Category: Development

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Design Development

I’ve been saying this for years… Designers should design and Coders should code

Fast Company Design posted an article today titled “Designers Should Design, Coders Should Code.” It’s an awesome read and it’s something I’ve been saying since about 2004 when I finally realized that my coding skills were not evolving as fast as my design skills. I made the conscience decision on that day to stop lying to myself. I stopped trying to be something I wasn’t… a coder. I committed then and there to be the best designer I could be and let the developers of the world turn my designs into reality.

It was humbling but freeing at the same time. What I learned when I did this was that I was able to focus on solving problem and solving them in the best way possible. I no longer had to dumb down my designs to my coding skill level. This is when I feel I truly became a designer.

Over the years I’ve had many debates with people who think they are, or can find a unicorn that can both design and code. They call these people “UNICORNS” for a reason, they don’t exist! If you think you’re a unicorn, I’m 100% positive I can show you a designer that is better and more creative than you and a coder who can code circles around you.

This is still a controversial topic and one that will probably never go away. But reading the above article just re-engergizes me and give me hope that others are finally coming around to the myth of the unicorn.

Another good read about this: Why Designers Should Not Code (written by a “unicorn”)

Categories
Design Development Mobile Strategy

Some think RWD isn’t the long-term solution for the mobile future???

Yesterday Brad Frost (@bradfrost) tweeted this:

The link lands you on an article from Mobile Marketer titled: Responsive Web design not a long-term solution to mobility: Forrester

Please take a minute to read this article so you can do this:

I can’t decide if this article is meant to stir the pot and get people like Brad, Luke, me, and any other RWD evangelist up in arms, or if they are serious. My fear is that the survey they took is legit and it is sadly eye opening OR as one person commented, “Guys, this is just a commercial for Moovweb who is trying to coin a term “Responsive Delivery”. Shameless.”

The article points out that RWD is too complex and that too much cost is associated with moving to RWD.

One of the main issues with responsive Web design is that it requires the code for a company’s existing Web assets to be completely rewritten, making the project more complex than some expected.

We didn’t really need proof that most sites have been put together like Lego’s over the years, plugging in things here, adding 3rd party software there, etc. The move to mobile is simply making these bad development decisions more visible. IT departments don’t want to admit they were wrong and I think it’s very short sighted of those involved to write RWD off:

“One of the biggest things that came out of this was that responsive Web design was viewed by the majority of the respondents as a tactical short-term solution,” said Mitch Bishop, chief marketing officer of Moovweb, San Francisco.

The comments on this post are great:

“This article is an example of what happens when non-developers write about development. Check your facts – RWD does not require companies to “rewrite their code base”. The whole point of RWD is to have one code base.

So many inaccuracies in this article, it boggles the mind.”

and this one is pretty much exactly what I thought the first time I read this garbage:

Have you lost your mind?

Responsive web design is all about the front-end. RWD itself DOES NOT require “back-end” changes unless the previous front-end and back-end code are poorly written and intertwined – and if so that is NOT the fault of RWD.

Who paid you to post this collage of gibberish, doubletalk, half-truths and outright lies?

Sigh.

Categories
Design Development UX

Jack of all trades, master of none? I think not.

Is a line being drawn in the sand about what makes a Web Designer?

Possibly. While i agree with some of this excellent article written by GORKA MOLERO, there are some parts of it that are a stretch for me.
I have a lot of respect for Andy Rutldge but I’ve never really agreed with this:

‘A designer who does not write markup and css is not designing for the web, but drawing pictures’

I think there is always going to be a seat in the room for a UX/UI designer that isn’t necessarily an expert at Front-End/CSS or jQuery. Personally I would trust a UX/UI designer to craft the look and feel of a site/product over an expert coder. I mean, have you seen sites created by IT teams or people that have spent the past few years becoming an expert coder? YIPES! I think a designer and developer is a team not one person. This team should be the best at what they do and be able to finish each others sentences so the product is as good as it can be. They should be able to talk each others language and even dabble a bit in each others world. But leave the code to the coders and the design to the designers. Agile and Lean UX/UI techniques play well in this scheme if you have the resources.

I think when you ask one person to be great at both design and development, they suffer from being a “Jack of all trades, master of none.” This produces a sub-par product. But just my 2 cents.

Categories
Articles Development Mobile

Windows 8 takes 1 percent of Web usage as Internet Explorer gains

This is a great article about web browser usage after the launch of Windows 8.

Most shocking thing about this whole article is that IE6 is STILL on the list. SIGH.

Read the whole article here on Ars Techinca: Windows 8 takes 1 percent of Web usage as Internet Explorer gains | Ars Technica.

Categories
Development

Adobe Labs releases “Shadow” to help with RWD

Though it’s still a beta release, Shadow may well be the most useful thing Adobe has ever built for web developers, particularly those that have embraced responsive design. It’s no secret that, while responsive design allows developers to easily target a wide range of screen sizes, it adds a considerable amount of work to the development process. But with Shadow mirroring your website across dozens of devices at the same time, testing becomes simple and easy. It’s a bit like synchronized swimming for web browsers. 

Read the rest here:
Adobe Shadow Simplifies Mobile Web Testing | Webmonkey | Wired.com.