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Ask DN: If you don't like or don't want to code can you help me understand why?

5 years ago from Olivier F

  • Marcel van Werkhoven, 5 years ago

    A good designer can pretty much use any tool to create a design. With that said, coding comes with its benefits. Having the option to build HTML/CSS and some javascript yourself means that you can better create the design the way that you want it. Also designers that know a bit of code understand which sort of designs are easy or hard to build and are better at handing specs to other developers.

    Having no coding experience whatsoever as a designer is like writing a piece of music without being able to play it yourself. You don't have to play it yourself because there are better musicians for specific instruments but it helps when you understand 'how' the piece is going to be played.

    One example is font rendering. Every time I work with an external designer with little to no coding experience they will use one of the 900 font weights in their designs. Edge / FireFox and Chrome each have their own way of handling 'bold' styles and in most cases the difference between font-weight 300 or 400 is barely visible.

    2 points
    • Account deleted almost 5 years ago

      There's a bit of a difference between having code experience and actually building stuff yourself from HTML+CSS+JS. You wouldn't want a builder to design the block of flats you will be living in, right? Let people do what they are supposed to do.

      1 point
    • Leonardo LanzingerLeonardo Lanzinger, almost 5 years ago

      Also designers that know a bit of code understand which sort of designs are easy or hard to build and are better at handing specs to other developers.

      As a "designer who codes" or a "coder who designs" (funny how we never mention developers who are familiar with the design process, but that's another story) I agree to that only to a very little extent, mostly when engineering UI elements for the web.

      But let's say that you are designing for an Android or iOS app: the 'bit' of HTML/CSS/JS code you know won't be very helpful to understand whether a component can be developed in Java or Swift.

      And what about UX design? Take a standard React app. You need a very deep understanding of React (and Javascript) to be able to judge whether a user flow you just designed is easy to implement or not.

      TL;DR just wanted to say that the benefit of coding as a designer are VERY VERY dependent on the context you work.

      2 points