I personally loathe background music on a website. My client has opposite feelings on the subject. I added music because the customer is always right, though I'd like to revisit the subject with them.
Almost everyone would agree that it is annoying and wastes precious bandwidth but are there any usability studies or a recommendation for someone esteemed in the profession that can provide a valid argument against background music?
Usability is not the only concern. Consider the following scenarios:
1 - Someone browses to the site while at work in a shared office, and now all of their co-workers think "Gee, he's wasting time".
2 - Someone browses to the site while in a room with a sleeping baby, and now they have to spend an hour getting him/her back to sleep.
3 - Someone browses to the site while they are listening to their own music, and now they hear a cacaphony of shrieks until one source is muted.
Also, consider that any benefit gained from the music on your website will be totally lost on anyone who has their speakers muted. So your audience can be divided between:
A - People who cannot hear the music
B - People who can hear it, but do not like it
C - People who can hear it, and do like it
I would not care to estimate the percentages associated with each of these groups, but keep in mind that category "B" is actively offended by your website. To take a line from the hippocratic oath, one rule of web design should be "do no harm".
Metrics. You'll never be able to convince a business person with an emotional answer.
If you investigate the situation empirically you'll be able to give them something irrefutable.
I would would try an experiment: (get google analytics)
have one site with the music as-is, measure the bounce rate,etc
have an identical site without music, measure the bounce rate,etc
Have the server randomly serve up the different pages for a couple weeks (until you get a significant data) and see what happens.
Maybe we're wrong (I hate music too). I hope your customer is wrong, but who knows.
You could also add a survey link and try to get people to answer that as well (but without an incentive that might not work)
Stats can be your friend here :)
I would also:
(calculate the size of the audio file(s)*the number of hits*months)/cost of GB per month
Then tell them how much money they are wasting.
Basically, it boils down to this:
Audio on websites is a bad idea. No one likes it.
Try to educate your client that it is a bad idea. (It's annoying, different levels of sound can cause problems, yadda yadda) Mention that most users don't take sites seriously if they use sound. It's a very '99 thing to do.
If you client does not budge, (politely) remind him/her that they are paying you for your expertise as an internet professional. You are the expert on the web, and they have hired you to give your expertise.
If they still won't budge, keep the sound and make sure they are happy. The bottom line is keeping the client happy.
Music also interferes with screen reader users. I'm a blind computer user and nothing annoys me more then having music start playing and drowned out my speech program that's trying to read the site. Nothing will make me close a website quicker then unwanted audio.
It took a bit but I found a site that talks about usability on web sites.
They have a video on the right hand side of this page:
http://www.ciaromano.com/evaluating/testing.php
It shows why audio ads are not a good idea on websites.
Hope this helps.
G-Man
Just make sure that there is a way to turn it off. It really depends on the type of Website, because multimedia-heavy sites (i.e. sites for Movies or Games) can benefit from it, but if I'm listening to some of my own music, I definitely want a way to turn it off.
Oh and please, no crappy MIDI-Files that people already hated in 1993 when they were novel.
This is a tough one -- and what's amazing is that at the moment, I have a client who's demanding the exact same thing.
Personally I don't know of any usability studies addressing this topic specifically, but there's plenty of anecdotal evidence out there from users complaining about the intrusiveness or outright corniness of unrequested background music. * That said, clients still ask for it. Best you can do is try to explain the situation to them, try to gather a few good examples of people complaining about it from the Web at large, build a case, and hope the client goes for it.
In my case, she completely agrees that it's potentially annoying, understands it cuts against the grain of user expectations and politeness, but wants it anyway. So I'm building it. Whaddyagonnado.
* Indeed, you could probably use this thread as evidence! Good luck.
Consider taking a different path with the client.
Ask them what the purpose for the music is...
If it is to install a particular feeling or mood with the visitor of the site, consider taking them through all the points mentioned in answers here and discuss how that may violate the intended for the music.
Then you will be able to talk to the client about different ways to instill the same "ambience" to the website without resorting to music. This is really a design issue and not usability.
If the background music/sound was to convey some information, then it is a usability issue as people who for technological or biological reasons cannot hear the sound at the correct volume will miss out on that. Therefore the site is not as usable as it should be.
Unfortunately, as a service provider of sorts, all we can do is cringe and give the customer what they want - after documenting your disapproval both commented in the code and in writing to the client, of course.
Pardon me, but i have a different opinion about loading music in the website. With all due respect I have for the answer posters of this thread.
I see visits to e-commerce websites like going to a shopping complex. Where you have a cart, varieties of products, checkout counters and background music to make your stay as comfortable and interesting as possible.
There's a whole psychological reason as to what certain slow paced music can do to certain parts of the brain. Some studies even suggested that certain music play a role in motivating customers to purchase more items. Check this site
This can definitely be a plus point in a website. Of course it depends on what kind of website it is. However, a slow and non-vocal music shouldn't necessarily disrupt one's attention; rather it might have the opposite effect.
My justification is that when a potential customer visits a site, he is only using one of his senses while browsing through the pages. His eyes! I'm saying why not allow him (if he wants) to use his sense of hearing that would encourage him (not only through the means of displaying fancy texts, design and animations that looks nice to the eyes) but also to capture his attention through music (allowing him to be more in touch with the site).
Its obviously not possible to trigger his sense of smell and taste. But why limit it to only the eyes. Why not use the ears too!
Whether you choose to put music into your site or not, MichaelStum's post about having an option to turn off the music is highly essential.
Of course in the end its all about the amount of traffic that comes to your website. For this matter, #Cbrulak's idea of using Google Analytics would be a realistic approach for different individuals.
Related
I am looking for some advice on categorizing a library of sound effects. I have a large set of random sound effects, (think whistles, pops, growls, creaks, gunshots etc). I would like to be able to take a growl for example, and find the next growl that sounds the closest to the original.
Given a sound, what sound from my set sounds the closest to it.
I have done a fair amount of googling and have found two avenues that I am still researching. One is using echonest, although their "best match" support looks not promising for public users. The other option is diving into FFT and building my own matching algorithm. This is a fine option and would be a great learning experience but I wanted to get some opinions from others who might know a little more about sound processing; especially short clips .5sec - 3sec range, not full length music.
Thanks!
I have worked in movie postproduction for years and as far as I know, there is no way to do that automatically. Every file has meta information in its file header which describes what the sound is like. You are then actually not searching for the file names but in the meta string.
I don't think that it is trivial to sort effects programmatically as two effects that sound similar might be totally different if you look at the waveform.
You would need to extract significant information about a sound that you can then compare.
I am also not a DSP expert, maybe there are methods to do this
If you're interested in trying to build your own system to do this, I can suggest a few keywords that might help to refine your Google searches. In the academic research community, the task you're describing is often called "content-based audio searching". I know there's been a lot of work done on it, and though most pertains to music, sound effects have definitely been the focus of a number of studies.
You might want to start with the work of Pedro Cano.
Also, I recently heard about a company that's doing similar work. You might want to check out products from Imagine Research.
Those are just a couple of ideas off the top of my head. I'm not %100 sure they'll be helpful. If they are, please let me know!
How do you get yourself in the "zone" for programming? As a CS undergrad I've been finding it difficult to get focused in. I think part of my problem is I do not have "proper" workspace living in the dorms. Any ideas or tips? (Perhaps good thinking music, whiteboards? etc)
The best way I found yet is to turn off the Internet. Since opening my browser and browsing to some random site has become almost a reflex, I deactivate my network card for the time I need to work. This way I have the time to realise what I am doing before it is too late. The Internet must be the number one "Zone Killer" I know...
Truthfully, nobody can tell you about you, they can only tell you about them. That may help, or it may not.
I've seen people able to get "in the zone" on a commuter train car. I've seen people who have it broken when the air conditioner kicks in.
Here's what works for me:
Need no people talking to me. I can't keep the ideas juggling while explaining them or having other ideas tossed in to the mix. I know, pair programming can be great - but I've never been "in the zone" while pair programming.
Music is okay, but no playlists with wildly different styles, or songs I absolutely love.
It almost always kicks off when I'm frustrated by something but then have an idea how to solve one aspect of the problem... then things flow from there.
I need a desk clean enough that nothing on it distracts my attention and makes me think - no dev magazines with interesting tech on the cover, no dishes with mold on them, etc.
I need about 20 square feet to get up, pace for 2-3 steps, then sit back down. Too much room gets me too far away from the computer. Too little room and I feel confined.
As soon as I solve the problem, I'm normally out of the zone. A phone call or person at my desk will break it. Stopping to answer email "toast" will kill it too.
But again, this is me. All of this may actually be the reverse for you - You'll find it eventually, I'm sure. Just don't give up, and don't take personal anecdotes and advise or internet blog posts as absolute truth - "the zone" is very much a personal thing.
One small thing which helped me a lot was to get noise cancelling headphones. These are a bit pricey, but being able to switch on silence is great!
I am in the process of developping a game, and after two months of work (not full time mind you), I have come to realise that our specs for the game are lacking a lot of details. I am not a professional game developper, this is only a hobby.
What I would like to receive help or advices for is this: What are the major components that you find in games, that have to be developped or already exists as librairies? The objective of this question is for me to be able to specify more game aspects.
Currently, we had specified pretty much only how we would work on the visual, completely forgetting everything about game logic (AI, Entities interactions, Quest logic (how do we decide whether or not a quest is completed)).
So far, I have found those points:
Physics (collision detection, actual forces, etc.)
AI (pathfinding, objectives, etc.)
Model management
Animation management
Scene management
Combat management
Inventory management
Camera (make sure not to render everything that is in the scene)
Heightmaps
Entities communication (Player with NPC, enemy, other players, etc)
Game state
Game state save system
In order to reduce the scope of this queston, I'd like it if you could specifically discuss aspects related to developping an RPG type of game. I will also point out that I am using XNA to develop this game, but I have almost no grasp of all the classes available yet (pretty much only using the Game component with some classes that are related to it such as GameTime, SpriteBatch, GraphicDeviceManager) but not much more.
You have a decent list, but you are missing storage (save load), text (text is important in RPGs : Unicode, font rendering), probably a macro system for text (something that replaces tokens like {player} with the player characters name), and most important of all content generation tools (map editor, chara editor, dialog editor) because RPGs need content (or auto generation tools if you need ). By the way have links to your work?
I do this exact stuff for a living so if you need more pointers perhaps I can help.
I don't know if this is any help, but I have been reading articles from http://www.gamasutra.com/ for many years.
I don't have a perfect set of tools from the beginning, but your list covers most of the usual trouble for RUNNING the game. But have you found out what each one of the items stands for? How much have you made already? "Inventory Management" sounds very heavy, but some games just need a simple "array" of objects. Takes an hour to program + some graphical integration (if you have your GUI Management done already).
How to start planning
When I develop games in my spare time, I usually get an idea because another game lacks this function/option. Then I start up what ever development tool I am currently using and try to see if I can make a prototype showing this idea. It's not always about fancy graphics, but most often it's more about finding out how to solve a certain problem. Green and red boxes will help you most of the way, but otherwise, use Google Images and do a quick search for prototype graphics. But remember that these images are probably copyrighted, so only use them for internal test purposes and to explain to your graphic artists what type of game/graphic you want to make.
Secondly, you'll find that you need to find/build tools to create the "maps/missions/quests" too. Today many develop their own "object script" where they can easily add new content/path to a game.
Many of the ideas we (my friends and I) have been testing started with a certain prototype of the interface, to see if its possible to generate that sort of screen output first. Then we build a quick'n'dirty map/level-editor that can supply us with test maps.
No game logic at this point, still figuring out if the game-engine in general is running.
My first game-algorithm problem
Back when I was in my teens I had a Commodore 64 and I was wondering, how do they sort 10 numbers in order for a Highscore? It took me quite a while to find a "scalable" way of doing this, but I learned a lot about programming too.
The second problem I found
How do I make a tank/cannon fire a bullet in the correct direction when I fly my helicopter around the screen?
I sat down and drew quick sketches of the actual problem, looked at the bullet lines, tried some theories of my own and found something that seemed to be working (by dividing and multiplying positions etc.) later on in school I discovered this to be more or less Pythagoras. LOL!
Years and many game attempts later
I played "Dune" and the later C&C + the new game Warcraft (v1/v2) - I remember it started to annoyed me how the lame AI worked. The path finding algorithms were frustrating for the player, I thought. They moved in direction of target position and then found a wall, but if the way was to complex, the object just stopped. Argh!
So I first sat with large amounts of paper, then I tried to draw certain scenarios where an "object" (tank/ork/soldier) would go from A to B and then suddenly there was a "structure" (building/other object) in the pathway - what then?
I learned about A-star pathfinding (after solving it first on my own in a similar way, then later reading about the reason for this working). A very "cpu heavy" way of finding a path, but I learned a lot from the process of "cracking this nut". These thoughts have helped me a lot developing other game algortimes over time.
So what I am saying is: I think you'll have to think more of:
How is the game to be played?
What does the user experience look like?
Why would the user want to come back to the game?
What requirements are needed? Broadband? 19" monitor with 1280x1024?
An RPG, yes - but will it be multi-user or single?
Do we need a fast network/server setup or do we need to develop a strong AI for the NPCs?
And much more...
I am not sure this is what you asked for, but I hope you can use it somehow?
There are hundreds of components needed to make a game, from time management to audio. You'll probably need to roll your own GUI, as native OS controls are very non-gamey. You will probably also need all kinds of tools to generate your worlds, exporters to convert models and textures into something suitable for your game etc.
I would strongly recommend that you start with one of the many free or cheap game engines that are out there. Loads of them come with the source code, so you can learn how they have been put together as you go.
When you think you are ready, you can start to replace parts of the engine you are using to better suit your needs.
I agree with Robert Gould's post , especially about tools and I'd also add
Scripting
Memory Management
Network - especially replication of game object states and match-making
oh and don't forget Localisation - particularly for text strings
Effects and effect timers (could be magical effects, could just be stuff like being stunned.)
Character professions, skills, spells (if that kind of game).
World creation tools, to make it easy for non-programmer builders.
Think about whether or not you want PvP. If so, you need to really think about how you're going to do your combat system and any limits you want on who can attack whom.
Equipment, "treasure", values of things and how you want to do the economy.
This is an older question, but IMHO now there is a better answer: use Unity (or something akin to it). It gives you 90% of what you need to make a game up front, so you can jump in and focus directly on the part you care about, which is the gameplay. When you run aground because there's something it doesn't do out of the box, you can usually find a resource in the Asset Store for free or cheap that will save you a lot of work.
I would also add that if you're not working on your game full-time, be mindful of the complexity and the time-frame of the task. If you'll try to integrate so many different frameworks into your RPG game, you can easily end up with several years worth of work; maybe it would be more advisable to start small and only develop the "core" of your game first and not bother about physics, for example. You could still add it in the second version.
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I'm not a great fan of duplicating effort. I do find, however, that there are benefits to tracking agile iteration progress on both a physical card wall and an online "calculator" (Excel, some scrum tools) or an online card wall (e.g. Mingle).
I find that a physical card wall in the team space provides a visceral kind of connection to the status of the cards... and that moving a card physically when you finish something provides a level of satisfaction that can't be duplicated online. I can feel the card... and people can see me walk up to the wall to move something.
Online tools provide great capabilities to share remotely and to calculate progress (e.g. in Mingle, you can use the built-in tools to automatically calculate burn-ups or burn-downs from the real data, saving lots of administrative time in doing those things manually).
I'm curious if agile practitioners maintain two tracking media like I do, and how do you present the benefits of the physical wall to those who say "I can do it online... why would I want to do it on a card wall instead?".
I feel the same. There is something very psychologically satisfying in moving a physical card around on a wall. Thinking managerially, we like stats and we like them to be automated as much as possible.
Perhaps you can keep both? Use the physical wall as the main daily source of information your team work from. Then, assign one person (e.g. the scrum master) to take down the live status and put it into Mingle/Excel at the end of each day.
As long as there is good benefit for the users to have both, then you should find both keep happening alongside each other nicely. Find out what the motivators are for each tool. For example:
Physical wall:
Instant reaction
Quick visual
Physical satisfaction
Online records:
Really really useful statistics
People can be rewarded against the stats in there (e.g. points completed)
Hope this helps.
My team has struggled with this as well. Electronic data makes analysis and reporting very easy and enables associations of checkins with a backlog item, but its a lot easier to manage cards during the standup. Plus, it's a lot easier to get a "5000 foot view" of the project from looking at a large wall than a small monitor.
No matter what you do you're either either going to have some duplicate effort, or you're going to have a process with some pain points. The goal is to find that balance between the amount of duplicate effort and the value that it affords.
We're still working on finding that balance :) Here's what we do:
During planning, we throw everything into OneNote. Formatting is a bit of a pain, but we're getting better.
After planning, our ScrumMaster enters the data from OneNote into an Excel document for generating our burndown. He then exports this data into TFS, for associating checkins, and does a mail-merge to print each task on a label which is then affixed to a post-it and added to the wall.
During the standup we move the post-its around on the wall.
After the standup, the ScrumMaster updates the Excel doc, generates the burndown update, and sends it around to the team.
As a team member this is pretty low-friction, but it's pretty wasteful of the ScrumMaster's time.
I greatly prefer Cards on the wall for a few simple reasons:
Everyone know how to use them. No software training required.
Not subject to problems with network, someone's computer needing maintenance etc., even in a blackout, people can still update their cards. This may sound like a joke, but can be nice to have something to do when for whatever reason yu can not use your PC
Programmers can freely update the cards while they are booting up/compiling
Easy to see them all at a glance
Ideal for meeting if your in a scrum environment and having amini meeting aroudn a desk.
I like jotting a note on the card when it's moved with time and mover... for trakcing bugs/features.
Cross link your online and card wall.
Set up two way replication. Method is left as an exercise for the student.
Also handy to catch whiteboard content from discussions.
We use both, and I can't imagine doing it any other way. Part of it may be that we find our "online card wall" a little too clunky to easily maneuver, but we use the physical cards for getting a quick idea of what developers are working on, letting QA know which cards are ready for testing, and for QA to post what is ready for our weekly demos. The dev area, QA area, and ready to demo areas are three physically distinct places, with the ready to demo being most easily accessed. We also use the physical cards for final scoring.
Could we do all of this online? Yes, would it be quicker, and easier? No way!
We've abandoned using cards after the sprint planning session (they get added to Rally) because it doesn't make sense for us to track in multiple places. Our scrum master is accountable for making sure people enter their tasks appropriately and move them (that's what the daily standup is for). The 5000 foot view is much better in an online tool than a bunch of cards on a wall that can only be categorized two-dimensionally (or maybe three if you stack enough on top of each other).
We use both a card wall and ProjectCards. It's painful for me because I sync the two of them, but it's worth it to have the feedback for the team that is local.
We've bandied about the idea of getting a large touch screen, but I still would rather have physical cards. The other idea I've been toying around with is having a printer which will automatically print out an index card whenever a story is added to ProjectCards.
I was just wondering. How about a giant projector based touch wall. ;)
Best of both worlds. This might give some pointers.
http://johnnylee.net/projects/wii/
Theres something very good about a big wall everyone can always see. I think we need a way to print onto regular thick index cards but I've had no luck so it is duplicated effort at the moment.
Electronic Card Wall Using RFID, this allows you to use a physical wall, with data mastered in software of your choice. As you move cards around, software updates accordingly.
If you use JIRA. http://wallsync.net will keep your cards in sync for you...
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I've always felt that my graphic design skills have lacked, but I do have a desire to improve them. Even though I'm not the worlds worst artist, it's discouraging to see the results from a professional designer, who can do an amazing mockup from a simple spec in just a few hours. I always wonder how they came up with their design and more importantly, how they executed it so quickly.
I'd like to think that all good artists aren't naturally gifted. I'm guessing that a lot of skill/talent comes from just putting in the time.
Is there a recommended path to right brain nirvana for someone starting from scratch, a little later in life? I'd be interested in book recommendations, personal theories, or anything else that may shed some light on the best path to take. I have questions like should I read books about color theory, should I draw any chance I have, should I analyze shapes like an architect, etc...
As far as my current skills go, I can make my way around Photoshop enough where I can do simple image manipulation...
Thanks for any advice
Most of artistic talent comes from putting in the time. However, as in most skills, practicing bad habits doesn't help you progress.
You need to learn basic drawing skills (form, mainly) and practice doing them well and right (which means slowly). As you practice correctly, you'll improve much faster.
This is the kind of thing that changes you from a person who says, "It doesn't look right, but I can't tell why - it's just 'off' somehow" to a person who says, "Oops, the arm is a bit long. If I shorten the elbow end it'll change the piece in this way, if I shorten the hand end it'll change the piece this way..."
So you've got to study the forms you intend to draw, and recognize their internally related parts (the body height is generally X times the size of the head, the arms and legs are related in size but vary from the torso, etc). Same thing with buildings, physical objects, etc.
Another thing that will really help you is understanding light and shadow - humans pick up on shape relationships based on outlines and based on shadows.
Color theory is something that will make your designs attractive, or evoke certain responses and emotions, but until you get the form and lighting right the colors are not something you should stress. One reason why art books and classes focus so much on monochrome drawings.
There are books and classes out there for these subjects - I could recommend some, but what you really need is to look at them yourself and pick the ones that appeal to you. You won't want to learn if you don't like drawing fruit bowls, and that's all your book does. Though you shouldn't avoid what you don't like, given that you're going the self taught route you should make it easy in the beginning, and then force yourself to draw the uninteresting and bland once you've got a bit of confidence and speed so you can go through those barriers more quickly.
Good luck!
-Adam
That's a difficult thing. Usually people think "artistic skills" come from your genes but actually they do not.
The bests graphic designer I know have some sort of education in arts. Of course, photoshop knowledge will allow you to do things but being interested in art (painting specially) will improve your sensitivity and your "good taste".
Painting is a pleasure, both doing it and seeing it. Learning to both understand and enjoy it will help and the better way to do it is by going to museums. I try to go to as much expositions as I can, as well as read what I can on authors and styles (Piccaso, Monet, Dali, Magritte, Expresionism, Impresionism, Cubism, etc) that will give you a general overview that WILL help.
On the other side... you are a programmer so you shouldn't be in charge of actually drawing the icons or designing the enterprise logo. You should however be familiarized with user interface design, specially with ease of use, and terms as goal oriented design.
Of course, in a sufficiently large company you won't be in charge of the UI design either, but it will help anyway. I'd recommend the book About Face, which centers in goal oriented design as well as going through some user interface methapores and giving some historic background for the matter.
I'm no artist and I'm colorblind, but I have been able to do fairly well with track creation for Motocross Madness and other games of that type (http://twisteddirt.com & http://dirttwister.com).
Besides being familiar with the toolset I believe it helps to bring out your inner artist.
I found that the book "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain" was an amazing eye opening experience for me.
One of the tricks that it uses is for you to draw a fairly complicated picture while looking at the picture upside down. If I had drawn it while looking at it right side up it would have looked horrible. I impressed myself with what I was able to draw while copying it while it was upside down.
I did this many years ago. I just looked at their website and I think I will order the updated book and check out their DVD.
I have a BFA in Graphic Design, although I don't use it much lately. Here's my $.02.
Get a copy of "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain" and go through it. You will become a better artist/drawer as a result and I'm a firm believer that if you can't do it with pencil/paper you won't be successful on the computer. Also go to the bookstore and pick up a copy of How or one of the other publications. I maintain a subscription to How just for inspiration.
I'll see if I can dig up some web links tonight for resources (although I'm sure others will provide some).
most importantly, carry a sketch book and use it. Draw. Draw. Draw.
Drawing is probably what I'd recommend the most. Whenever you have a chance, just start drawing. Keep in mind that what you draw doesn't have to be original; it's a perfectly natural learning tool to try and duplicate someone else's work. You'll learn a lot. If you look at all the great masters, they had understudies who actually did part of their masters' works, so fight that "it must be original" instinct that school's instilled in you, and get duplicating. (Just make sure you either destroy or properly label these attempts as copies--you don't want to accidentally use them later and then be accused of plagiarism..)
I have a couple of friends in the animation sector, and one of them told me that while she was going through college, the way she was taught to draw the human body was to go through each body part, and draw it 100 times, each in a completely different pose. This gets you comfortable with the make-up of the object, and helps you get intimately knowledgeable about how it'll look from various positions.
(That may not apply directly to what you're doing, but it should give you an indicator as to the amount of discipline that may be involved in getting to the point you seek.)
Definitely put together a library of stuff that you can look to for inspiration. Value physical media that you can flip through over websites; it's much quicker to flip through a picture book than it is to search your bookmarks online. When it comes to getting your imagination fired up, having to meticulously click and wait repeatedly is going to be counter-productive.
Inspiration is probably your biggest asset. Like creative writing, and even programming, looking at what people have done and how they have done will give you tools to put in your toolbox.
But in the sense of graphic design (photoshop, illustrator, etc), just like programmers don't enjoy reinventing the wheel, I don't think artwork is any different. Search the web for 'pieces' that you can manipulate (vector graphics: example). Run through tutorials that can easily give you some tricks. Sketch out a very rough idea, and look through web images to find something that has already created.
It's like anything else that you wish to master, or become proficient in. If you want it, you've got to practice it over, and over, and over.
I, too was not born with a strong design skillset, in fact quite the opposite. When I started out, my philosophy was that if the page or form just works then my job was done!
Over the years though, I've improved. Although I believe I'll never be as good as someone who was born with the skills, sites like CSS Zen Garden among others have helped me a lot.
Read into usability too, as I think usability and design for computer applications are inextricably entwined. Books such as Don Norman's "The Design of Everyday Things" to Steve Krug's "Don't Make Me Think", have all helped improve my 'design skills'... slightly! ;-)
Good luck with it.
As I mentioned in a thread yesterday, I have found working through tutorials for Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, and After Effects to be very helpful. I use Adobe's Kuler site for help with colors. I think that designers spend a lot of time looking at other's designs. Some of the books out there on web site design might help, even for designing applications. Adobe TV has a lot of short videos on graphic design in general, as well as achieving particular results in one of their tools. I find these videos quite helpful.