A developer’s skill is with the code and functionality of a site and we are strange beasts who like rules and processes, and designers are the carefree creative types, who know no boundaries, and love to make things look nice. And, most times we don’t see eye to eye.
As a developer I split the build of a site into 3 basic steps
- Write the mark-up
- Add the functionality
- Make it look pretty
The problem for a developer is Pareto 80/20 law, where 80% of the tasks duration is in the main part of focus (The Mark-Up and The Functionality) and 20% of the time is used making it pretty.
For the designer your issue with developers is Pareto 80/20 law. You spend 80% of your time designing and only 20% defining the rules of your design.
Damn that 20% – the best way to resolve these issues is to do something unheard of – speak with your designer.
Prior to building any site, your concept is signed off and the moves down the chain to the developer to make it happen. Â Communication as it moves is the most rewarding aspect of pushing your concept to reality, if Developer and Designer just spent some time prior to initially build site guidelines for future enhancements are clearly laid and defined as your website is your brand and deserves Brand Guidelines.
On my last site re-design project I sat with my designer and worked out the following checklist:-
Text
- Colour values in hex for: text, borders, and backgrounds?
- Font-Face:- Standard Text, Headings?
- Font-Size:- Standard Text, Headings?
- Image Replacement for Headers?
Layout
- Page Width:-
- Margins & padding of boxes / containers:
- Style rules: ie all gallery images to have padding and a border?
- Agreement on who creates what?
Images
- Agreed techniques for images (sprites background images)?
- Agreement on who creates what and how?
- Use of PNG’s? and alpha transparency?
- Look and feel for all content images?
If both Developer and Designer spends the time communicating between the handover stage, the process is so much smoother, and we both get what we want a well built well designed site with no compromise.
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That’s true for most of it. One part is missing though: user experience. That should be the very first step before any design. Btw, any web designer should be also a UX master.
This is a tricky one to comment on. I agree, there’s not question, about communication.
I disagree that it is the designer’s job to make a site “look pretty.” While that may seem to be the case (I’ve played both sides of the relationship), a designer’s job and a developer’s job are just two aspects of the same end-goal: to make a fantastic user experience.
Each party needs to communicate along the way, and truly should have an understanding of what the other hand is doing. The best designers and developers out there know enough of the other side of the equation to understand the role that person is playing.
What would really help if developers picked up a good book on basic design and designers picked up a good book on basic development.
I find that a lot of times, depending on the hat I’m wearing, I might as well be speaking Jabberwocky to my partner.
Nothing more painful to me than developing for a print designer with no web experience or designing with a developer who thinks design has no value.
When Andy says ‘make it look pretty’, I think he means making sure that the developed site looks as close to the designer’s work as possible rather than designing the site himself.
I do have to agree that user experience and how the users interact with the UI is the most important part of any project web-based. You have to build the users trust, so to speak, so that they aren’t afraid they’ll press one button and break the entire application.
I’m a developer, and for the first 6 years there was a hard line between designer and developer. There is a natural tendency by developers, I think, to under value the design side and place a higher value on functionality. If you’re a designer, try not to take offense to this. For the most part, I feel it’s just from lack of understanding how design works. I grew out of this, and learned to appreciate design. I came to see it as a symbiotic relationship summed up by the phrase – “I give them power, and they make me look good”. Here’s the deal developers – good design will give your site a sense of trustworthiness. Without it, no matter how good your good your functionality is, people probably wont use it.
The way to bridge this divide is with knowledge and communication. Work with your colleagues to learn about their world. I’ve done this, and it’s made me a better developer for it. If your a designer, ask your developers for books and tutorials about OOP, PHP, and software design patterns. If your a developer, you should look into typography, css grids, accessibility, and UX. Having each side, learn the other’s lexicon will go a long way towards better communication and ultimately building better websites.
I realy like this new school they started here in belgium:
http://www.devine.be/
‘Devine’ meaning developer and designer at the same time.
That generation will be at a whole new level.
If they’re not good at or don’t like one part, they’ll at least know what it’s about.
Nice article. I think that having a designer checklist before the PSD goes off to the developer is a great idea!
I keep seeing these posts everywhere about the developer vs the designer and i understand they tend to be a reall issue. However i got a BA on information design and i feel that they taught us a good ammount of design and of development so that we could choose either side and not make the other side go crazy.
On the other hand ive worked with 100% designers and i do get a bit jumpy at some requests as if a layout can be moved around like a vector in illustrator without making me make changes all over the sites code
Problem #1: developer sees visual design as “making it look pretty” rather than “making it easy to use”.
I’m a designer, but I do write my own CSS and HTML (and sometimes even JavaScript). I think designers should learn HTML, CSS and some JS, at least CSS.
Developers usually don’t have a very good eye for design, and who can blame them? It’s not their job, and I don’t think most designers would be very good at programming either.
That being said, I agree with Andrew Woods. Learning a bit about design if you are a developer, or the other way around is something that definitely helps communication.
Whenever I present a design to a developer I also try to explain why I designed it that way and hopefully in that process actually teach them some design. I think the opposite could work as well. Our developers as best as they can often try to explain data structures of our projects to me and it’s very helpful for me to understand what I’m working with.
Problem #2, design does not always mean making it easy to use.
I am not, into a Developer vs Designer debate. The “making it look pretty†was never about the functionality of the site. A developer never wants to make a solution that does not work. I have previously received designs that do anything but make it difficult to use. The point is, developers and designers need to do talk to each other to understand the others stand point.
Oh I agree completely that communication is the key. Just disagree with your phrasing of step 3 which implies design is only about aesthetics. Good web design solves problems and makes sites easy to use (as well as making them look pretty). Sharing the reasons behind design decisions with the developers invariably leads to a better end result
We need each other to do great work. If developers cannot respect and acknowledge the purpose of design (beyond make it pretty, seriously my friends) they shouldn’t code the front end. And, if a designer cannot understand, for example, why a small change (move this to the left) can be a time-consuming task, they shouldn’t be a UI Designer, go back to print. Firm, but true.
Developers may not be visual thinkers. Still, the responsibility is on them to translate a layout accurately- or the designer’s time spent carefully considering each decision will be lost. I would encourage them to learn the basics of typography and research UI continuously, but mostly to measure, compare and look for proportions & alignments in the served designs. Most importantly, get on the same page with your designer about the variables you know will affect layout. What stretches? What aligns? What is fixed, and why? Request a markup of this information, yes, but don’t use it to replace a conversation.
Designers must consider the feasibility of the design just as they do the user experience, even if that means shooting for the stars first and bring it back to doable later. The best way for designers to do this is through an understanding, if not a skill, of front-end development. Go learn your web standards my friends, and talk to your developers with some concrete knowledge of code. If you want to be an industry leader, that’s what you must do. Also, try not to be too stubborn about layout. A good UI designer knows that the web is not print, even in the world of CSS.