify the css code of the bootstrap theme. They also offer a nice UI and a useful tips of design to create your own theme.
I used to have this problem many years ago. Then Bootstrap came out. My little projects no longer look like complete shit, that's good enough for me. I know it's not trendy anymore, but it still looks decent and is very easy to use.
(Also: thanks for SexyMap, my wife and I loved it! On default settings.)
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