The Case For Code

I came across The Case Against Code on Stuart Thursby’s blog today. As I understand it, he writes that web designers shouldn’t feel constrained by the code required to implement their designs.

As he aptly writes

coding a website introduces inherent realities which a Photoshop document cannot account for. As a result, I’ve found myself (and I’m sure many of you can say the same) dialing down my designs somewhat to allow for a more realistic and attainable end result.

I partially agree with his point.

I can’t count the number of times that I’ve opened one of Nik’s Illustrator files and gone “gack! How am I meant to implement that?” However, that is immediately (or eventually) followed by me thinking a little creatively, drawing out some DIVs in pencil, looking up the state of some CSS property, and then implementing what he specified. If he’d felt constrained by code (or by my abilities) the project would have suffered and I wouldn’t have learned anything.

However, Nik’s designs are also better because he does understand code. Understanding that fonts can be replaced easily in headlines but not in body copy means that our sites will load quickly. Understanding which mouse events fire means our sites feel responsive. Understanding the different methods of implementing full-bleed background images mean that our sites stay sane at different resolutions.

Compromise

The middle ground seems like the only healthy way to go here.

Designers should understand the medium as best they can, which includes learning some code. They should do this so they understand the possibilities afforded by the web, not just its limitations.

Coders should understand design as best they can, learning to love grids and caring about colour profiles. We should do this so we can see the big picture on a project, not just the database connection and form validation.

More importantly, designers and coders should collaborate. We’re all trying to meet the same goals, we just have different tools.