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Absolutely. I can't stand precision mousing (or "pointing"). Just watching that demo makes me tense. There will always be a place for people who want pixel p

by gavinpc 10y ago

Absolutely. I can't stand precision mousing (or "pointing"). Just watching that demo makes me tense. There will always be a place for people who want pixel perfection. I think that place is called print. Eventually, we're going to let go of the idea that we control layouts at the concrete level (as opposed to a more semantic level, i.e. describing relationships and constraints), but that future is harder to see.

barryhoodlum 10y ago
I've thought about this - the existing method of designers coming up with a couple of static designs ("small" and "large" - "medium" if you're lucky) means the developer is burdened with interpreting these static designs and deriving a set of relationships and constraints between them. It seems obvious that the designer should be considering how the design responsively "breaths" at all sizes, rather than putting this on the developer. It's still design, just an added dimension that isn't present in print. But how do you give the designer the opportunity to "sketch" but also describe relationships and constraints? You could use code, but then the designer is then also a de-facto developer. And having to consider relationships and constraints too much can lead to those considerations dictating the design, rather than the other way around.
- pvorb 10y ago
  New CSS technologies like formulas (calc) and variables (or Sass, PostCSS) will allow designers to do this without programming.
  - endergen 10y ago
    Calc is programming.
    - pvorb 10y ago
      No, it's just basic maths.
      - pavlov 10y ago
        And writing HTML isn't programming either, it's just markup. To the average designer (and almost anyone else) these distinctions don't exist - if you write "code" or something that looks like math, its programming.
- captain_crabs 10y ago
  The line between developer and designer has been blurring for some time and will only continue to do so (hopefully! if our tools and abstractions keep becoming better). Often I find myself on the other side of what you stated, where the designer leaves me (the developer) as the de-facto designer. And the main reason why is that the designer is only capable of thinking in their toolset, which happens to usually be photoshop. PS simply doesn't cut it dealing with the complexity of web applications in all the different form factors it needs to work on. This has lead me to believe that if you're a web designer, your medium is HTML/CSS and potentially JS. So you should understand and be fluent in it. The designer is responsible for actually building out the html templates/styling used, and the developer is responsible for bringing those to life, but each has a lot of input at every step. A lot of crossover builds better projects :)
ethanbond 10y ago
Figma has constraint based layout though?

by gavinpc 10y ago

barryhoodlum 10y ago

I've thought about this - the existing method of designers coming up with a couple of static designs ("small" and "large" - "medium" if you're lucky) means the developer is burdened with interpreting these static designs and deriving a set of relationships and constraints between them. It seems obvious that the designer should be considering how the design responsively "breaths" at all sizes, rather than putting this on the developer. It's still design, just an added dimension that isn't present in print. But how do you give the designer the opportunity to "sketch" but also describe relationships and constraints? You could use code, but then the designer is then also a de-facto developer. And having to consider relationships and constraints too much can lead to those considerations dictating the design, rather than the other way around.

pvorb 10y ago
New CSS technologies like formulas (calc) and variables (or Sass, PostCSS) will allow designers to do this without programming.
- endergen 10y ago
  Calc is programming.
  - pvorb 10y ago
    No, it's just basic maths.
    - pavlov 10y ago
      And writing HTML isn't programming either, it's just markup. To the average designer (and almost anyone else) these distinctions don't exist - if you write "code" or something that looks like math, its programming.
captain_crabs 10y ago
The line between developer and designer has been blurring for some time and will only continue to do so (hopefully! if our tools and abstractions keep becoming better). Often I find myself on the other side of what you stated, where the designer leaves me (the developer) as the de-facto designer. And the main reason why is that the designer is only capable of thinking in their toolset, which happens to usually be photoshop. PS simply doesn't cut it dealing with the complexity of web applications in all the different form factors it needs to work on. This has lead me to believe that if you're a web designer, your medium is HTML/CSS and potentially JS. So you should understand and be fluent in it. The designer is responsible for actually building out the html templates/styling used, and the developer is responsible for bringing those to life, but each has a lot of input at every step. A lot of crossover builds better projects :)

ethanbond 10y ago

Figma has constraint based layout though?