Features
- Print Format
- Email to a Friend
Design : Everything you wanted to know about designers
Friday, September 8th, 2006
Dan Saffer
- Adaptive Path
Design" />
…but were afraid to ask. Adaptive Path’s Dan Saffer on what developers need to know about their creative counterparts!
In design circles, a perennial topic of discussion is How to Deal with Developers. This conversation always amuses me, since the developers I’ve worked with have, in many ways, been much more reasonable and less difficult than most of the designers I’ve worked with. And I’m a designer myself! Dealing with developers usually involves a reasonable, albeit sometimes socially-awkward, conversation. There’s occasionally been anger and resentment, sure, but seldom the sulking, yelling, and flat-out bad behavior I’ve seen some designers (full disclosure: me too) engage in. Why is this?
This isn’t to say, of course, that all developers are easygoing or that all designers are a pain in the backside. But designers as a breed do have their quirks, and I thought I’d share some of them with my developer colleagues so that the next time you’re confronted with a designer furious because his design doesn’t look the same in the prototype as it does in his Illustrator file, you’ll know why he’s acting like that and (hopefully) how to respond.
Trained to be anal
Designers, especially if they went to design school (horrors!), have been trained to be anal retentive. If pixels are out of place, if fonts aren’t right, hell, if spacing between letters is off, someone, somewhere (an art director, another designer, a professor) has torn us a new one over it. And, like an abused child becoming an abusive parent, we often repeat the same cycle. We’re more than happy to rip you a new one if something about our design isn’t as perfect as we pictured it.
We don’t have logical answers for everything
Sometimes, we just think a certain color or a certain way something operates just feels right. “I like the way the font Georgia feels–Arial be damned.” “I think this dark red speaks perfectly about the richness of the site.” These decisions aren’t logical - and most developers are by necessity logical people. Nor, probably, should they always be.
In one sense, designers are paid to have and express emotions within their products. Not every site can look and work like Google, after all. Gut instinct is important to a designer. Most of us have spent years training to trust and hone that instinct, so that we know on an emotional level what works and looks right.
Unfortunately, our instincts sometimes fail us.
Design is a subjective art, subject to whims of fashion and personal taste. Unlike coding, where something works or it doesn’t and it’s usually pretty clear when something is screwed up, it’s harder to tell in with design. Sometimes a design you think you just nailed turns out to be terrible. This is also why a lot of designers are on medication.
Everyone thinks they can design
Because design can be very subjective, everyone feels they can have an opinion on it. When’s the last time an business executive chimed in and told a developer how she should set up her CSS? Designers get that sort of advice all the time and it makes us cranky. We begin with very objective design goals, and then have to translate them into a carefully balanced choreography of subjective design elements. It’s a little reminiscent of a line from the movie Amadeus, when the Emperor comments on Mozart’s latest composition, “Your work is ingenious. It’s quality work. But there are simply too many notes, that’s all. Just cut a few and it will be perfect.” And Mozart responds, “Which few did you have in mind, Majesty?”
Designers secretly want developers to share ownership in the design
We know just as well as you do that if you don’t code it, it ain’t going to come alive. Or if you code it poorly, well, it’s going to suck too.
In the same way screenwriters depend on the actors to make their words really sing, designers depend on developers to make their designs work. Because of that, we want–no, we need–you to understand and love the design like it was your own. If you don’t, well, this can make us insecure. Why don’t you love my baby? She’s beautiful!
But good designers (like good screenwriters) know that good developers can do miracles with material that was so-so to begin with. Any designer worth his or her salt knows that developers often come up with better solutions while coding than the designer did, or twists to the designer’s solutions that really brings them to life.
It’s the economy, stupid
Good designers want what is best and often the most economical (task wise) for the users. But we also know that the ideal solution is one that is economical for everyone: users, developers, operations, customer support, etc. And for that, we need to collaborate.As long as it doesn’t grossly affect the users, most of us are willing to compromise to make the design easier to build and implement. Because, as I said before, we need you more than you need us. Unless it is destructive, a design that never gets built will always be an also-ran to one that did.
Addicts, all
As my colleague Brandon Schauer said to me, design is an addictive yet painful act. There’s an infinite amount of possible solutions, and exactly none of which imagined by the designer will be the absolute best. The only thing that can make designs better is the combination of refinement and iteration. This is the only thing that will get the design anywhere close to the ideal, with time being the only possible arbiter of when a design is considered finished. Changes, fixes, and anguish are all part of the creative process. And you, dear developer, are both a witness to and an enabler of this process. Most designers can’t iterate the living prototype or product without your help. Seeing something live that is ungainly or ugly or just plain stupid makes us weep. It makes us feel like we’ve failed. This is when developers can earn serious points–by helping us fix the problem. We can’t do it alone.
Sympathy for the devil designers
The next time a designer is on a rant about how the font is too big or the check box is supposed to trigger this or that action and you’re puzzled by the vehemence, hopefully you’ll have a better understanding of why. Designers occupy a weird space in the business world: lots of power (to control form and behavior), and yet none (we’re usually dependent on others to execute the design). We care a lot about our designs (we’re not usually in this field for the money) and we want you to care about them as well. We want to be partners with developers and be respected as such. Our common ground is that we all (hopefully) want what’s best for the project. And with a little compromise and understanding on both sides, that can be the case.
Like this article? Digg it!
Come to the Future of Web Apps: 20-21 February, tickets on sale now
CSS training: In-depth CSS XHTML techniques delivered by Eric Meyer on 7-8 December, London 2006
Leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
62 Responses to “Everything you wanted to know about designers”
If I had a dollar for every designer who asked if I could un-widow a line of text on a page, I’d be filthy rich.
I think designer-developer relations are much less strained than they used to be, simply because many designers use the web all the time now and know its inherant limitations. I also think many developers have learned a think or two about color and whitespace and general usability, so they have a better understanding of a designers choices.
The point of contention I see now is over usability. It would be nice if design schools (and maybe they do, I don’t know) taught a class or two on Interface Design.
two worlds apart but so closely connected.
We don’t have logical answers for everything
I could not agree more, when people ask questions as to why I did something they expect a definitive answer and sometimes I can’t give it to them which can make it hard to defend my ground. This is where respect comes in to play between the designer and developer/client.
Everyone thinks they can design
Right on the money. I can take criticism but when I’m forced to make consessions because somebody above me (that’s not a designer) doesn’t like something and wants me to change something that I know won’t work, that makes me cranky.
Until recently, I didn’t know how many designers strictly did design and no developing to the point where they don’t even know XHTML or CSS. I think a designer should be able to do some front-end developing and that would help bridge the gap between designers and developers.
I agree with most points on this article but my advice for a designer would be to not be that jackass who just gives orders. If you want your developers to understand your point of view, try to take some time to learn about theirs.
Take some programming classes and learn as much as you can from the developer. You’ll start having things in common and it’ll help you understand their point of view and will help you design better. You don’t have to become a programming genius but at least learn enough to know what’s going on in the background and realize how good your developers really are.
Oh also, designers (well trained ones) should have logical reasons for their choices. If you went to a quality school they should of drilled thier students to always have a concept and reason why you choose everything. Don’t use blue for blue’s sake, or using a circle because it looks cool.
A good designer works toward a goal and is trying to evoke certain emotions and tangible usability. There should be a reason for everything done on the page. If they can’t list one, they’re just making pretty wallpaper and shouldn’t be called designers.
[…] Dan helps developers know everything they want about designers. […]
In my experience the biggest stumbling block with the design/development problem has been lack of attention to detail. As you say in your article every pixel, font choice and placement matters. Most developers I’ve worked with, don’t really understand this and seem to think its a vague guide. Some of course are better than others :-)
I too think it’s helpful for designers to have a general understanding of the limitations of the web but I wouldn’t go as far as to suggest they need to take code classes or anything like that. Dennis, I think you paint with too broad of a brush to imply that everything on the page needs justified – a little naive in fact. If a designer took a blank Photoshop file and built a site strictly on reason, he wouldn’t offer the project anything more than a coder could. Your rigid framework makes for poor design, poor designer environments and reduces the artistic process to a formula. You can no more ask a designer to explain every element on a page then a designer can ask you to emotionally engage in your syntax. It’s a fundamental difference between the two worlds – left brain and right brain.
Dan, et el:
I have to disagree. And I propose design-driven development as the solution. I have lived in this conflicted world of design vs. devlopment for some time now and I’ve had enough. In the end you’re dealing with ignorance on both levels. A few responses to comments…Kedron and Denis, I agree with Denis, designers should have an explicit reason for why each and every page element is important. The design should speak to the client and also the designer’s own personal vision. If your vision is that you like dark red thats fine, but thats your justification. Personally, I like to work with designers with a bit more passion, forsight, and desire to make a dramatic statement. Developers, I’m from this school and I’m getting tired. We are far too self centered and arrogant. DHH is the shining example of arrogance in a good way. He has revolutionized the way he writes code and the way he makes a living. Kudos to him. But people that spend day in and day out blogging about rails, or against rails, or for python, or for table-less layouts or for ajax over flash or for flex, blah blah blah….enough, seriously, enough But your O’reilly book down and look at the sites you’ve done. Talk to designers, talk to your IA people. Realize that you’re all making 1 website in the end.
The answer is to design/develop yourself. I can’t really sympathize with this problem (unless I have some internal conflict.)
This article kinda reminds me of a joke..
Q: How many designers does it take to change a lightbulb?
A: I ain’t changing anything.
As a designer I am kind of offended by this. You seem to paint all designers with a broad “stupid” stroke, like we are all dumb enough to actually think that a vector-based design made in Illustrator should look the same when converted to a website.
I think the underlying issue is that there are too many print-based designers who feel the need to get involved in web-based design, which is a whole other field in its own. They have no understanding of pixels, RGB color modes or HTML.
I can design and develop (XHTML,CSS,PHP) a website just as well as the next guy. I make a mean business card too.
every pixel, font choice and placement matters. Most developers I’ve worked with, don’t really understand this and seem to think its a vague guide
I design the code and logic that powers the Flash applications I build. Since there’s almost always more than one way to program an outcome, there’s more slack in my design.
Sometimes it’s hard for me to get my head around a designer insisting on a pixel for pixel match as that much rigidity is counter-intuitive for me.
As a professional designer with a degree in graphic design, I see no reason any designer should be offended by this article. I find it surprising Dan doesn’t go into any detail on designers as developers and the need to better understand what you guys are doing. I used to make prototypes and then wonder why it looked nothing like my design once developed… So I learned java, flash, css, xhtml, and attempting rails and ajax now.
When a job comes along and I can put on both hats I will, but just in the same sense that I want most developers to value good design and hire an actual designer, I will always go with a quality developer that complements my work (and saves me time and money in the long run).
One final note - We designers can usually tell when a site has been designed by a non-designer developer and you may say “Well the general audience is happy and the few designers that notice that are being picky.” I would warn you… there are more of us than you think. Muah ah ahhhh!
I won’t go over the hill and say that I face this problem every day, but since I’m a designer and developer at the same time (oh noes!), it’s more of a personality split.
I won’t.
Sometimes when I hear people talking about designers and developers it seems like another world. Why would a developer touch CSS unless they are in a team where they have to?
The web developers role often has enough strings to it: Solutions architect, DBA, code / security auditor, programmer, etc. etc. etc. For perfect design translation either bring in code monkeys for slice, or get designers to take the minimal effort required to learn XHTML and CSS.
[…] Everything you wanted to know about designers heehee. Funny, but pretty close to the mark (tags: design) […]
Er, can you really call yourself a Web designer if you you don’t know how to build web sites, any more than you could call yourself a print designer without knowing how to do layout and what will and will not actually print on a press?
Design is not about making things look pretty. If that’s all you know, cake decorating may be a better career choice. There’s nothing at all wrong with that (hey, I was a pastry chef!), but I don’t think it’s design—how can you solve a problem if you don’t truly understand the capabilities and limitations of the medium?
{excuse me for bad english. I am norwegian AND copywriter}
As content developer I think the the knowledgebase in the industry is too new for precise distictions between workfields. I like to work with both designers and developers and has learned a lot. And here is my thing. Sometimes - I mean many times - both designers and develoepers doesnt understand that making content is also essential. As long as it looks good (
{excuse me for bad english. I am norwegian AND copywriter}
As content developer I think the the knowledgebase in the industry is too new for precise distictions between workfields. I like to work with both designers and developers and has learned a lot. And here is my thing. Sometimes - I mean many times - both designers and develoepers doesnt understand that making content is also essential. As long as it looks good (des) and frees servermemory the hip way (dev) In media companies with integrated teams this works kindof. But in specialized webdesigner companies I think to few designers (espesially !) and developers cares about the content. They think content is something the client should “provide” and design and development is our turf that we sell to the client. Wrong. All things have to be made in cooperation: content, structure, interaction, business logic etc. Sometimes a developer has very good ideas on design. Not because she is a good designer but because she, or he, knows the interactive media very good. Same as the designer. He can have far more to say on content on a webpage than a skilled writer because of experince a professional writer might not have. To often professional content workers are no used of stuff made for print or TV are just copy/pasted.
Good article and interesting discussions above :)
Initially, I was afraid to even mention wearing both the designer and developer hats. But in reading the comments, I feel much better about it ;)
If designers and developers have no other common bonds, there’s always this: the common enemy in the entity that calls the shots but has no concept of either realm. It’s the client who has a ghastly design idea in his or her head or who thinks that because the front end result doesn’t change much, then the backend restructuring must be a snap (and not cost much). Because since they sign the cheques, they can lord over everything.
Interesting article, and even more interesting comments. I agree with some of the other comments that the definition between designer and developer is blurred. I find that designers often know more about programming than developers do about designing. I see the designers’ realm as not only the graphic design, but the front-end HTML/CSS coding too. When designing an interface, as someone has already pointed out it is an iterative process, you need to be able to tweak and refine the HTML/CSS as you are developing various page elements. I see the developers job as coding the back-end to make a designers page come alive with data.
Another point mentioned is that everyone thinks they’re a website designer, when in fact it’s not just a question of making flat pages look good, a designer needs to consider how a page should look/work in various states, how each page interacts with other pages, consistency between some elements and not others etc.
In my experience the biggest stumbling block with the design/development problem has been lack of attention to detail. As you say in your article every pixel, font choice and placement matters. Most developers I’ve worked with, don’t really understand this and seem to think its a vague guide.
(For reference:I’m a client-side developer, and have done design in the past, and am really more interested in the back-end at times. When I say “code”, I’m only talking about markup, not the back-end).
This quotation is exactly the problem I have with designers whose appreciation of code is lacking. Collis says that “every pixel, font choice and placement matters”. Well, Collis needs to get over this. This is not print. I’m sure every font matters, but if the client browser doesn’t have it, tough. Good design, satisfying user experience and clear IA can be conveyed without pixel-precise layout. (Pixel “perfection” is a misnomer anyway - no pixel is perfect, after all).
It is not a vague guide, but is an idealised one. Sacrificing accuracy in markup for fudges to make pretty text, rounded corners, forms that break fundamental rules of interface design, leads to worse Googlejuice, inaccessibility, and makes cross-browser support harder.
Chris says that “I see the designers’ realm as not only the graphic design, but the front-end HTML/CSS coding too.“. I do too - in an ideal world, I’d wish that my job didn’t exist, because designers could mark-up their code satisfactorily. That’s not judgmental against designers, incidentally - I’m sure many can - but the fact that CSD and markup-monkey positions still exist and are recruited for indicate it’s a problem.
I would love people to breakaway from the Photoshop-first mentality, and prototype interfaces in pen/paper and then markup. (And yes, the mock-up has its place, but not as the first stage after the wireframe). Unfortunately, I’m beginning to realise that isn’t happening too fast in many areas.
I like Dan’s article, because it’s honest and fair, rather than defensive and reactionary. But I’d also like designers to be able to execute their own work, if only so they know what is/isn’t possible. As it stands, the Photoshop mockup is often a free-for-all, and it’s the developer who receives the flak for not reproducing it exactly, rather than the designer, for depicting unsemantic, often impossible code.
(Final note: there’s very little that’s truly “impossible”, but there’s a lot that’s only possbile with terrible code. If the goal is truly semantic markup, some stuff becomes hard. We moved away from doing everything with tables and spacers (even though anything’s possible with sliced images). When a fieldset evidently has a legend, and yet that legend cannot be placed as depicted, there are two choices: redesign the form to make it semantically possible, or use a compromised, unsemantic element, like a definition list. Unfortunately, the obvious answer rarely seems to be chosen).
Great article and obviously hitting a nerve with many people.
It is also very interesting hear someone describing developers and designers as different people when the trend in the industry seem to be pushing designers to code their own pages or developers to produce the designs as well. I personally agree with design and devlopmnt done by different people as it allows creativity to flow unlimited INITIALLY and then the developer can get involved to add the value that their knowledge brings by using technology in creative ways leading to the best end solution.
A proposal for you all: In my view it is all about relationship. I run a small web agency and I encourage (if not insist) that our designer and developer work together and get to know each other so they can really draw on each other’s strengths instead or arguing unnecessarily. Through a good friendship and relationship they will grow to understand each other more and more and not jump to conclusions or ignore (consciously or sub-consciously) the other person.
Well that’s my ‘two-peneth’. Celebrate the differences and all be friends!
Cheers.
Interesting article, interesting comments as well.
There should be a reason for everything done on the page. If they can’t list one, they’re just making pretty wallpaper and shouldn’t be called designers.
That is indeed a rather naive statement. Like Dan said, some items might be added by instinct, just because it looks right. And yes, sometimes pretty wallpaper is all it takes.
Besides, designers and developers should talk and try to understand each other, but the designer doesn’t need to justify her design choices to the developer, as it’s not their business.
I’m both a designer and client-side developer and I don’t have any internal conflicts either, by the way :-)
I’m a developer and I’ve worked with designers.
I don’t want to seem like I’m ratting on my friends, but a lot of developers are definitely not chilled. But perhaps are less expressive.
My own experience is that there is a challenge of priorities. I’ve worked with marketing people who got really excited about the layout and stationery for some print output, but would not sit and talk about the business rules of the data retrieval. I’ve seen developers get pissed off when someone asked them to move some output by a few milimetres too,because they think in content terms.
The main thing is to work together and try and understand each others needs. I’ve worked with plenty of great designers who would explain what they needed and we’d talk over what I’d produce and it was a pleasure.
[…] Vitamin Features » Everything you wanted to know about designers Tudo que você sempre quis saber sobre designers mas teve medo de perguntar. […]
That is indeed a rather naive statement. Like Dan said, some items might be added by instinct, just because it looks right.
How is this naive? I think you’re confused on what I’m saying. Design is about communication. On the emotional level, its about communicating traits to the audience (ie, progressive, conservative, happy, sad, etc,etc ). As a designer, you draw from your life experiences and put down on paper/screen what you think communicates these things to the user. It affects which font you choose, your grid, color pallete, shapes, etc etc.
So when I say designers need a reason for everything, its as simple as saying this needs to feel like “x”. But that’s not the end of the designers job. The job is to balance the usability and truly represent the medium as well as communicating on an emotional level with the user.
When I say designers sometimes create pretty wallpaper, is when they shut out everyone (the client included) and make choices about the design that have no rhyme or reason beyond they like what it looks like. For instance, choosing really really grungy fonts for a conservative business just because the designer likes grungy fonts.
Basically, when they visually masturbate.
[…] Vitamin Features » Everything you wanted to know about designers Tudo que você sempre quis saber sobre designers mas teve medo de perguntar. […]
thanks a lot for the great article,
well it’s always a difficult thing for two people of widely different backgrounds, motives and training to see eye to eye. I guess it all boils to working as a team and understanding that both the designer and the developer all have the common goal of serving the best for the client
cheers
[…] Ok, I just came across this post from Vitamin and its funny and mostly true. […]
This article is great and the replies definitely fun to read. I’m a designer that does a bit of coding (XHTML and CSS), and I’ve worked with a good amount of developers once the sites got more complicated.
I think the relationship works out best when you have a designer that can do a little bit of coding (ie, provide the developers with HTML/CSS mockups) and a developer respects a designer’s layout (sorry, but if my CSS file says a margin of 6 pixels with 12px Verdana, I don’t expect to see 10px Arial from you).
I also agree though that traditional print designers need to be very careful when going into a website design… I’ve had coworkers hand me 300 dpi mockups and that don’t fly!