February 17th, 2010
On Designers writing HTML
Every once in a while, this little debate bubbles up the surface, then dies back down again, only to surface again with more vigour. Today was one of those days, and the debate was:
Should web designers be able to write HTML?
I’m being very specific about that. I’m not saying, ‘should designers be able to code’ — that’s a completely different thing. I’m also not saying, ‘should good designers write their own code’. Subtle, but important, distinctions. Regardless, today was one of those days. In may well have been sparked by Elliot’s inflammatory tweet. The discussions carried on for a little while, and the blog posts have started arriving on the subject, this one included.
I dipped in and out of the discussions today. There’s only so much you can say in 140 characters, and explaining the nuances of opinion is tricky to do on Twitter at the best of times, so I thought I’d pen my opinions here. You know, as it’s my blog and everything.
I think the answer is: It depends.
What is web design, anyway?
There are well-articulated arguments on both sides of this. From Andy’s and Meagan’s musings on designing in the browser , to Mike’s short, practical tips. Given these points of view, it’s very difficult to disagree.
Of course, sometimes, it makes sense to design in the browser. You can’t do that if you can’t write HTML. Of course, it helps understand the very building blocks of the web (from a designer’s perspective, anyway). It’s saves you time and money. It can help you realise your designs the way you intended.
But, and here’s the thing, we’re talking about a tiny aspect of web design here. We talking about implementation. Making something work in a browser is only part of what web design is.
Understanding the medium
I hear this a lot when people talk about HTML. ‘You need to be able to code to understand the medium’. Sorry, but that’s bullshit. HTML is not the medium. At all.
Let’s look, for a moment, at Television. TV is a mature broadcast medium. Good telly is not about pixels, or how the they get sent from one place to another. Good TV is about storytelling, engagement, audience, interaction and a whole lot more. The medium isn’t defined by the practicalities of production — although of course, it is a part of it — it is defined by the people watching it. Why they need, what they look forward to, what they spend their valuable time engaging with.
The same is for Radio. Good radio makes the technology disappear (note: so does TV, but you just watch 3D TV fall on its arse later this year — it’ll be like betamax all over again). Great radio is a wonderful thing. But it’s not about radio waves, it’s about people. The medium of radio is defined by the all of the things that defines TV. The differences being the technology, the mode of engagement and the audience. Not a whole lot more.
Perhaps it’s because the web is a relatively new medium is why we’re struggling with this as designers. The medium of the web, as far as I see it, is only partly defined by technology (HTML being a small part of that). It’s defined by people, by stories, by products. There’s just so much in there that by saying you have to be able write HTML to design for the medium is really undervaluing the other areas of the craft. A designer who is a fantastic writer, with a flair for typography — and an understanding of concepts such as semantics and document structure — is no less of a designer just because they can’t write HTML.
Shades of grey
I guess the upshot to this is that I think that there are shades of grey. Modern web design covers so many areas of specialism — from HCI and IA through to Illustration and dabbling with Javascript. To deem it necessary to write HTML to be a good web designer is really quite disrespectful to experts in those subsets of web design who never go near any HTML, yet have equal value to bring to a design project.
So, for me, it’s not a case of ‘yes’ or ‘no’. More like ‘it depends’. It depends on the project, the team, the individual. This upsets me, because I’m kind of a black and white kind of bloke. Never been a fan of grey, but honestly, that’s all I’m seeing here.
So very well said. I’ve come to settle on the very same conclusion; that it comes down to the person, to the project, to the overall goal. I work with some very talented designers that haven’t written a line of HTML in their lives and wouldn’t know CSS if a printout hit them in the head, but I work with them each and every day to produce quality work our clients truly enjoy. If you’re not writing the code, make sure you’re attached to the hip of the person who is.
Agree — but with some caveats.
Designers wishing to deploy to the web should have an understanding of the limitations imposed by browsers — fonts (yes, cufon, typekit works, but not everywhere) flexible “canvas” (pixels, different resolutions, repeat-x, repeat-y strategies, grids). Just making a pretty indesign file doesn’t mean one is ready to go live with the design.…
I’ve been dealing with this issue for the last year almost because it has been immensely difficult to land a job as a designer without knowing how to code. I could literally come across a dozen job openings a week that all require HTML, CSS, Java and Flash optional. Design skills on their own seem to have become obsolete, it’s like we have to evolve to survive.
@jim: I agree completely. They need to understand the medium and know it’s not print.
Interesting thoughts, Mark.
I would argue, however, that a good web designer must know the extents of their palette. To continue your television metaphor, a television producer cannot demand that a viewer touches a certain part of the screen in order to continue viewing, because that is not how television technology works. Likewise, a good web designer will know the limits of what a website is technologically capable of, and design within those limits. I would agree that they don’t necessarily need to know exactly how the code works, but how it behaves.
As an aside, I have to say that I really enjoy how the Drupal community has carved out a niche for Themers: people who bridge the gap between design and implementation. Of course, this is only possible because Drupal does such a good job of keeping design and functionality separate.
Although I agree to an extent that Web Design is about so much more than just building with HTML, and a lot of awesome Designers probably don’t know any code whatsoever… it is hard to get employed as a Web Designer now without knowing code.
As someone relatively knew on the scene, and only really fresh out of University 2 years, I know all about struggles to get work. Luckily now I am full-time employed, but back at the time when I graduated employers wanted candidates to be able to do pretty much everything to get their “value for money”.
I design for Web and Print, and because I work for a small agency I’m expected to be able to do a lot of things. My main skills are in CSS/XHTML/UI Design, but I’m delving into jQuery, PHP and Web Technologies because I find more and more being expected of me as a designer.
So, basically what I’m saying is that yes, awesome designers don’t always have to know their code. But to get employed in difficult economic times… I think they definitely do!
Very well said, I’d have loved to debate in the Twitter-o-sphere today, though I was not able to put down my opinion in 140 characters. I followed it though.
My opinion is diverse as well.
I believe that for developer/designer communication, basic knowledge of the languages is required. Mind the ‘basic.’ You can, though, argue what these ‘basics’ would be. Nevertheless, I think it’s great to know how to code up a design. But:
I also think that it’s great to specialise in something. You can really be ‘the’ master in your specialization. When this specialization is webdesign, then why should you be able to write out your whole design in proper markup? If you have to, then why not add JavaScript to that? Many designs use JavaScript, or even simple PHP. Should we learn that as well? I think not.
My conclusion is that, if kept to very basic markup, yes, webdesigners are required to know these. But I can argue about the fact whether we need to posess the knowledge to code up a complete website.
I’m going to disagree. But only because it can maybe cause a good proper debate. That and I disagree. I don’t actually call myself a web designer. I refer to myself as an interactive designer. This is because I do more than web work. I do interactive projects using tools like Processing, openFrameworks, etc. Which are programming environments. But they’re designed to be programming for artists. That said, you should at least understand the tools of your trade. HTML, CSS, JS are all tools for web design. Which means the designer should at least have a working knowledge of them. Whether s/he is the one doing the coding is I guess dependent on the project.
I feel as if mostly I want to disagree with your analogy. HTML is not the medium, true. The browser is the medium. TV as the other medium is fine, but we the designers aren’t the viewers. We the designers are part of the production crew. If I worked in say the prop department I’m sure my art directors would expect that I could say do pick up work in the prosthetics department. Most production sets work this way. If you’re part of the art dept. you’re expected to be able to work in the entire dept.
Same goes on a photo set. If you’re an assistant you have to know how to work the lighting equipment, the photo equipment, the capture software, deal with models, etc. Same goes for radio. You want a job in radio you pretty much need to know the ins and outs of it.
Back to the point. I think designers designing web sites should know HTML… and CSS… and at least understand JS. That said, I think that the hardcore backend Java developers I work with should also know HTML, CSS, and JS. I don’t think designers *need* to do the HTML coding on a project. Again, that depends on the project.
So I guess I’m in the grey area on this. But I’ve got far fewer shades of grey in my palette.
@derek Sounds like we’re agreeing, to a degree. Your point about tools is one that comes up too. I don’t know a jot of javascript. Not one bit. I do, however, understand, and try to design to, user behaviour. I then work with someone who is far better at JS than I could ever be to realise those interactions. By focussing on the specialism of each person, I find you get a better product as a result.
Hello Mark, I think you analogy to TV and radio or the movies is a bit wrong. Nobody (not even Elliot) requested that designers should know how the Internet works. There is no need to know how the TCP/IP-Protokolls work and how the bits and pixels are transferred through fibreoptics and come together on my screen (in my opinion that’s the correct analogy to your broadcast waves).
But as a director should know about camera-work to some extent (e.g. to distinguish between a wide, medium and extreme closeup) I think a web designer should have a basic understanding of the underlying code that transfers his designs to the screen.
I am a designer and a film-director and all I can say is, that knowing about camera-work, editing, vfx on the one hand side and HTML/CSS/jQuery on the other has helped me to improve my work in both areas.
That doesn’t mean that I do it all. This is just impossible within a proper timeframe in film production. I will always have a Director of Photography, an Editor and a Makeup Artist. They are far better in what they do than I will ever be, but I could do some of what they do (well,except the makeup ;-) ) if I had to. But the important thing is I can communicate with them about what I want with the knowledge that is required to work together to tell a good story within the timeframe and the budget that is available (how many times lack of knowledge leads to designs that take to long to code and in the end stress the budget of the client).
I would disagree about the medium. I don’t think HTML is the medium. I think the browser is the medium. I think in some cases the device is the medium. With those things in mind, I do see it as necessary for a designer to understand their medium. Without this context, you miss out on all of the little details and benefits of those ‘constraints’. You have an understand of the browser, how people interact with the browser, the capabilities of the browser, etc — all of those can help influence the design early on — and the implementation later on.
I don’t think every designer needs to do their own HTML/CSS, but they should at least have an understanding of the medium (browser) in general.
This inspired some interesting thoughts about the medium and the growing number of devices and platforms available.
@derek we got more or less the same arguments. I totally agree with what you say. Although I wouldn’t want my makeup-artist touch the lighting or camera-equipment ;-)
@Mark, yes, I definitely think that people who are better at something should be the ones doing it. I suck at icon design. So I’ve no problem getting a designer who does icon design.
But yes, understanding what’s in the toolbox is important and being able to do work that can help the other folks on a team is—in my mind—what counts the most.
@visualpro I know that Elliot wasn’t directly referring to that. But many times, I’ve heard HTML being described as the medium. The Web is the medium. The browser is the device through which we interact with that medium. Television is a medium, and the TV set is how we interact with that.
Understanding the medium — and as many of the facets as possible — will of course help your work. If you can write HTML, then that doesn’t make you any better a designer, or relevant to the industry, than an information architect who doesn’t write a dot of code. Sure, we all know it helps understanding, but it’s not always required to do your job well.
I’ve thought about this at great length… and remembered it no longer applies to me.
What does learning to code mean in this instance anyway? It’s a slippery slope; it could mean anything from learning a little basic html/css and winging it with jQuery to actually really *knowing* what you’re doing.
Front-end web development is a very absorbing discipline, and if you intend to master JavaScript, Accessibility, Usability, Performance and the finer points of CSS/HTML and keep up to date with all the changes in the technology you won’t have the time or head-space to be a leading edge web designer as well.
It comes down to what you want to do at the end of the day. I think being a jack of all trades
is a pretty low aspiration; focus on what you want to do and specialise in it. This may not be the right approach in the early stages of a career but is, in my opinion, what you should be heading for.
Ultimately a designer who dabbles in HTML/CSS will never do the job as well as a good dedicated front-end developer. So what you’re left with is a compromise, and that doesn’t really appeal to me.
I think this debate is more of an investment concern for me. I’ve always had trouble working with designers that can’t build their own designs (front-end). Not because they’re less talented, but because they don’t see a relationship to their design, how long it takes to build, and how that effects costs.
I would never want to work with a designer that can’t code HTML, but not because of a lack of design skills.
Exactly the same, only different. Ha.
@Mark I don’t agree with you, that knowing HTML/CSS doesn’t make you a better designer. I think every time you broaden your horizon you become better.
I agree, that if you have a good developer at hand it might not be absolutely necessary to get a particular job done.
@Pete B. everyone dedicated and focused on one thing will mostly be good at this one thing. But I think it is a bit narrow minded to think that you can only be good at one thing. There are numerous examples of people who prove you wrong on this. Just take Leonardo DaVinci, decathlon sportsmen, or Mark himself, who is a good designer but it seems also a good writer/teacher.
@Pete B, not true at all. Look at designers like Andreas Philstrom (Academy, NTMY, Reform&Revolution, Grid-A-Licious WP theme) at Suprb.com or Emil Olsson (typeneu, chevychase, did all the WP stuff for Aisleone) at emilolsson.com. Or even interactive artists like the team at Hi-ReS! or Universal Everything, Tha LTD., PostSpectacular, Ben Fry & Casey Reas. They’re all brilliant artists/designers who are also programmers. So there’s absolutely zero compromise.
Let’s forget about proven expertise and look at students learning the medium and design. Would anyone in here advise a young web designer not to learn code?
I think the trend is that they absolutely should learn how to code.
@niccai it depends ;) Actually, i’d probably say yes. However, it’s not a primary skill I look for when hiring designers. You can always teach someone to code HTML. You can always help them skill up. It’s much more difficult to teach composition, colour theory, interaction modelling etc. I always look for what’s inside their head, rather than viewing source.
I got this quote from Szymon Błaszczyk’s user experience quotes site. Only because I think its the best way to explain why I disagree with your point of view.
“ If you do not know your materials, all you do is express your inability to express yourself
— ancient artist’s saying
I think this idea can be applied to web design and web designers.
@manuel: Great quote. I think it can be applied too, but — not to split hairs or anything — I think it depends on how you define ‘materials’. A really great film director might not fully understand the development process of the film through the strength of the bulb in the cinema — all ‘materials’ of film making. A really great director could just tell a really great story and work with other people who know that stuff.
I agree with Jim — it’s useful to understand limitations of a medium. For instance, TV has ‘safe areas’ — the areas on the screen which will definitely be seen (some may be hidden by screen surrounds — it’s much less common nowadays). Some designing credits or a sequence for television who was not aware of these limitations could easily produce something which did not work well in the medium.
Of course, we’re not just talking about aspects of html — there are other possible limitations on the web — from the speed of downloads to the size of screens, to design effectively you have to have an understanding of these — even if that understanding is gained through sharing the design process someone else in your team.
sorry — can’t edit, so the ‘Some designing credits’ above should be ‘Someone designing credits’
I made up my mind, and let me quote why I disagree.
“A really great director could just tell a really great story and work with other people who know that stuff.
~Mark Boulton
I’m definately in favor for, as I already said, for specializing. By outsourcing the things you don’t know to other specialists, together you will come to a great product.
My background is in graphic design, but I can also hand code HTML & CSS. As a freelancer the advantages don’t need explaining.
By the same token, I have friends and, indeed, family who have built successful careers in the web design industry without ever having to code sites.
It just comes down to being good at what you do, have good communication skills, and understanding the area you work in.
At the end of the day, HTML and CSS are languages. HTML being a translation of content into tags that have meaning, and then the CSS is basically the maths of where things go on the page and also adding certain visual styling where it can.
Do you need to be able to speak the language to know that an element needs to go in a certain place, and look a certain way? No.
Do you need understanding of visual principles, content hierarchy, user behaviour, screen resolutions, user persona, brand considerations, etc. etc. to make a decent design? Yes. But again, this has nothing to do with being fluent in any coding language.
There is no right or wrong, and you should take each case as it comes. You will get visual designs which are awful, but you will get visual designs that are very well considered.
I certainly won’t be thinking anything less of a person if they told me they were a web designer who didn’t code. I would look at their work first before making judgement. And even then if it wasn’t very good, I wouldn’t blame their lack of HTML and CSS fluency as the reason for this. I know of too many successful and decent designers to do this, and I’ve seen too many brilliant visual design ideas by people unable to code to think this way also.
Let’s keep our processes open, and not make assumptions on quality based on one small area of the web design process.
I totally agree successful web design requires a diverse set of skills which are far more than just HTML + creativity, but I think a good grounding in HTML and CSS is one of the best ways of getting that essential knowledge of the medium.
In my experience designers without it tend to simply not understand enough to produce effective designs.
That’s not to say the designer has to code the entire site, or get stuck with general site maintenance, it’s the understanding that’s important. Which I think is essentially what you’re saying.
@Daan and @ Mark
most great directors know a lot more about film than just to tell a story. Cameron operated the camera in a green screen environment while filming Avatar. Stanley Kubrick went through the whole “practical film school”. He started his career as a camera assistant. It is said, that on one occasion a DOP didn’t want to do something that Kubrick wanted and told him “It is not possible!”. Kubrick fired him because he knew it was possible and he knew one or two things about camera-works.
In germanys most famous film school (Ludwigsburg, the school that Roland Emmerich went to) upcoming directors, producers and cameramen are requiered to shoot a project on 16mm film and to cut it the “old” way. That is at a cutting board. I wonder why this is a requirement and if it maybe has to do with learning to really think about your story and how to cut it. Yo don’t have a second chance if you cut your film at the wrong place.
RE: Visualpro
You bring up another good point. For those who don’t know HTML/CSS, then they don’t know how to find people who DO know HTML/CSS. So, while they have a great design — the experience could be tarnished by the fact that the person building it out has very little practical knowledge of HTML/CSS.
A professional web designer would have that knowledge and judgement of who was qualified to complete the task at hand. The HTML/CSS implementation is an important aspect, and shouldn’t be taken lightly after the design phase.
I know this is a struggle, though. I see designers hire programmers. Designers who have no idea what equates to a good programmer — they just know they need a good programmer. They hire what they can get. Unfortunately, this doesn’t always translate well, either.
Good points made regarding Kubrick.
If I hire an architect to design a building I expect them to thoroughly understand what they’re working with and not waste my time and the time of those putting it together.
If I employ a product designer, a TV producer or a designer I expect the same.
Sure “it depends”, maybe they work as part of a great team, but you could say that for practically anything and get nowhere fast.
Hi Mark,
I think you’ve over complicated this debate. I agree with you that there’s way more to Web Design than knowing how to code HTML… but if you are a Web Designer, knowing how to code HTML is pretty handy :)
Look at it this way; the Terminator is a pretty mean killer to start with, but only once he has scanned and understood the thing he is killing does he truly become an efficient Terminator ;P
Should web designers be able to write HTML?
Yes
But enough of that, just look at the gorgeous drop cap letter ‘E’… lovely
I have to say that I disagree with the sentiment and the conclusion, although not with your argument.
I don’t find Mike Kus’ reasons on the carsonified site convincing either.
You’re right that implementation is just a tiny part of a web designer’s work and you’re right that it isn’t necessary for understanding the medium. But it doesn’t follow from those two statements that it’s okay for a web designer not to be able to write HTML, they should, and CSS and JS for that matter.
I don’t know if anybody else here has actually worked in TV ‚but I have and there are several pieces of technology that everybody had to understand to be a useful member of the team. This was local tv, mind you, no precious celebrities or primadonnas with their own support staff.
Timecode, for example. The reporter, the editor, vision mixer, producer, the sound team, camera men, all have to understand timecode to a fairly detailed, intricate level to be able to perform their duties. The more each team member knew about the foundation technologies used in production, the more useful they were when things (inevitably) went wrong.
In all collaborative media there are technologies that are an essential common ground that enables teamwork and the collaboration itself.
In web teams, the technologies that function best as that common ground are HTML, CSS and JS. Each team member that lacks even one of those skills hinders overall productivity and becomes a liability in a crisis.
And yes, that does mean that most web teams out there are unproductive and blow up completely when something goes wrong.
The other point is that although knowing and understanding the full web design stack (from designing type, visuals and behaviour down to the HTML/CSS/JS level) isn’t essential for understanding the medium it does change how you think and work in the medium. It enables a variety of different ways of working and experimenting which if you practice *do* enable a greater understanding of the medium.
It’s not the knowing of HTML and the full stack that engenders understanding but it’s the practice that knowledge enables which can lead to understanding.
In any case, I’m in the unusual position of finding most of the arguments on both sides to be unconvincing and yet agreeing with the initial tweet.
@mark It’s true that the term “required skill” has a degree of relevancy. Based on your reply, however, I’d say that you would, in part, performance manage your employee towards some level of coding acumen? Every good hire has a degree of soft skills or assets that are less teachable but very desirable, but that doesn’t lessen the importance of learning the skill to strengthen their value proposition. Of your 5 most respected peers, how many code?
Put me in the “it would helpful to know html/css” category, but I don’t think it’s essential.
Anything that helps the communication flow between the various participant in the project is valuable. A shared vocabulary can certainly help. Perhaps it can incorporate some design terminology as well.
Please let me set a few things straight:
1. Yes, knowing how to code is handy if you design websites. Mike, I agreed we with you in the post.
2. I’m not suggesting every designer should abandon learning HTML in order to further their understanding of the web.
I am merely raising the point that, web design is a big field. Not everyone who works in particular parts of *web design* is required to know how to code in order to do their job well. To suggest otherwise (which is what started this debate in the first place) I think, is quite disrespectful.
Being able to write HTML does not equal undestamding the medium. As the HTML bit is only a small part of what I consider the medium to be.
But, looks like I’m largely on my own in thinking that.
I have to agree with Visual Pro and others comments like that on this one.
HTML may only be a small part of the the web design process but its up there with being one of the most important parts, after all its what enables any design to actually work in a browser. Doesn’t matter how much persona work, card sorting, IA stuff was done. But that’s all obvious stuff right?
Anyone who works with websites, in my opinion, has to understand how html affects what a website can do…its rudimentary.
I do webdesign now, but have a MSc in Architecture. Architects struggle with the same issues, and it’s hotly debated in schools. How much technical knowledge do you need to be a good architect? The answer is of course that it depends on what you do. But you do need a minimum grasp on how buildings stand up to design buildings that: a) stand up and b) are reasonably rational to construct.
The same goes for designer and HTML. You might not need to sleep with the W3C spec under the pillow, but you need to know that your sketches are structured in a way that can be made into sensible HTML that resizes and handles dynamic content.
For some, that is enough. Other designers want and need to know a lot more about the intricacies of HTML, JS and CSS. To say that all designers MUST have a certain skill set is over-simplifying the issue.
PS. On the word “medium”. Mark: I agree that creating design for the web goes far beyond the pure technical issues of code. But I not sure that its part of the “medium”. I tried to look it up in the dictionary, but the definition is to vague, in this case “medium” is something that mediates a message. I keep getting back to McLuhan’s Medium is the Message — which does seem to use medium in the same way that you do, ie. that medium is a combination of technical constrains and a evolved way of using it. Interesting side-track.
[…] to design user experience when you don’t know what tools you have to work with? I understand Mark Boulton’s argument and don’t believe that simply knowing how to write HTML makes a good web designer, and there […]
To me this whole discussion breaks down using semantics: If a webDESIGNER codes his own pages, what does a webDEVELOPER do?
(rhetorical question)
Oh, and, true that a good designer understands the (in) capabilities of the medium he/she is designing for. WHAT it is capable of. But understanding WHY and HOW? There is IMHO really no need for that in the design process..
You wouldn’t expect a racing car driver to get out and change his own tires during a race, but you’d expect him to know the principles of how to do it…
This argument is really a non-issue. The root driver of TV, radio and the web is communication. A desire to communicate inspires all kinds of people to get involved with each of these mediums. When the medium is mature enough, and the barriers to access are low enough, you will see all kinds of people with all kinds of skills throwing their ideas into the mix. As far as I am aware, there’s no perfect formula for a successful web designer and it’s as silly to say there’s a ‘need’ for a knowledge of typography as it is to say there is a ‘need’ to know HTML.
Shades of grey indeed Mark.
I think we should all be wary of statements as black & white as “web designers must know HTML”. Someone will prove thinking like that wrong and a statement which relies so heavily on an absolute is destroyed completely by just ONE exception.
Also, I don’t think the analogy tennis that’s occuring helps too much. What applies to builders, composers or film directors isn’t guaranteed relevence to our industry. As convenient as they may be, an analogy is, by it’s very nature, an analogue process of taking one idea and applying it to a different context. Working in the digital industry we should be aware that analogue processes are not lossless!
As web browsers and the code they render and execute evolve, so evolves the scope of design solutions into the realm of (non-superficial) interactivity.
Unfortunately, if a designer can’t code, then it would seem that he or she is going to find themselves ever more limited, in terms of being able to fully exploit, and innovate within, the _capabilities_ of the medium.
Design solutions that would occur to one designer who is deeply familiar with the implementation technologies, may not occur to another who isn’t. And a designer who is familiar with implementation technologies has the power to communicate their design ideas and solutions through prototypes, whereas one who isn’t will be more limited in communicating such ideas.
I believe that you can’t call yourself a web designer if you don’t know at least the simple HTML & CSS. You might be a digital artist perhaps, or a usability designer etc, but not a web designer. It’s not hard.
I still have trouble comprehending the idea of a web designer who doesn’t know HTML/CSS. Are we sure that is even possible?
@matt henderson: Of course, if you have an _understanding_ of the capabilities of the medium, then you can design more effectively for it. However, consider this: I don’t know how to write a jot of javascript. Not one bit. However, I understand the capabilities of javascript in regards to the medium and interactions I’m designing. Doing is not always understanding. Shades of grey.
I’m with Mark on this. One only has to browse the the web for 5 minutes to understand that being able to code doesn’t ‘necessarily’ mean that you understand the medium to any great extent (how many poor but well coded sites still exist). If it did a whole industry of user experience and usability simply wouldn’t exist, for example, as all coders would naturally be able to develop killer IA and be tip top at human factors and psychology, no?
I love these great web debates but really dislike a lot of the web snobbery that exists in the industry.
I don’t agree with people saying HTML is only a small part of web design, it is a significant part. The web is a text information medium, the visual aspect is only the tip of the iceberg not the primary part. If you don’t understand HTML/CSS, browsers, interaction, user behaviour etc then you don’t understand much of what you’re doing. HTML is a very important part of all this.
@Mark, if you can’t write JavaScript, then how do you define your understanding of it? Isn’t your understanding limited to what you’ve seen done by others?
But, anyway, this is not a should/shouldn’t question in the first place, and I certainly don’t agree with what Grant just said. Consider a designer specialized in, for example, one page static websites, who designs in Photoshop and uses a PSD-to-HTML service to get their code. Their designs will only be viewed on the web, and may bring tremendous success to their clients. If they can’t call themselves a “web designer,” then what else should they call themselves?
At the same time, at least when talking about understanding of the medium’s capabilities, I don’t see how one could argue against the claim that a designer who can’t code, is going to be more limited in the scope of their solutions than one who can — all other things else being equal.
Some very good points raised here. I’d agree with Mark that’s it’s a grey area. I started as a designer and taught myself programming so I could handle more web development work. Understanding the technical limitations and frameworks that sites operate within is very important, but I’ll admit I sometimes worry I’m so caught up in this I let the design suffer. I used to work with a junior designer who knew nothing about HTML, CSS etc. and would have me tearing my hair out at the thought of translating her designs into working pages, but she’d often come up with something brilliant I wouldn’t have considered. As the HTML/CSS spec advances and browser support improves I find it easier to turn the more unusual ideas into real websites. However, that brings us back to the issue of understanding code and I think we could argue this one forever.
You make a good point that designers need to understand the medium but that HTML is not the medium.
At Clearleft, our designers do not mark up their own designs. We require that they can all code well, but they never touch a line of production HTML.
I started writing a longer reply to explain this, and it turned into a blog post: http://clagnut.com/blog/2315/
@Matt — I don’t know what I would call a person who “specialises” in one page static designs that get farmed out to a PSD->HTML service. “Not really serious” “Limited”, but no, I wouldn’t call them a web designer.
I think we all have very differing ideas on what a designer is. What we used to call a web designer in the past, now has been turned into a whole range of different jobs -> UX, IA, usability, visual design, typographic design, etc.….
@Mark — you tweeted, “Am I any less of a designer because I can’t write JS? I understand the capabilities, so I’d say no. Understanding != doing. Shades of grey.”
I can only comment from my experiences (and what would seem to me to be common sense.)
I’ve been personally involved in a number of projects involving teams of (very capable) web designers with varying degrees of implementation capabilities, and have, on many occasions, seen significant changes taken in the path towards a design solution, when a designer who could implement said something like, “You know, solving the problem in the following way would actually be technically possible.” I didn’t find it surprising to see that happen.
Again, all other things being equal, a designer who can’t implement is going to be more limited in the scope of solutions they can conceive, than one who can.
(The “all other things being equal” part is obviously critical to this argument.)
Why is anyone wasting time debating this? Do good work that your clients value. It speaks for itself.
They should know something about Webstandards, because the design content for the web, not for a newspaper or magazine!
I think designers must *understand* the code side, even if it’s only on a theoretical level and they couldn’t actually produce the entire site themselves. Otherwise they’ll be hearing “that will take a long time” and “no” a fair bit when they talk to the coders ;)
But then I think all roles need to have a decent grasp of the others — not only is it a practical requirement, but I’ve noticed it tends to create more respect and trust between roles and that’s when the best work happens.
I have the same sentiments as yours Mark about writing JS and being able to understanding it. I won’t regret a proper balance between form and function.
:)
So many thoughtful comments!
I just wanted to tell you, Mark, that this situation pains me too. I won’t call myself a designer or developer, because these days that distinction is often blurry, or gray, as you said. I simply build websites.
Being fluent in HTML/CSS, I also design and I program the back-end and take care of the servers. I’m working in-house, and I’m not sure how I arrived at this situation–maybe because I’m a quick self-lerner.
In my mind, I’m in favour of specialising because only then, I think, one can achieve something great. However, reality is such that necessity to be versatile in all these areas comes to the fore. I should be happy that I can do all these things, and at times I love each one of them, but then I often wish I could focus on one thing.
[…] Mark Boulton – On Designers writing HTML […]
The issue seems to have shifted. The title of the blog post here is ‘On designers writing HTML’ not JS or any other language.
Yes you should know HTML to call yourself a web design because without HTML there is no website. Its integral to know what it means and how it works in any project. It might not be your job to code but you HAVE to understand it.
So you have to understand javascript to be a web designer? Well, it depends what kind of sites you build.
[…] agree with this too, for the reasons explained well by Mark Boulton. A web designer doesn’t necessarily need to know how to write actual HTML and CSS. But she […]
Some artists make their own paints and size and stretch their canvases. While others just pre-buy the raw materials and concentrate on creating their vision. And so it goes.
Great article.
I can write HTML and CSS but I don’t enjoy it at all – and quite frankly, if you have no interest in something, you shouldn’t be doing it. Eventually you will get lazy and cut corners.
All designers should know the limitations of their medium. If you’re a print designer, you need to be aware of the limitations of CMYK, printing costs, etc.
Likewise, if you work in web, you should know that as nice as that font may look, it’s not going to show up for a good chunk of your viewers. A solid understanding of progressive enhancement lets you provide a better experience to more people.
Without understanding limitations, you’re eventually going to waste everybody’s time by needing to redesign large chunks of your project so that printing comes in under budget, or development is completed on time.
Do you need to be able to code every site that you make? I think the answer is no. As long as you are aware of the constraints imposed by your medium, you can outsource the bits you’re not good at, and spend more time practicing what you enjoy.
I will concede, though, that actually doing something is the best way to learn about it. I’m currently on the lookout for any job openings in a print shop before expanding into print.
When you spend all your time doing the parts of the job that you enjoy – everybody comes out on top.
[…] On Designers writing HTML […]
[…] then people with much greater expertise and talent than myself (Richard, Mark, Mike, and Elliot himself) have weighed in on the topic. I highly recommend you go and check out […]
While the analogy of the TV is a bit unfortunate, web design and web development can also be related to graphic design and printing. You must know. You can’t deliver a 72dpi file to perform a delicate printing. You must be aware of color plates, color separation, bleeding, cropping, etc. And let’s not talk about the possibilities if you are aware that exists such things as spot colors, metallic inks, letterpressing and that you can even print in media that is not necessarily a paper. Now, if we follow the argument, we should say that graphics designers must ignore most of this stuff.
Knowing your media opens a whole new world of possibilities and you can talk to a coder face to face, knowing that you will be in charge of the situation in case he doesn’t want to do something due to pure lazyness :)
The reason that the TV metaphor doesn’t work for me is that television (or radio for that matter) isn’t an interactive medium. On the web however, you’re not just consuming the medium, you’re a part of it.
Therefore, you need to understand what a button feels like when you click it, in which situation a certain font rendering technique is appropriate and how CSS sprites can decrease the overall loading time of the site.
Sure, you could learn these things without learning HTML, but you would only be making life harder on yourself. The great strength of HTML is that it is markup — an explanation of what you want the browser to do — and in that, it is also the best documentation of how to make great things for the browser.
@MÅRTEN: I see what you’re saying, but I think it’s a certain point of view. Having worked in TV for 4 years, I consider to be an interactive medium. It never used to be — it was linear programming — but now, watching TV is an engaging experience. You choose what you want to watch, and when you watch, on a plethora of devices. Of course, it’s different to the web — I wasn’t implying they were the same.
@Mark Thanks for your reply. I really appreciate you taking part of the discussion in the comments. I see your point, although I’m still not convinced.
I guess seeing is believing — I have yet to see a design project that wouldn’t have benefitted — been even better — had the designer known front end programming.
I would also like to take this opportunity to thank you for your articles on grid layouts. Not a day goes by without me utilizing the skills they gave me.
青岛卓众（www.chinajoyzone.com）给博主拜年来了，新的一年，祝博主前途似锦。
I believe the web is still maturing as a medium, and as it begins to evolve more people will be needed on a project each individually specialising in their own field in order to produce a top standard product.
Currently the designer is being required to perform more and more roles in order to fill the gaps, and certainly until the web evolves further to a point where individuals can specialise, this will always continue and designers will need to cross train in different areas (and learn to code).
To explain further, take film makers as an example of a mature medium, it takes hundreds of people specialising in a small area each in order to bring those giant blockbusters to the screen, but it needs a director to bring the vision together. Another example of this is a newspaper, it takes many professionals specialising in small areas to deliver the news and then an editor to bring it together in a cohesive manner.
As the web evolves and increases in scope allowing people to specialise in smaller areas I believe the designer will move more in to a director/editor role, required to understand and respect each medium but not necessarily “code”. If they understand the constraints they can work with in them to still co-ordinate and produce their vision for a client.
I think the underlying complaint is about print designers who think they can approach designing for the web in the same way as designing for paper. If they can do some HTML coding, it shows that they have at least invested some time in understanding how designs work on the screen.
So yes, you are right! For web designers, understanding how to design for the web is more important than knowing how to code HTML (although there is a high correlation between the two).
Hi Mark,
I’m glad you weighed in on this debate. I respect your opinion a great deal. While I think “it depends” is probably the right answer, I still go back to the bottom line.
And for me, the bottom line is this: If i were hiring a web designer to work for me, I would require them to know HTML.
Why does this argument seldom, if ever, go the other way? Should web developers be expected to take design theory classes? How can they not “see” that text touching an image with no padding is just not right?
I am a web designer and know very basic HTML and CSS. I hand over my designs to coders who do it day in and out, and rightly so, can do it much faster and efficiently than I. But I’m constantly surprised by their inability to infer proper design solutions to basic scenarios that appear during the build process.
Designers need to understand how to design for the web, but they don’t need to know HTML to do so. And web developers should also understand the ‘design’ in web design by learning and appreciating basic web design skills and the nuances that go into any well crafted website. My company’s best web developer, from HTML to JS to PHP? She has a design degree from an art school.
@Chuck: All things being equal, I’d agree with you. However, I’d take a talented designer — who couldn’t write HTML — over a mediocre one who could. You can always teach HTML, you can’t always teach design talent in my experience.
Q: Should designers be able to write HTML?
A: Not necessarily (or “it depends” as you say).
Q: Should *web* designers be able to write HTML?
A: Categorically yes.
The distinction is like this:
Q: Should stylists be able to cut hair?
A: Not necessarily.
Q: Should *hair* stylists be able to cut hair?
A: Categorically yes.
Absolutely. You’ll always have people who can’t, but ultimately the competition should drive designers to the point of learning to code. Having an understanding of both sides of the spectrum can do wonders for you.
I personally think all Web Designers should at a minimum know HTML CSS and basic Scripting.
For me crossing into the pure web development is for more complex front end coding and for using complex scripts that work with a Database, such as PHP, ASP and RUBY.
Everyone who does ANY job should have a go at the jobs “above n below” them …
It’s gives context to what you do, makes your work more usable and more considerate if you’re that way inclined.
I feel that ‘designers’ should most definitely have a good knowledge of HTML, but I don’t feel this confines them to designing with this in mind.
Designers shouldn’t ever think “this layout will be very difficult to develop”, as its their job to be pushing boundaries and coming up with new ideas for user interfaces.
However, understanding how markup works (and why) is extremely useful to keep in mind,
“I’d take a tal en ted designer — who couldn’t write HTML — over a mediocre one who could. You can always teach HTML, you can’t always teach design talent in my experience.”
Super high five.
As someone who came to web development from a coding direction, I don’t think knowledge and ability with respect to design can be underestimated. Design is something I’m only slowly coming to understand, and even more difficult to take what I read in an article about design and turn it into something that looks good and functions well.
HTML and CSS are easy to learn. A designer doesn’t need to know every tag and attribute, but at the very least, in my opinion, should know the capabilities and limitations of markup in order to create a design that can be sliced up easily.
I disagree with the analogy you draw to TV and radio. Those are both mediums meant to be consumed passively. The web is interactive and that interactivity needs to be designed. The more interactivity you have in your design, the more important it is that you understand how that interactivity works at a basic level, lest you design a television show about shopping when what you actually needed was a functioning shopping cart.
Though I disagree completely, you still have a great argument behind you.
I believe web designers should code because they need to have a realistic sense of what will work in a browser and what won’t. I have worked with amazing just-designers that produce great designs, but when I had to convert their designs to HTML/CSS, it was a nightmare. Some parts of their beautiful design were cut because there was no way to reproduce it in html/css.
Nonetheless, it’s up to the designer whether or not they want to learn html and css. They’re very easy to learn and I highly recommend it if you want to make a career out of your hobby, but it’s their choice, not mine.
This is a very interesting discussion as I’m about to advertise and hire a full-time web designer for our company. Flat out — the applicant will be required to know how to code their own CSS and HTML otherwise they will not be hired and I strongly believe that this is more than reasonable to expect from a WEB designer.
If you are a designer you simply can not live inside a “design” only vacuum in any industry. You must understand the methods, systems, and mediums through which your design is going to be delivered. This is true for web and print designers.
Not a single print designer at our firm is ignorant of our printing press, inks, papers, bleed lines, etc… There is a lot of technical/production information that goes well beyond simple design that our print designers must be aware of and be able to discuss with our printers in a productive manner.
CSS/HTML are a web designer’s inks, papers, and bleed lines and coders/programmers are their printers. I see no reason that a web designer shouldn’t be held to the same standard as their print counterparts, nor to make my coders/programmers lives more difficult than they already are by hiring a web designer ignorant of web technologies.
Designers, regardless of their medium, must be knowledgeable of their medium. And so, whilst I may hire someone who in the end won’t be doing a lick of code, they must still understand that code and discuss it with coders/programmers, and no argument will ever convince me that this is not reasonable to expect of a web designer.
I think the term web design implies that the designer needs to understand and knows the nuances of userbility, layout and flow of a website.
I would ask, does a painter need to know how to mix colours or should they be applauded for using pre-mixed colours straight out of the tube?
I have worked on projects when the design was beautiful, but not at all feasible as a working website, because it came from a graphic designer (award winning no less). So for me tha answer is yes, a web designer must have an undersanding of html/css.
Q: should web designers be able to write HTML?
A: Yes
Q: Why?
A: You’re a WEB designer, shame on you!
Yes Web designers should have at the very least an ability to hand code html at a basic level.
There will be exceptions as well as designers that are predominantly flah based but I think that the general consensus among the community is that to be web designer you really need to have an understanding of th underlying technologies that constitute the web.
Yes.
I sit right at the middle of the design/coding line and in my experience, designers who don’t understand html at least a little bit are far harder to work with. There’s all kinds of weird things with html that should be simple and are not, and I think understanding those idiosyncrasies are important to making sites that embrace everything the web can offer.
A good example is people coming from print often have meticulously laid out designs that are built for one specific size, but browsers don’t work like that. Browsers work at many different sizes, shapes and formats and this has to be addressed.
As well, larger scale sites that are totally css based design (such as dynamic rails sites) absolutely require some html/css knowledge. I’ve started teaching my designers the basics of object oriented programming just so we could communicate at the most basic level about the design and layout.
I wouldn’t even consider hiring a designer to do more then a splash page without knowing at least some html/css. You don’t have to be an expert and you’ll probably never code it yourself on a project, but to just flat out never learn it even a little bit is just lazy. Html is pretty simple, show some initiative.
I think that web designers don’t have to be able to code HTML as you said, but it does help if they have an understanding so that they are aware of its limits so they don’t design something that can’t be coded.
That said, sometimes a non-coding web designer can think of something original and wonderful because they are not thinking within the boundaries of what is possible, and this can stimulate the coder into finding a solution for the design that they wouldn’t have thought of themselves.
I’d add to the vote it’s not compulsory for web designers to code.
But understanding the practices of html/css is good. Because then they’d know the challenges of designing either for a static/flash website.
The only problem is, if the web designer is expected to code the design he’s done and is not good at it, he’s definitely going to cut corners on his design to make it easier to him.
I guess will be definition crisis between web designers and front-end designers/developers too. ;)
I think an argument can be made that we’re really talking about two completely different disciplines and job functions one being an interface and graphic designer and the other a front-end developer. I’m personally an expert in both disciplines, which is definitely to my advantage and benefit. By fully understanding how to write XHTML I know how to apply valid, semantically correct markup thus ensuring a better user experience, especially as it relates to accessibility.
I consider myself a senior web designer and developer because it seems only prudent to possess a comprehensive skill set in order to successfully collaborate with colleagues in either discipline and to better serve my clients.
Much of the timidity to learn HTML/CSS comes from graphic designers who are mid-career or older and were simply “coached” differently in school and early career. I am one. This is often perceived as a wicked stubbornness — but all designers know that further learning of the technical side is inevitable to continuing in the career and supporting ourselves and our families. It just takes some of us longer to admit that.
Graphic designers with careers as art directors, especially, were taught to view graphic design and advertising as born out of the art of Concept First — always. Any technical execution followed the consideration of who your audience is and then the idea that paid that off best was the winner.
It’s a nutty issue. From old-school thinking the first lazy justification that pops in my head (and I am not justifying it, either) is : but wait — can the developer/designers really design? And that’s where I realized a lot of it segments further. The word Design itself carries a lot of weight, but different weight, in many career worlds.
Thanks for the great discussion.
It’s stupid to talk about Design and HTML in one sentence. HTML has nothing to do with Design. Today, for Design we’re usually using CSS.
You only need HTML for sematic and structur in your document.
A better way to create Websites is, that Designers learn more about CSS. It’s totally nonsense to create sliced designs. Web != Print. It’s time to think more free an clear about this..
I think it’s simply a matter of doing what you’re good at. If you think you’re good at HTML, but you suck, that’s a problem. If you know you’re bad at HTML, please have a developer do the coding. All a designer really needs to do is make a nice Photoshop file for me to tackle and be around for design decisions– if they wrote me some good HTML, that’s just icing on the cake.
@Chris, HTML has everything to do with design. HTML is a component of the web. It’s a constraint. It must be worked with, manipulated and shaped to solve the design problem. It is therefore a fundamental consideration when designing a website
An often-made mistake is the assumption that ‘design’ is all about aesthetics. It is not and it does the discipline of designer as great disservice to make that assumption. Aesthetic considerations are a part of the design process, but they alone are not ‘design’. Those who *only* do visual design and no HTML/CSS would perhaps be more accurately described as ‘stylists’; e.g., a web stylist.
I agree with Jim @1 and Charles (above), I like “web stylist”. Unless the designer understands the limits of the medium (and HTML, CSS are an important part of that) he/she cannot IMHO contribute meaningfully to a web site design. Perhaps that is why so many poor so-called designers use Flash, it lets them pretend they are working with print.
The attitude that HTML, CSS is for the coders to worry about is merely ignorant.
I feel they are two very different skill sets coding and designing although one does not work without the other.…
@CHARLES ROPER, @CHRIS. I think both of you are perhaps operating in shades of black and white instead of grey. I don’t really think either rationale can be applied — kind of my point really.
Web designers are at an advantage to know HTML, but it isn’t essential for the broader discipline. Design isn’t just about aesthetics, but includes IA, research, semantics, flow and all of the other things that make a great design. Shades of grey, I think.
博客写的不错啊！写的比年前好多了啊 继续努力啊 2010年我们一起努力 O(∩_∩)O哈哈~ 回踩啊 谢谢 济南seo(www.xinheng99.com)
It would be wonderful if the blogosphere figured out that the answer to every question is “it depends”. As you said, it’s all shades of grey. There are no right and wrong answers, and different solutions work for different people.
For what it’s worth, some of the best designers I’ve worked with did not know HTML/CSS. It’s the ones who do know HTML/CSS that worry me. Because often/sometimes, in my experience, they are not very good at design or front-end coding.
@MARK “Design isn’t just about aesthetics, but includes IA, research, semantics, flow and all of the other things that make a great design.”
That’s pretty much what I said and yes, I agree, although I like to think of web design as a multi-coloured spectrum, rather than shades of grey. :)
And you’re right, it does depend. It depends on context. In the context of a lone freelancer, then of course HTML/CSS and the rest of the spectrum of web design skills are very likely to be necessary. Whereas in an agency manned with a team of specialists, the need for generalists who are adept at graphic design *and* front-end development *and* the rest is likely diminished.
Perhaps it would be fun to turn this debate on its head and ask, “What skills would you expect a web design degree teach?”
Well… do I agree to your very well written post? Yes and no ;)
Everything is possible is a typical “techie” answer to a designer’s “is it possible, to do this or that?” So if the budget is without any limit — everything a designer without knowledge about the instrument(s) html (and css, js, php and so on) designs can be coded by someone else.
But reality sucks: budgets *are* limited. And that’s why a designer *at least* should know about the effort it’ll take to turn his/her design into a working webpage. As “working” is very much about browser-compatibility and the newest trends in AJAX and CSS, I don’t see a way how a designer should know about technical state of the art without a basic understanding of the instrument…
Ever thought about Mozart composing an opera without knowledge of the orchestra’s intruments and the limits of human voices? ;o) He maybe couldn’t sing very well and play more than piano and… erh… flute (I don’t know)…
An author doesn’t have to know anything about printing procedures. A designer has to (imho). Any surfer on the web does not have to know anything on HTML and CSS. A designer has to. Both on an elementary level. No need to know about printing machine-usage or SQL-injections…
Just my two cents. Thank you for making me think about that…
Fredster
I feel designers can also write html. I do both, and very well. Ive done many style designs with well structured semantic valid html. Once a designer understands and learns to separate print from web, it becomes easy. Designers just need to put in time to learn to do it the right way.
WebDesigners or ScreenDesigners should know something about WebDevelopment ( Frontend — CSS, HTML ) because they design Screendesign for Internetpages not for a Newspaper. A PackagingDesigner should know something about material and usability of the products too.
After all this, it comes back around to gray area. Of course, the communication is always the most important thing. Does the design work? Does it tell the intended story? Does it compel the user to action? But, and I am generalizing here, in the best case scenario, print designers need to know about the paper they’re planning to print on and web designers need to know the markup that it will take to code the site they are working on. Without that knowledge the project can still get done, but there are always benefits to knowing about the intended medium. Lower cost, fewer rounds of revisions, more control over the end product, and less go-between from designer to developer/printer to client, to name a few.
nice article :)
thank you for that.
i’ve worked as a screen designer for a couple of years at an online agency. i never had to wrote any code and only knew some basics on the different web technics. when it came to “if something is possible” i talked to the developers.
so i think you defenetly can be a good webdesigner without being able to code youself(still a basic knowledge comes handy i think)
but
right now i start to learn more proper html and css (and a little bit of javascript and php)
the reason for that to me is, that it’s sometimes easier to code the website yourself than to do a styleguide and explain everything to a developer. you just know all the sizes, spaces, colors, etc. anyway.
i think this is true especially for smaller projects.
so, long live the shades of gray :)
I have to agree here that it really does depend on the individual, the project and the team. However, saying that, a basic knowledge of HTML can go a long way.
Designing for print Vs web is complex, both have their own set of requirements, drawbacks, merits etc. Understanding this is paramount for any good designer; whether or not this involves learning HTML I agree is a grey area.
There are many individuals (e.g. Information Design specialists) who will never touch a line of HTML but can provide website design visuals of the highest quality (taking into consideration structure, layout, colour and perception research for example).
Saying this, as a designer originally trained in print/information design/typography (including screen design but not coding), I believe that the coding knowledge I have gained (HTML, CSS, Flash, basic PHP & Javascript) since joining a top web design firm is invaluable.
Afterall, extending our skill-sets as designers can never be a bad thing right?
Agreed. I like to use my time in actually designing instead of sitting down and doing the HTML for it aswell. I like to have my team separated with coders and designers. That way the work flow is better.
thank u for this informative post
I want to read more comments on this topic,
that would be very helpful.So I ve bookmarked
and is waiting for more comments
I am delighted to have found your debate (via LinkedIn btw)!
I am a print designer getting back in to web design after being away from it for a few years. I used to make Flash based web sites but have since learned that I should have learned CSS and HTML better before jumping in to the Flash end of things. Hindsight is 20/20..
Does anyone have suggestions for the best place to go to beef up and refresh my skills? I’m thinking Lynda.com unless anyone has better ideas.
Mark, I feel pretty much the same http://twitter.com/benschwarz/status/5990467950
Amazing! This is probably one of the most stimulating articles I have read during the last couple of years.
I agree with Jim Galley. Mark, it looked like you agreed with him too, but later you changed your mind.
I agree with you, Mark, that you don’t need to know JS. You really don’t. I believe that HTML and CSS are key to becoming a good web designer. I have found myself in situations where a developer would tell me that my design is not possible to code, to later code it myself to prove that it is possible. Another important factor for knowing how to code HTML/ CSS is helping the developers code faster to meet deadlines, and stay on budget. A good understanding of CSS helps create easy-to-follow styleguides for developers. If we(designer and developer) speak the same language we are able to speed up the process.
JS relates to behavior not layout. I’m not saying that it is not important. However, when it comes to layout, knowing HTML and CSS lets us know our limitations, like Jim said.
My 2 cents.
All things being equal from a design talent standpoint, if one designer can code and the other cannot, the one that can code will produce better work.
If you’re creating graphics (like custom type illustrations or info graphics) then no, you don’t need to code. You’ll never have to.
If you’re designing an interface or the structure of a large website, then you should know how to code well enough to build a prototype.
I believe excellent graphic design and UX is created through lots and lots of fine tuning. If the designer stops fine tuning once the Photoshopping is done, then they will never produce great work (unless they have a code monkey sitting next to them).
Once the prototype is built and skinned, it should then be tweaked in the browser as needed. If the designer doesn’t know how to code, you’ll never be able to make all the minute tweaks necessary to get the design just right.
A designer that can code is more valuable to a company than a better design talent that cannot code. You can get more things done.
Webstandards sind wichtig. Man sieht ja was passiert, wenn jeder macht, was er will. Ich baue nur W3C konforme Webseiten, was anderes gibt es nicht.
Wewb-designer must know basic principles of html and css, but just know, not to do.
Good site!Its niceinfo for me as wbdesigner!
Great site! Good luck!
Very nice info for web-designer! Thanks!
Cool article! Thanks!
Nice info!
Great article for web! Thanks!
Cool article! Thanks!
I do not know many people that do both well. People say that can…it’s a rarity.
There are so many aspects that go into any interactive project. Some comments seem to think that Photoshop+HTML+CSS = website. As a designer, am I now responsible for Business Strategy, Content Strategy, writing, UX, visual design, front end dev, back end dev, etc?
Should a designer understand the principles of HTML? Of course! I’m not sure who could argue against that. The original tweet that got this started said ‘code’.
I would discourage designers from limiting their thinking and ideas to what they can produce. Do architects only design buildings they can build themselves?
It’s important to remember that we are in the business of ideas.
I was the person who used to do only design (wireframe and Photoshop mockups), always used to think how they (developers) have implemented my design? After spending some days with them I realized that I should at least knowing that “What kind of Interactions are possible in different kind of technologies ? like HTML, RIA (silver light, flex and backbase) ? ” .
This help me a lot in my interaction design skill, now after 6 years of experience I can do both DESIGN and HTML, CSS.
Advantage of having both the skill is DEV’s can’t make you FOOL saying that “It’s not possible in this kind of technology”. I realized that this combination is making sure that your design is implemented as you expected, because you are delivering design in forms of VIEW’s. DEV’s don’t have to play with layout and fonts.
So, I see this as a value add in development process. We should look at this process as a whole and not just DESIGN. If you wish to implement your design as it is (I hope you love your design ! ) Lets try to learn basics of the target platform.
I also agree that it’s not mandatory to have this skill as its depends on individual approach and thinking.
So, whatever you are doing do it with full passion!
thanks for spark this discussion! I will pass this to my colleagues ;-) an let you know the results… anyway, it’s quite expiring!
Will you mind giving more tips about HTML lesson?
If one’s goal is to have a successful website, then there are many angles that all have an influence: nice design is one of them, but if your design only gets as far as the back of a table-napkin because you don’t have any coding ability, it’s no good; you need to bring good SEO (so not just any old HTML, but semantically structured valid HTML), good marketing, good backend development, potentially good system administration all together at once. How these roles map to people is a different matter. :)
cooler article. Greatings from Germany. Thanks.
markboulton very nice! thanks!
great article good luck