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>> There is essentially no other medium for which this demand is made. I beg to differ. Clothing designers know their fabrics. Blacksmiths know their metals. L

>> There is essentially no other medium for which this demand is made. I beg to differ. Clothing designers know their fabrics. Blacksmiths know their metals. Leather makers know their leathers. Architects know their building materials. And yes, car designers and iPhone designers know their mediums too. I could go on. I guarantee Jony Ive can tell you all about the capabilities, tendencies, and limitations of the glass, plastic, steel that comprise the iPhone. You think car designers don't know precisely how steel can be formed and about the processes that form it? But yet web designers don't need to know HTML and CSS. It's by far the easiest medium to know of all those I mentioned. I agree with another poster: It's lazy.

wdewind 15y ago
The contention is in the definition of the word "know." Jony Ive knows glass in the sense of the way a particular type of glass reflects sunlight, or feels (ie: to the extent that it solves a particular problem for him), but he absolutely does not know or care how that piece of glass is manufactured. The difference for a designer between knowing when to use a button and when to use a link does not depend on them knowing <a href=""> vs. <input type="button />. It goes without saying that designers should know how people will interact with their products, but knowing how to code is just one way to do that, and it is not the only one.