What is it about developers that they can be handed a nice, tight, clean design crafted with pure, validating, perfect XHTML/CSS and butcher it to hell and back so that it looks absolutely nothing like the original?
To them I say: Give me a tire iron, access to your "nothings-wrong-with-it" application code, and I'll show you how Piccaso would have built it.
Join the fray by reading through and commenting at the end.
Lol... you're really good at making frustrating things entertaining to read about.
Also, thanks for contributing to my Art knowledge by making me google Guernica. ;)
But... what do we tell the English majors who tasted bile at your skewering of Picasso's name?
To the point... amen, brother.
Damn you spelling! Foiled again!
I feel you. Big time.
But it's not just developers. What about those rogue marketeer? You know who I'm talkin' 'bout.
snarf
He said "I feel you. Big time."
How does Mrs Storey feel about that?
I feel spoiled for only ever having worked with smart perfectionist developers.
You know I feel the pain. I've seen some real butchering jobs...
But I'm also on both sides, so I know it can be done properly. :)
To paraphrase Sting, If you love some(thing), set (it) free ...
I feel ya--I can say the same about some front-end developers I know. Yet the thing about application architecture is that a well designed application remains a well designed application--even with an ugly front end. Yet again, if said application involves a lot of javascript, a misguided HTML coder can likely defile a brilliant concoction.
The point? I guess a team the works well together means everything.
I haven't encountered this. When I've handed a design to a developer, they know "this is the header block, this is the repeated block, this is the footer, these are the variable elements."
I must not have been in the business long enough yet. :-)
Imagine a work place where it was all microsoft and you had to work on a winbox.
Then pass the design onto a software developer who develops web apps in VISUAL BASIC because everything is in ASP.NET.
Unfortunately my butcher is a serial killer with a chainsaw, not your average friendly butcher that knows you by first name at your local market.
I was called 'Tire iron Steve' back in high school for about a week when I broke into my car using the shop's tire iron. I drove with no passenger window for much longer than a week, though.
This is why I always took a designer's markup and turned it into pristine valid XHTML and CSS. Balance things out a little.
Of course, in most of the cases I've dealt with, I was said designer myself…
This happens so often to me I try not to look at the results anymore or I get depressed (ok, I lied, I peek each time then run for the zoloft).
My recent portfolio is near-empty though as I don't dare put these mangy horrors in there.
I think most of us have been there -- I certainly have. So much so that it's hard to link to the live site because of what happened. It's kinda like when you're a kid and you someone breaks your favourite toy, it's wrecked, but you keep it stowed away somewhere, because you just can't quite let go.
Times like that, you can really appreciate Edward Munch's Scream.
It goes both ways: I'm a programmer (and apparently also HTML/CSS mason and sous-chef) for a pair of designers who think the appropriate way to design for the web is by making 10,000 pixel high Illustrator files (in CMYK, natch) with all the major screens.
They expect the resultant web sites to be pixel accurate to the comps (which I've tried to explain is not technically possible seeing as, um, the comps are not in pixels), and I expect my work to be well-structured, usefully semantic and validating. They, of course, don't care about those things so long as I'm able to make some HTML that matches what the Illustrator file looked like on their Mac.
Wanted: more designers who understand that web sites are not just print designs you can click on.
I have a friend who is a web developer for an agency. They have a contract designer that has been delivering designs as PDFs at 125% scale. So, I guess my point is, there can be issues on both sides!
David, I don't see how it goes both ways, I feel your pain with the situation I describe but the difference is that I have already done the work to make it pixel accurate, well-strutured, semantic, and validating.
It's all done, all of it and the developers still find a way to screw it up.
And I have to say that web standards design has come along way and there is no reason why you shouldn't be able to match a comp done in Illustrator or a cocktail napkin. It's very possible and I know this because I've been doing it for years.
All I can say is, find a decent developer for next time!
*cough* hi!
Hire a developer who also designs. Like the truth, they're out there...
Developers?! For Greg to poop on!!! (Sorry I had nothing else)
I recently checked a site I did about 3 years ago. It *had* validated perfectly. They hired a new developer to "take over" the site. He added a bunch of scripts and functionality to the site. Great! He also broke practically all my CSS markup. It is now a complete mess. It's not so much the mess he/she made, it's the fact that they don't seem to care. Like any other type of design - there's good design practices, and bad design practices.
Tony: Any "designer" who hands over PDFs to be turned into code deserves to have a knee cap removed. That's ridiculous.
Steven, Karl, all: I think it goes without saying that when the project allows for me to hire the developer I don't have this problem.
David, I got frustrated when my fellow ("web") designers were doing that kind of thing; I can only imagine what being the developer for them feels like.
I'm dying to see before and afters.
It's worse when they're not even developers... just some guy who thinks he knows what he's doing and continues butchering your hard work because he can't afford to pay you (or anyone, for that matter) to do it right...
It's worst when they know a few basic HTML tags and use them to slowly chip away at any progress you've made at making the company's website a credible, decent thing, then come to you complaining about usability and the way it didn't maintain its "look" after they sliced it into a billion pieces with un-closed tags and other shenaniganery... Then they call you to start up another project with them that they will inevitably run into the ground, but you need the money so you accept, because you can't be picky because the word of mouth from the initial site is useless because of aforementioned buffoonery...
GAWD! He does it EVERY TIME!
I'm sorry for yelling.
It does seem that most software engineers don't have a bit of interest in user interface. HTML is not a programming language, so they don't respect the skill it takes to write well. Luckily I tend to be the only software engineer working on UI, so I can make sure it's all done right. The other developers are usually quite content to leave me to it. :)
Mmm. I feel ya, man. I'm the lead web designer and GUI guy for a federal agency (I'm a contractor), and there's a team of 12 application developers that I hand off designs to. They have very little actual understanding of even the most basic HTML, and rely solely on Visual Studio to do the most basic things (like bolding).
That said, when I started working here about three years ago, I turned over to them a beautiful GUI for a tracking application I made, using XHTML 1 transitional and very versatile CSS that I thought would be hard to break, but those silly developers proved me wrong: When the first alpha came across my plate for usability and accessibility testing, they'd pretty much destoyed it. Instead of adding classes to the css, they used font tags - and different fonts!
It's maddening, but you know, it does go to further prove that there's an obvious separation between "developers" and "designers", and that we all need to address it one of these days as best we can.
WORD.
We've slowly got our developers to come around to using our HTML for new projects -- although, we still run into problems with the bajillion lines of white space the JSP code leaves behind (le sigh).
It's retro-fitting and/or cleaning up legacy applications and sections of the sites that's... heart-breaking.
Greg, I have to respectfully take issue with your rant. From the way your post is worded, you seem to essentially be calling ALL developers incompetent. Maybe I've been lucky, but I've only had one situation where this sort of thing has occurred. That experience (while upsetting) definitely didn't sour my opinion on all developers.
Sorry to do this, but...
Use your head when responding, don't be an asshat. ... Above all else, be mature.
...that just strikes me as relevant in this situation.
Joshua, you are lucky.
From the way your post is worded, you seem to essentially be calling ALL developers incompetent.
LOL. You seriously read that in his post?
You seriously read that in his post?
Well, it seemed like the statement was somewhat all-inclusive. I realize that's probably not the case and this is a specific incidence, but I just felt like standing up for the developers out there who do it right. And remember... as much as they frustrate us designers sometimes, we frustrate them too.
You should try working in an environment where the folks handling the code know nothing about code.
My fellow co-workers murder sections of otherwise innocent code I put together, and use excuses like: "If GoLive! uses those tags, what's wrong with it?"
It really is enough to drive one crazy.
and rely solely on Visual Studio to do the most basic things (like bolding)
oh, you work in my office?
It has gotten to the point with me that I usually just show mockups to clients most of the time because a lot of developers I know always massacre the spacing and alignment in a lot of my designs. I wont show the live url to a potential client on any of those gems.
I have seen a lot of groups that actually use "implementers" to work with the developers and code everything correctly on the design side. Someone who understands design and code really well and can work with the developer to make sure it all looks like the designer wanted. Now I guess this is mostly at bigger companies.
Guernica. Only the second time I had heard it referenced.=) My first came from listening to the commentary on the BBC sitcom Father Ted. Yeah, unique place to hear the term.
c
As a developer myself, you should be requesting that these developers template out the presentational aspects of their code into separate files that you can modify yourself. I find this to be ideal since it allows design and development to progress simultaneously.
I don't know anything at all about web design, so I'll just make a brief art comment. The Guernica is one cool and interesting painting. I would really love to see the original some time. I have only seen it as small size reproductions in books, but the original is HUGE. If I remeber right it's about 10-15 feet wide.
It is all about priorities, to a designer the design, usability, code, etc is what is number one on the list. To a developer, the functionality is number one.
I think very few are lucky enough to find developers that care enough about the details to actually try and keep a design true to the vision of the designer.
They were probably reorganizing--people do it when they feel anxiety, not understanding, and/or not in control.
If it came out butchered, they probably realized there wasn't enough time and scrambed to finish whatever they were doing.
But the way you said it was funnier :)
I think very few are lucky enough to find developers that care enough about the details to actually try and keep a design true to the vision of the designer.
Heh, you said 'vision', heh heh. Again, I'm not talking about forcing a developer to take creative genius form a Photoshop file and recast it the perfect duplication. In most cases I turn over complete code. Turn-key. Developers need not touch anything outside fo the DIV tags.
@Ross, I think those developers should be fired and I'm a developer. Functionality relies on those details just as a design is merely pictures without the functionality (assuming the functionality includes the fundamentals of the interface above the art).
A teammember of mine (the designer) had just send me (the developer) the link to this page. I think that he's trying to make a point.
In front of everybody here, i plead guilty and say: "Sorry for butchering your perfect HTML. I promise to do better next time.".
But then you'll probably be working in another team, on another project:*/
the teammember / designer
I am sure it pisses the chef off to see the bus boy drop his masterpiece on the way to the table.
Could we see your picaso though?
Greg, to your credit, the fact that you can turn over valid markup to a developer makes you a rare exception among designers. I've met too many designers who can't do much outside of Photoshop and Flash. (Conversely, there are also too many developers who can't be bothered with worrying about visual layout or usability.)
The bottom line is that designers and developers need to work together to get the job done well. Designers are not inherently smarter or more capable than developers, and vice versa.
As a developer, I have a great deal of respect for effective design. But I'm amazed by the arrogance of some (not all) designers who think their work is beyond reproach.
As a designer, I work in a functionality mindset constantly, because I know very often I'm the poor bastard who has to code my designs. It's tough to develop something so clearly "obvious" when designing, only to see it lost on the other end.
Conversly, an IA friend of mine describes the work of print-mentality designers as "pictures of websites", just big canvases of "pretty" with no substance or thought towards it's function.
Mike's point above is spot on; there are good designers and developers, and there are bad. But make sure you all get in a room/on the phone/over carrier pigeon to express your ideas, and there's a better chance of coming out w/ a decent product in the end.