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This is by far the biggest problem, web design with a print mindset. A designer needs to understand and work with their medium and as long as they keep trying

This is by far the biggest problem, web design with a print mindset. A designer needs to understand and work with their medium and as long as they keep trying to represent the web (where their designs will be shrunk, enlarged, reflowed, include a time dimension and at any point entire elements can appear and disappear as a result of interactions) as a bunch of static 2D pictures they're working against their medium and are basically out of date. This was kind of understandable in the 90s when the concept of designing for the www was becoming mainstream. Around that time I was expecting it to take 5-10 years for the old generation of designers to fade out and for new people to arrive who would be trained and understand that print design isn't web design. I underestimated the problem, because that didn't happen. It's now 2018 and I still regularly see job ads asking for developers who will create "pixel perfect PSD to HTML conversions". This is so wrong-headed. I enjoyed the article, I remember rubbing sheets of Letraset transfer and literally cutting and pasting with a scalpel and Pritt Stick. The author is obviously clever and understanding of the current problems in web design. But I can't help thinking the main question the article asks is similar to "why is there still no point and click software with which I can write a high-quality novel?" or "why can't my beautiful rendering of a car be output as a working vehicle"

flukus 8y ago
> It's now 2018 and I still regularly see job ads asking for developers who will create "pixel perfect PSD to HTML conversions". This is so wrong-headed. I'm not sure if we've actually moved away from this or are moving more toward it. It used to be somewhat expected that a site should be functional without css (by putting the core content at the top), javascript and images but no one designs for that anymore. Half the buttons on the modern web are meaningless without a font served from a CDN. And now we're moving toward a web built on canvas + web assembly, our user agents will have less control than ever. Maybe we can even cut out the middle men and render the psd directly.
- 52-6F-62 8y ago
  > And now we're moving toward a web built on canvas + web assembly, our user agents will have less control than ever. Maybe we can even cut out the middle men and render the psd directly. I know you're making a bit of a slight, but I won't kid you that publishers—frustrated by the fact that certain interactive features and desired visual structures require an understanding of the platform and code (even if they just have to hire people who -do-)—have started some move back to using print-version PDF's served to applications like Texture (recently purchased by Apple). Even with any compression or download-size problems that might come along with it. The art teams and editors are all very happy to keep doing the same process they've been doing for ~25 years, after having another technological progression dangling in front of them. If they could just take the PSD, stick it in a black-box folder and have it come out in their publication on every platform they output to... I think they might dance in the streets. Or start drinking earlier. Am a programmer who has worked with first-hand with such publications. And now doesn't.

flukus 8y ago

> It's now 2018 and I still regularly see job ads asking for developers who will create "pixel perfect PSD to HTML conversions". This is so wrong-headed. I'm not sure if we've actually moved away from this or are moving more toward it. It used to be somewhat expected that a site should be functional without css (by putting the core content at the top), javascript and images but no one designs for that anymore. Half the buttons on the modern web are meaningless without a font served from a CDN. And now we're moving toward a web built on canvas + web assembly, our user agents will have less control than ever. Maybe we can even cut out the middle men and render the psd directly.

52-6F-62 8y ago
> And now we're moving toward a web built on canvas + web assembly, our user agents will have less control than ever. Maybe we can even cut out the middle men and render the psd directly. I know you're making a bit of a slight, but I won't kid you that publishers—frustrated by the fact that certain interactive features and desired visual structures require an understanding of the platform and code (even if they just have to hire people who -do-)—have started some move back to using print-version PDF's served to applications like Texture (recently purchased by Apple). Even with any compression or download-size problems that might come along with it. The art teams and editors are all very happy to keep doing the same process they've been doing for ~25 years, after having another technological progression dangling in front of them. If they could just take the PSD, stick it in a black-box folder and have it come out in their publication on every platform they output to... I think they might dance in the streets. Or start drinking earlier. Am a programmer who has worked with first-hand with such publications. And now doesn't.