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A note to all designers reading this thread: HTML + CSS is the best design tool you could learn. Don't think of it as code, or engineering. Get over the mental

A note to all designers reading this thread: HTML + CSS is the best design tool you could learn. Don't think of it as code, or engineering. Get over the mental block. It's not more complicated than learning Photoshop or Illustrator. It's just a different interface. One that gives you total control. Where you can build things that actually work, and aren't just static representations. If you do web design, learn to work with the final medium. Otherwise, what are you really doing? (..from a designer and engineer.)

mygo 9y ago
+1. HTML and CSS are not programming languages, so it’s not programming, it’s design. As a designer shouldn’t you know this powerful design tool? The web browser itself can be your canvas. No ifs, &&’s, || but()’s about it.
prepend 9y ago
I’ve thought about this a bit. About why some people like “tools” over “languages.” So some people are fine to spend 100 hours leaning the Photoshop interface, but not 100 hours learning css and html in basic form. I used to think some people are just dummies. But it really comes down to some people preferring workflow with little abstraction between action, mental model, outcome. So even though “highlight text, click bold, see bold” and “type <b> and </b> around text, save, refresh browser, see bold” are really similar; the gap with switching tools and having to mentally model what will happen is more compatible with some people’s preference than others.
goatlover 9y ago
> Where you can build things that actually work, and aren't just static representations. Designers can do that in PowerPoint for presentations or mockups. There is also Adobe Edge for the web and theme designers like Divi in Wordpress. > HTML + CSS is the best design tool you could learn. The problem for designers is that you're asking them to mentally translate from a medium they're good at (visual) to a textual medium. But we've had GUI tools for making visual stuff for several decades now. The web is behind on this front, even though companies have tried to make things like Dreamweaver, Flash Designer, Frontpage and Edge. With gaming, you have Unity. A lot of desktop software has layout managers and visual tooling. It's kind of silly to expect designers to want to work with a textual format in 2018. Smalltalk came out in the 70s.

mygo 9y ago

+1. HTML and CSS are not programming languages, so it’s not programming, it’s design. As a designer shouldn’t you know this powerful design tool? The web browser itself can be your canvas. No ifs, &&’s, || but()’s about it.

prepend 9y ago

I’ve thought about this a bit. About why some people like “tools” over “languages.” So some people are fine to spend 100 hours leaning the Photoshop interface, but not 100 hours learning css and html in basic form. I used to think some people are just dummies. But it really comes down to some people preferring workflow with little abstraction between action, mental model, outcome. So even though “highlight text, click bold, see bold” and “type <b> and </b> around text, save, refresh browser, see bold” are really similar; the gap with switching tools and having to mentally model what will happen is more compatible with some people’s preference than others.

goatlover 9y ago

> Where you can build things that actually work, and aren't just static representations. Designers can do that in PowerPoint for presentations or mockups. There is also Adobe Edge for the web and theme designers like Divi in Wordpress. > HTML + CSS is the best design tool you could learn. The problem for designers is that you're asking them to mentally translate from a medium they're good at (visual) to a textual medium. But we've had GUI tools for making visual stuff for several decades now. The web is behind on this front, even though companies have tried to make things like Dreamweaver, Flash Designer, Frontpage and Edge. With gaming, you have Unity. A lot of desktop software has layout managers and visual tooling. It's kind of silly to expect designers to want to work with a textual format in 2018. Smalltalk came out in the 70s.