Why designers should be able to impose

Quite often, designers are rightly accused of having created a website design, they go into their cocoon and become ignorant, leaving all the “dirty work” of translating design into life. Such an indifferent position is noted not only in the industry of creating websites, but also in the development of software and games.



The harsh reality indicates that the entire development process should occur with the participation of designers . To achieve optimal performance, the designer should be able to not only draw the picture, but also embed it! In this article, I would like to share a few thoughts on why designers should be able to make up sites .

Creating a realistic and feasible design

Having a clear idea of ​​how the final product will be implemented, the designer will offer more realistic and practical ideas. Since the work of the designer is an integral part of the site development process, he must take care to translate the design into a network reality, in particular, taking into account the usability of the site, its ease of viewing and accessibility. Friendly interface of the site means not only convenience and clear logical organization of navigation, but also providing the user with all the information he needs in an orderly manner and without overloading him beyond measure. The only real way to find out if the layout of the site “works” correctly is to learn how to do it yourself.
')

Simplify communications

In fact, products developed by some people and embodied by others never meet the expectations of all participants, especially for intangible products, such as websites, software or games. Usually, everything ends in a compromise between what was expected and what is possible to implement in practice. Everyone seems to have caught the general idea, but rarely does it turn out to convey it exactly. The panacea for this is to ensure that designers not only generate ideas, but also reap the rewards of their implementation. Then confusion, misunderstanding and distorted transmission of information are excluded.

Convenient cyclic development process

In practice, ready-made design should not always be the final version. I mean that it must be flexible so that it can be changed and adapted to the technical limitations of the system without losing its original essence. Such multiple and inevitable changes can only be carried out by the designer. A designer / developer in one person can make the necessary changes much faster than if the developer had to resubmit the layout to the designer, who, moreover, is rarely within reach to make changes. In addition, in such a situation, friction between designers and developers can arise - and often arise.

Better and more harmonious result

I like to draw a parallel between the creation of software, websites or games and orchestral music, when a designer is compared with a composer, and a developer with an ensemble leader or conductor. Imagine what happens if the conductor himself is a composer? I think this will give the symphony a truly excellent sound and charm. After all, it was not only written by a master of his craft, but also played under the guidance of his creator!

Saving development time

If the designer is able to impose sites, then the design and layout stages occur directly one after the other, if not simultaneously. It turns out that less time is spent on development - and who does not want the work to go more efficiently?

The designer begins to meet the requirements of the market.

Today, in order to remain in demand, a designer needs to constantly expand his portfolio and improve his competitive qualities - it is no longer enough to possess any one set of skills. Often you have to be an all-rounder - a designer, a user interface designer, a copywriter, and a project manager.

Knowing how to translate your design work into life, rather than leaving them at the mercy of developers, you increase your value. In addition, the design and layout skills of sites listed alongside in the resume have not disturbed anyone. On the contrary, it makes the employee more in demand and indispensable, which is vital in our economically troubled times of corporate reorganization (total savings) and staff reductions (mass layoffs).

However, such a scenario, when the designer is engaged in the layout of his innovations, has its drawbacks.

As Lukas Mathis wrote in one controversial article on our topic entitled “Designers are not programmers” [1]:

If a designer implements his own ideas, he faces two different tasks: to write quality code and create a pleasant user interface. These two tasks are contradictory. If you need to implement your own design, you will have to sacrifice something for the sake of the quality of the code, and this will damage the design.

Designers themselves engaged in the layout of sites, faced with two problems: they know when a new great idea can turn into a messy code, and they know where the existing code can affect the quality of the user interface. Thus, their two tasks contradict each other, since the user interface includes many small details, and these small details lead to undesirable code clutter.

Hence the difficult decision made by purists from web development. They adhere to the old school, advocating a clear distinction between design and development. In fact, designers create for people, and developers program for computers . Thus, designers who care about user perception should create the most user-friendly user interfaces, and developers should make optimal programming decisions. Although this is a reasonable grain, but I myself noticed that I was unsuccessfully trying to abstract from code while working on the user interface, and, ultimately, it is more convenient to keep in mind the limitations associated with technical implementation and usability.

Conclusion

Considering all the above, the scope of the project being developed may ultimately determine the roles assigned to it by the designer and the developer. A small application can successfully control a project manager [2], while an extensive system should definitely be managed by specialized personnel!

[1] - Mathis, Lukas. " Designers are not Programmers ".

[2] - Spolsky, Joel. " How to be a program manager ".