most inspired

November 4th, 2009 at 1:27 pmBrian

This article is so irresponsible and a picture of a non-teamwork oriented, non user-centic design process. I disagree with pretty much everything said here.

November 4th, 2009 at 1:31 pm@consciousness

ignore the html and css? do you realize how easy css is to learn and implement? one shouldn’t even call themself a web designer if they don’t know it, and it takes all of 20 minutes to learn.

November 4th, 2009 at 1:35 pmJoey Cagle

Doesn’t make sense. How can a web site designer ignore HTML/CSS and cross-browser issues. We’re designing WEB SITES! That’s a site meant to be viewed in a web browser, and web sites are made with HTML and CSS! And people use different web browsers. How can a designer ignore this?

I agree with you on the trends, though, and with the SEO. Not sure how I feel about the bandwidth. It really depends on the target audience of the web site.

November 4th, 2009 at 1:44 pmCarbon Neutral Websites

I think it is unfortunate that you recommend designers be unfamiliar with the constraints that HTML/CSS place on developers. This simply encourages the ages-old conflict between the two sides of the same coin when it can be avoided altogether by awareness of the issues.

I work with a talented designer who occasionally bumps up against this and thankfully our working relationship is one in which I can educate her and we move forward. Lucky for me she wants to know the limits she is working inside because it makes both of our jobs easier.

Encouraging designers to not bother learning the limits of how their designs can be translated to the web is reckless and I fail to see how it could benefit anybody’s client when things have to be re-worked.

I don’t expect my designers to know everything about how their mock-ups will become code, but I do expect my designers to soak in information that can help streamline the process for everyone involved.

I also don’t think it makes sense to suggest that SEO has nothing to do with design. At the very least a designer should be aware of how much more valuable text linking is than image linking and to anticipate a navigation structure to take advantage of this. Designers need not be concerned with keywords being used as this doesn’t impact their realm, but they certainly ought to know that their design can impact how well a site performs in search engine rankings due to internal linking strategies.

Finally I would suggest to you that bandwidth considerations are not for the designer to decide. Best practices in general require as few http calls as possible inclusive of images.

All of these suggestions you give really make it clear that you encourage the designer to consider him/herself to be the center of the process of web design. In my experience the center belongs squarely with the client. In order to deliver the best site possible to the client, designers should strive to be aware of all project considerations.

November 4th, 2009 at 2:03 pmLes James

I agree with all of them except for the part about knowing HTML/CSS. Maybe I disagree because I do both design and implementation but I think it’s important to know what is possible. It’s not that hard to keep up with. We can do quite a bit with CSS today but it’s not a total free for all. Designers should know what the limits are because it helps manage expectations and makes it that much easier for front end developers.

November 4th, 2009 at 2:30 pmRob Miracle

I can agree with your first point. A good designer is a leader not a follower, but the next 5 points will create friction between you and you web developer and show a lack of understanding for the web.

There is a big difference between designing for a media such as print where you can make anything happen because you control the output vs. a media like the web where you don’t control the final result.

Ignoring SEO, not knowing what is possible and not with HTML and CSS or not caring about how fast your page loads are all paths for irritating your developer and more importantly your viewers.

November 4th, 2009 at 2:39 pmMubashar Iqbal

Thanks for the comments everyone, I knew the HTML/CSS section would rub people the wrong way.

I guess I could clarify my views on that. I think that often designers who are proficient in HTML/CSS begin to think about how things will be implemented as they design them.

This changes the design not because is what the designer wants, but because it will be easier to implement. In some cases that may be good for the project, but that doesn’t necessarily create the best design.

Knowing HTML/CSS is a valuable skill, and something I’m happy I know, but in most cases it should not affect the design created by the designers.

As for the other comment for encouraging designers to be the center of the process …

I think I made it quite clear that designers have plenty of other things to worry about, the primary one being to interface with the client to produce the best work based on their requirements. I’m not sure how this makes the designer the focus.

@brain: I’m not sure how anything I’ve suggest makes the design less user-centric

November 4th, 2009 at 2:45 pmMubashar Iqbal

@robert: I’m not saying people shouldn’t know HTML/CSS, I’m just saying it shouldn’t exert undue influence on your design. Just because you a designer think something isn’t possible in HTML/CSS doesn’t mean it is.

As for SEO there is no reason why it should influence your design.

There are many techniques for improving page load times, that have nothing to do with design, from caching to using sprites all the realm of the front end developer, and not something a designer should be worried about.

November 4th, 2009 at 9:45 pmJbermudez

Regardless of platform the technology involved should be considered.

Design for people. Usability should be considered but if you are working with thousands or maybe millions of dollars of a clients money SEO needs to be considered in design and content wise.

Some trends become stadards for users not talking about the 1pixel gradient on you btns, but placement of navigation, content in the footer, lightboxes etc.

Bandwith, you cannot be narrow minded. What market are you working with, how heavy is your design going to be, is it a web app, news portal that will get millions of impresions, are just some of the things that need to be taken into consideration.

I think this is not a team oriented post, and not to be applied and a little misguiding to new web designers that might take this article to heart, but will be suprised that this is a way of working that wont fly in an agency with teams of poeple that should be cooperative in every aspect of their job.

The only point i somewhat agree is cross browser compatability. Just let IE6 degrade gracefully. and make sure it works.

November 5th, 2009 at 12:55 amAlistair McIntyre

As a PHP developer, I can say that a lack of xHTML/CSS knowledge is a big no-no for any designer, JS is also really a must as well.

In a realistic situation, most companys use a framework of some sort, which seperates Design and Development. Without the designers having an understanding of HTML/CSS, the seperation of content and design is completely irrelevant.

SEO is something that you really don’t worry about in Design anyway, so that points irrelevant.

Bandwidth is something you DO need to consider, when pages become 2-3MB with images and all, it becomes a pain in the neck to load everything, and at the least you should be trying to pack scripts/compress them etc.

Consider this – a good designer should never ignore anything. Just because somethings easier to slice to CSS, doesn’t mean a designer has to make the design easier, I think the constraints have to be considered so they can be BROKEN.

Trends come and go, thats really not a big deal. A good designer knows whether a trend suits a clients website or not.

I really think you chose the 5 least important things, and just listed them, rather than actually considering that they are in fact very important. a website designer needs to realise what the weakest point of a design, be it site optimization, SEO, Markup Validation, and work on those so the site is of an “industry” standard.

November 5th, 2009 at 1:31 amMubashar Iqbal

@Jbermudez: Perhaps you can explain to me why I should design for SEO? These days SEO is primarily related to key words, density and backlinks. Design affects these how? I think I made it clear in the article that the designer should focus on producing a good design for the user, not for search engines.

So just because one website gets more pageviews than another we should change the design for it? Perhaps you can use a CDN instead of hosting and serving your images if you get that much traffic, which are considerations that the designer shouldn’t deal with. If the requirement from the client is a website with no images because we get a lot of traffic fair enough.

I’ve worked in an agency environment for over 5 years now, and I can tell we’ve done our best work when we let the team members do what they are best at. Let a designer design, and a coder code. Yes there is need for communication between the team members, but I’ve found it is best to show what you want to the team instead of imposing limits on yourself, because of what you think is or is not possible.

@alistair: I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again, I’m not saying the designer shouldn’t know HTML/CSS just that their knowledge of it shouldn’t affect the design they are creating.

I’ve seen plenty of designs affected by SEO requirements, mainly because people (designers, the client, whoever) doesn’t understand SEO, but designs are adjusted to move things to be more prominent for search engine.

As for bandwidth thanks for making my point for me, packing scripts and compressing assets has nothing to do with design, so why should a designer be concerned with it. If a website comes in a 2-3MB you’re doing a poor job of slicing the PSD and adjusting the quality/compression in the images produced.

As for you last point, how is “markup validation” or SEO any concern for the designer? Yes the client should demand these, but since when Photoshop produce valid markup?

I’m not saying these things are not required in websites, they most certainly are, but they are things that the DESIGNER should not be concerned with (maybe it would be good to read the article again).

November 5th, 2009 at 5:54 amBonita

The point of view sounds very much like that of a print designer, or someone who is familiar with design, but not familiar with web standards at all, and how they would go about designing a website.. (..and I have seen the effects of this. )

Yes, ignoring some of these points does challenge new ideas for web design, but overall it is necessary to have a basic idea of how HTML/CSS works, as well as basic requirements for SEO-based sites.

New ideas and concepts that challenge web standards are great. But they need to challenge them, not complicate them.

Also, SEO greatly influences the design of your site. This of course depends on the site’s requirements. When SEO needs to be taken into consideration, content is king..

It’s important to keep in mind that you need to “know the rules before you break them”.

November 5th, 2009 at 6:57 amAFI

I somehow disagree on few points you have mentioned here.

I think the points you have mentioned here are for Wire-framing process and not for web design process. You can ignore things like coding, browser compatibility, trends etc while wire-framing.

Whereas html/css is a must for every web designer & when designing graphics and elements of the web page, you can have your creative license for backgrounds and illustrations ( characters, elements i-e ) but while designing navigation, forms and content areas as in WP blog designs etc. We have to consider how the design will be sliced down. SEO also comes into play there. You don’t want your website to be a total jpg image when u’ve used fancy fonts all over and impossible layouts.

Bandwidth will become a issue if the website is for heavy traffic. Small things like ( Photoshop png VS Fireworks png ) are considered by designers to decrease size of web graphics. Its a whole subject of creating and optimizing images for the web.

November 5th, 2009 at 6:59 amDebi

Is this a Joke? It propagates all the opinion designers already have – design something without knowing the dimensions and make a “coder” do the work to get the design up there. Just say no!

November 5th, 2009 at 7:26 amNeil

I’m actually really surprised at how people are arguing the HTML/CSS point. I’ve always taken the approach that I can code any design I’m given, or if I’m doing the design, imagine that the page is not necessarily for the web but an overall experience for the user. Sure when it gets to the coding phase there may have to be tweaks, but if you design “inside the box”, you’ll only ever work on what you think is possible from your coding experience.

November 5th, 2009 at 7:56 amJonno Riekwel

That’s compleet poop. I hate it when designes have no clue what is possible and what is not.

November 5th, 2009 at 8:19 amlucideer

Here’s a far better guide:
“1 Thing to Ignore When Designing Websites”
1. This blog post.

I’m very sorry but this is perhaps some of the very worst advice I’ve encountered on the web. Teamwork and integration requires at the very least an elementary level of understanding.

1. – Trends – this I’d tend to agree on actually, but I’d say the same for most things

2. – HTML/CSS – Unless you’re creating flat static boring designs, and intricate understanding not of the limitations of HTML/CSS, but of the ASSETS of HTML/CSS is crucial – this is essentially like saying a sculptor should be unfamiliar with the properties of stone, or an architect unfamiliar with building materials – utterly irresponsible.

3. – While this is not the worst of crimes, ignoring cross-browser issues can lead to designers being pedantic about pixel perfect designs – something that can seriously limit the aesthetic potential of a site. I’ve seen some websites that actively revel in the diversity of cross-browser quirks, creating a look that looks utterly different (in a good way) when gracefully degraded.

4. Bandwidth – “it’s easier to scale back a design than to scale up” – have you ever tried either? Because it simply isn’t. Scaling back is extremely difficult, often untenable. Scaling up is ridiculously easy.

5. – SEO – This is a content issue more than a design one, so I don’t really see how a designer could even have any influence on SEO even if they wanted to, unless they do something stupid like specify Flash. So this point is fairly moot.

November 5th, 2009 at 9:21 amMubashar Iqbal

@Bonita: I’m actually very much a developer and self taught designer, and translates my experience working with designers who worry too much about the implementation than doing the best design possible. Yes content is king and always will be, but you layout your content should be considered what is best for your user, not for search engines.

@AFI: How you implement your navigation using CSS is not the concern of the designer, any good HTML/CSS developer will be able to use image replacement techniques to make sure the design is coded properly, again these ARE important things to consider, but not something the designer should worry about.

As for the bandwidth argument, how you slice and compress the graphics should not be the concern of the designer, that is what a front end developer will do.

@Debi: So as a designer I should worry about how the website is built, why not use PHP or Ruby on Rails, no you let the developers make the best decision based on the requirements. In the same way the designers should be allowed to make the best decision for the design. Yes there needs to be communication between the designer and the coder to get the work completed, but the designer shouldn’t be thinking about implementation right out of the gate.

@Neil: Thanks! I knew I wasn’t the only one who felt this way

@Jonno: I never said designers shouldn’t know what is or isn’t possible, but you need to push the boundaries. Just because you think something isn’t possible, do it anyway if its the best thing for the project. If it really is impossible fair enough.

@lucideer: Thanks for calling the article poop and then agreeing with many of the points made.

The comparison with a sculptor is not accurate. A sculptor is creating the statue, the designer is not creating the website. Its like asking a interior designers to know the ins and outs of constructing a house. Does it help, yes is it necessary no.

Slapping additional graphics into the design is easy but taking some out to improve bandwidth performance is not?

November 5th, 2009 at 10:45 amCSS Brigit | 5 Things to Ignore When Designing Websites

5 Things to Ignore When Designing Websites…

Designers have enough to worry about when doing a design. Here are a few thing that you are safe to forget about.
…

November 5th, 2009 at 2:45 pmManu

Very dumb blogpost. Unsubscribed this blog.

November 5th, 2009 at 2:57 pmMubashar Iqbal

@manu: Thank you for the dumb response. If you have any valid comments to the post please post them and I will respond.

November 5th, 2009 at 3:10 pmBrett

To this article from a designer…

Nope!

November 5th, 2009 at 3:21 pmMubashar Iqbal

@Brett: Question … do you code your own designs?

November 6th, 2009 at 10:49 amDusan

I agree with all of the above EXCEPT (well, partially) not following trends. As for the css/html – Mubashar is completely right. Of course there are limitations to what you can actually do in CSS but why worrying about that while you’re designing?

November 6th, 2009 at 11:05 amLars Weimar

All I can say to everyone here is that, sure, you can “ignore” the items listed here and try and find reasons to justify it (although it sounds mostly like laziness to me).

But as a strong designer who has an advanced understanding of coding, I can ASSURE you that the TRUE power comes from not ignoring these items but fully understanding them.

If you want to really be a leading edge designer as this article hints at, you want to integrate all huge knowledge of trends, XHTML/CSS, SEO, cross-browser compatibility and bandwidth, not ignore them in any way, shape or form.

And that’s all I have to say about that.

November 6th, 2009 at 11:27 amMubashar Iqbal

@Dusan: Thanks, that’s the point I’ve been trying to make

@Lars: It’s lovely if you have the time to learn everything related to website building (and stay up-to-date in all the latest developments), but I know most people don’t have time to do that.

I don’t think its being lazy to focus on your part of the process and be the best at that. There are other people involved in the process too, let them do their job.

In your argument the web developers should be experts in design too?

November 6th, 2009 at 12:12 pmLars Weimar

All I can tell you from experience is…it wouldn’t hurt. I consider myself a coder and designer, but I strive to at least have a basic understanding of the developers world and even find myself dabbling very lightly in the development world…if just to be able to communicate with clarity to the people I am working with. On top of that, I would have to say having knowledge of all these things have strengthened my designs, not limited them.

The more educated each member of the team is, the better the end result will end up. Is it required? Of course not. But I would seriously shy away from working with someone who is telling themselves and others to ‘ignore’ parts of the process. It’s one thing to stay lightly educated in other areas and intensely educated in a certain aspect of the process, but it’s quite another to outright IGNORE other areas other than what you are best at.

Whether you are a solo person, part of a small team or part of a very large team, I still find your advice to be short sighted. Knowledge is power…and in this rapidly exploding field, I feel it would be best for yourself and everyone you work with to have as dynamic of an understanding of ALL aspects of this field as humanly possible.

November 6th, 2009 at 12:19 pmMubashar Iqbal

Lars I think you’re missing the point of the post. I’ve never said a designer shouldn’t know any of things, yes they are very useful in the process of building a website.

My point was that when you’re actually sitting down and designing the website, keeping these thing out of your mind can help with your boost the creativity of your designs.

If you keep thinking about current trends, or what you can do in HTML/CSS you’ll keep producing the same old tried designs.

November 6th, 2009 at 12:26 pmRob

As a web developer who understands design, I totally agree with your 5 points, especially about ignoring html, css and the others. Taking such things into consideration is constraining, as you imply. As the dev, if I can’t do what you want, then I’ll come back to you about it but that will never happen because I know what I’m doing.

November 6th, 2009 at 12:38 pmLars Weimar

No offense Musbar, but your original post didn’t really clarify the point you were trying to make and it’s clear by the above comments that it was the way you worded it that caused such confusion amongst your readers.

And I agree to disagree…I feel if you are staying current (which is hard yes, but by no means impossible), having that knowledge will expand your horizons in design. But, that’s just my experience.

November 6th, 2009 at 12:38 pmLars Weimar

And my apologies for misspelling name.

November 6th, 2009 at 1:38 pmTommy

I giggle when I hear people call themselves web designers and they can’t code HTML and CSS.

November 6th, 2009 at 1:46 pmMubashar Iqbal

@Rob: Thanks for the comment.

@lars: Fair enough. I can see how I could have worded my post better.

November 6th, 2009 at 1:54 pmMubashar Iqbal

@Tommy: Why is that?

Do you giggle when a Web developer can’t design?

November 6th, 2009 at 3:04 pmLars Weimar

Tommy makes a point though. If you’re a ‘web designer’, why is it illogical or even surprising to assume that the person calling themselves that would fully know the tools in which a website is built out of?

A developer is an entirely different arena because it doesn’t FOCUS on the actual word “design”…hence, web DESIGNer. By your logic, a web developer shouldn’t can ‘ignore’ PHP if they know Ruby On Rails.

If you are calling yourself a web designer and you don’t know CSS/XHTML nearly inside and out, then you are not a WEB designer, you are a GRAPHIC designer and should advertise yourself as such.

November 6th, 2009 at 3:17 pmSay What? Really….? « MMP Design

[...] was reading things on the interwebs like I usually do when I came across a blog with a post titled 5 Things To Ignore When Designing Websites by Mubashar Iqbal, and it bothered me. It basically came down to a list of things that the designer [...]

November 6th, 2009 at 3:44 pm80+ Awesome Community Links for Designers and Developers | tripwire magazine

[...] 5 Things to Ignore When Designing Websites [...]

November 6th, 2009 at 4:10 pmChris Danek

Good designer knows how to create beautiful, inspiring, not standard works WHILE making them possible to implement throughout all browsers.

What good is your design if you can’t make it work in 60% of all browsers (IE).

What if it requires downloading multiple PNG24 images that make the whole thing weight 1MB+ and load as sluggishly as in the old days of dial-up modems?

Being a good designer means you have to know your medium, be it print, architecture or web. HTML and CSS is an essential part of every web page.

November 6th, 2009 at 4:17 pmLisa Kerr

You are suggesting the exact opposite except for item#1 that I am learning in school. The exact opposite. What we are being taught in school hasn’t changed over the last couple of years. A few things get added, but you are going against what every single teacher has taught me in the last two years. What on earth are you? You shouldn’t mislead people labeling an article about designing websites. This is total crap. I certainly hope the people that read your article are smart enought to see your writing for what it is: lies, lies, lies. I agree with #1 but you are completely wrong on everything else. I challenge you to give speeches at colleges and universities all around the country for students of web design, and refer thier professors to your article above. Good luck with that.

November 6th, 2009 at 5:24 pmJames

Mubashar makes interesting points in his blog and the comments listed here. The purpose of the blog was where the focus of a designer should be in relation to his/her client’s requirements.

I can see how these things apply to that relm. One of the definitions of design is “to plan and fashion artistically or skillfully.” Therefore as a web site designer the language used to build the web site is not really a requirement to meet a client’s needs.

A web site design is merely a plan by which the physical layout and form would be addressed. The development of a web site would need to take into consideration the language used, SEO, image optimization, etc.

November 6th, 2009 at 5:42 pmRicardo Zea

Sr., you are SO wrong about the SEO part, oh man.

But the concept you (and seems like MANY more Web Designers than I though of) are SO wrong about, is that the Web Designer doesn’t code his/her own designs…

You clearly have NO IDEA about HTML/CSS implementation: “Let the front end developers worry about hacking the browsers to make sure things work cross browser.”

I am a Web Designer, I implement every single one of my designs and NONE of my latest HTML/CSS implementations in the past 3 years have any CSS hacks, and all my builds look perfect in standards compliance browsers and Ok in IE6.

What a sad article, good thing the majority of us here (if not all), disagree with many of the things you say here.

Web Designers, be careful with the author’s message on this post.

November 6th, 2009 at 6:15 pmMubashar Iqbal

@chris: I guess I have different experience of current html/css techniques, the front end developers I work with haven’t had any trouble producing code that works across all browsers including IE6, irrespective of the design.

I don’t know why the designer would require PNG24 be used for an image making it 1MB+, surely when the code is sliced by the front end developer they can use the appropriate image format, keeping the file sizes reasonable.

Being a good designer does mean you understand the medium you’re working with, but it doesn’t mean they understand everything about the medium they work with. Leaning on more knowledgeable parts of your team is a hallmark of a good team member, not a bad one. If something really is impossible to code, your team will tell you, but don’t stop yourself using a design just because you think it would impossible due to the technology.

November 6th, 2009 at 6:16 pmluna

from experience, the best designers, even if it’s not their job to code, are ones who understand the medium they are designing for.

being handed a design that simply won’t work in a browser, cross-browser issues or not, is a waste of everyone’s time.

web is not print, and shouldn’t try to be.

November 6th, 2009 at 6:42 pmMubashar Iqbal

@Lars: I’m not sure how a PHP developer learning Rails apply here. PHP and Rails are tools for backend developer to build a dynamic website. A PHP expert can learn a lot from Rails and vice versa, even if they stick to their own framework of choice.

The equivalent would be to have a designer who is an expert in Photoshop learn Illustrator, or Fireworks. Tools of their trade to build a better design.

November 6th, 2009 at 8:08 pmMubashar Iqbal

@Lisa: What exactly are going to school for? And what are they teaching you?

I never said a designer shouldn’t know HTML/CSS or shouldn’t be able to code their own designs.

What I’ve tried to say and clear up in the comments is that a designer should ignore what they think they know about HTML/CSS when sitting down and doing the actual design of a website. I doubt very much given the current state of HTML/CSS that anything they produce will be impossible to create by a good front end developer.

Even if (or perhaps especially if) the designer is coding their own work, I think it’s even more important to forget what they think they know about HTML/CSS, just create the best design. You may have some more learning to do to be able to implement it, but that is a small price to pay for producing a good website.

Oh and please refer your college professors here, I’d argue these points with them too.

November 6th, 2009 at 8:39 pmMubashar Iqbal

@James: Thanks for the comment and the support. This precisely what I’ve been trying to say.

It seems most of the people commenting objections here are designer who code their own designs. The point of the post was not that designers shouldn’t code their own work or know how-to, but that when they do the design don’t worry about how it is going to be built.

Anything you can dream can probably be built with HTML/CSS, and if you can’t you probably just need to learn more HTML/CSS.

November 6th, 2009 at 9:02 pmMubashar Iqbal

@Ricardo: If you want to code your own designs, good for you. I know plenty of designer who don’t, and plenty of designers who do,

Never in my post did I say a designer shouldn’t code his/her own designs, all I said was that when DESIGNING a website the designer shouldn’t worry about about is or not possible in the HTML/CSS primarily because they probably don’t know everything about what is or is not possible.

People seem to be misunderstanding that there is a difference in DESIGNING a website and what you deliver to the client when you’re finished with BUILDING a website. In a lot of cases the designer is reponisble for the whole process, but this post was not about the whole process, it was about the DESIGNING of a website.

Also, I’ve looked over your portfolio, and I mean no offense, but I see plenty of hacks in those sites, maybe those works are from earlier.

November 6th, 2009 at 9:12 pmMubashar Iqbal

@luna: Perhaps you could show me a design that couldn’t be built in HTML/CSS because I haven’t seen one in years.

November 6th, 2009 at 10:43 pmAlistair McIntyre

Ok, firstly I left a comment on here a couple of days ago in reponse to what you said, you replied with nothing.

Secondly. “@luna: Perhaps you could show me a design that couldn’t be built in HTML/CSS because I haven’t seen one in years.” so why argue the point that HTML/CSS confines the designers work?

I’m really sorry but this is utter rubbish. I think you need to step back and consider this post a little more, your just attacking 5 random points without actually considering the implications of those points being ignored, large sites can increase server load if lots of people are pulling large image files at the same time, consider these things before writing such rubbish again.

November 6th, 2009 at 10:55 pmMubashar Iqbal

@alistair: I believe I responded to your original comment above.

My point with the HTML/CSS is that yes you can implement just about any design nowadays, but people with limited knowledge of HTML/CSS think otherwise. They then go about changing their designs based on what they think they can implement.

What the post was trying to say was to design the best design, if HTML/CSS isn’t your thing, don’t let it affect it.

If you are the person implementing the design, it can be much harder to make this break, but it can be valuable to try.

I keep hearing this argument about websites containing large files being bad on the server for large sites. If you have a large site, offload the images to a CDN or yeah use better image compression for your web assets to make smaller files. You’ll notice none of those are design solutions, and there are plenty of other options.

November 6th, 2009 at 11:37 pmLars Weimar

While my analogy could have been better, you didn’t really address the rest of my thoughts.

Anyway, no offense man, but this post was an ‘epic fail.’ Can’t say I’ll be reading more of yours in the future…and if you continue to think like this, I’ll be surprised if you’re still doing this in a few years.

November 6th, 2009 at 11:50 pmTrey - Swollen Thumb Entertainment

Hello Mubashar, I have to admire you for having your own opinions and doing things your way. At the very least, no one can accuse you of not being able to think for yourself.

Unfortunately, I don’t think that your blog post did a whole lot to ease growing tensions between designers and developers. While I do agree with you in principle that it is better to focus on one skill and get really good at it, in this case, the design work, than to get so bogged down in technical details that it affects your creativity.

However, in my opinion, much like a painter should familiarize himself with the technicalities of various paints, brushes, and canvases, a designer should familiarize himself with the medium in which his design will be displayed. In the end, it doesn’t matter how good or creative your work is if doesn’t display properly.

Unfortunately, designers and developers seem to think of each other as enemies for some weird reason, and that is just tragic. Both sides are important in the long run, and when people can learn to start working together more and stop demeaning the work of each other, things will get a lot better.

I retweeted this article, not because of your advice, but because I wanted people to see how counterproductive egos and bickering are. Nevertheless, have a great day!

November 7th, 2009 at 12:12 amAndy Ford

I commend you for the HTML/CSS and Cross Browser points. While it’s ideal for “web designers” to be highly skilled in graphic design and HTML/CSS, a lot of people are highly skilled in only one.

I am highly skilled in HTML/CSS and my graphic design skills are good but certainly not great. I work with designers who are highly skilled designers but leave the HTML/CSS to me.

It’s very rare that a design has to be compromised due to implementation difficulties. But I’ve witnessed a lot of designers hold back on their designs because they *think* it can’t be implemented.

I say let highly skilled designers do their thing and let highly skilled front end engineers have the challenge of implementing it.

November 7th, 2009 at 1:10 amMubashar Iqbal

@lars: I’m not sure what point you raise that I haven’t addressed in my comments.

I’ve said before it would be nice if designers could know HTML/CSS inside out, but I don’t think that is reasonable if they are designing all day long. If your job includes doing the coding you can probably stay in the loop, most others can’t. Given that reality I say let the HTML/CSS experts tell you what is or is not possible.

I’m sorry you won’t be reading the blog anymore, but I can assure you I’ll still be here.

November 7th, 2009 at 1:32 amMubashar Iqbal

@Trey: Thank you for taking the time to post your comment, and for retweeting even if it’s for the wrong reasons.

The comparison with painters is little invalid I think. A painter will be responsible for using the brushes, paints, and canvases to produce the finished art work. A web designer (unless they are coding their own design) won’t be using HTML/CSS, yes as we both agree it would be nice if the could know HTML/CSS, but that isn’t always possible.

I’m not sure where you got the thing about ego’s from in my post, maybe it comes from your own experience. I haven’t suggested that designers draw a line in the sand (I started as a developer by the way) and insist that developers code it, quite the opposite in fact. The point of the post is to work with other more skilled (in some areas) people to produce the best results. The ego problems I’ve run into come from the other side, where people think they know everything and insist things be done even when others recommend changes be made.

Perhaps I’ve been fortunate but the people I’ve worked with have been very open to discussion, sharing their thoughts freely to produce the best work. I’ve never considered the other parts of the team as enemies, and there is little if any tension.

November 7th, 2009 at 1:36 amMubashar Iqbal

@Andy: Thank you! Perhaps if I had articulated myself as well as you have I wouldn’t be getting so much flack

November 7th, 2009 at 8:25 amSkyrocket Labs

I fail to see how a web designer can get away with NOT knowing XHTML & CSS these days. IMHO, someone who draws a web site layout in Photoshop but can’t hand code it isn’t a web designer at all. They’re a graphic designer. Nowadays I see a much larger difference between the two skill sets.

November 7th, 2009 at 9:05 amJasmine Gandhi

I am not a web designer or code specialist. But interested in developments in the field because of my ambitions to be a web publisher.
I was looking for very basic info to use blockquote styles to improve my blog, when I happen by chance looked up your article linked on css-tricks. I found the article quite astute. As I continued down and read some of the comments, I was amazed at the storm your article had created! Of course you have been able to hold your ground very well.
Andy did put it in perspective pretty well. Excellent article. Will sure be following your blog more often.

November 7th, 2009 at 10:14 amMubashar Iqbal

@Skyrocket Labs: I never suggested that a designer shouldn’t know HTML/CSS, but it is hard for a busy designer to keep a breast of all the latest front end coding techniques, so what they think they know about HTML/CSS shouldn’t affect what they design.

November 7th, 2009 at 10:18 amMubashar Iqbal

@Jasmine: Thank you for leaving a comment. I read plenty of blogs where I don’t totally agree with the authors, but enjoy the discussion that it creates.

Happy to have you as a reader.

November 7th, 2009 at 7:53 pmJordan Clark

Hi all, this is my first post here. I actually found this article quite helpful; I was not, however, surprised by some of the negative commentary. People can sometimes take things too literally online – I don’t think for a moment that Mubashar meant “ignore” quite that literally – what I think he is trying to say is: worry about these things later, don’t let them get in the way of your design.

Many times I have found myself thinking, “that would be a good idea, but it will require three nested DIVs” etc. etc. (I can’t design to save my life, btw, but I try!) This article is just trying to expel that kind of thought (or at least, to put it on the back-burner).

Anyway, people shouldn’t get so irate about some expressing their opinion – I don’t see a “W3C Recommendation” banner anywhere on the post, so relax!

November 7th, 2009 at 8:06 pmMubashar Iqbal

@jordan: Thanks for taking the time to post your comment, its much appreciated. Your example was exactly the kind of thing I was trying to get people out off.

I’m a little taken back by the reaction of some people. I knew people would disagree with my thoughts, that’s normal, but the extreme to which people have gone is a little surprising.

November 7th, 2009 at 10:47 pmMike

Awful advice except #1, possibly.

November 8th, 2009 at 8:01 amMubashar Iqbal

@Mike: I hope I’ve made my position clearer on Twitter. I’ve also updated the post above to include:

Some people have suggested that this article says that these things are responsibility of other people and so the designer should ignore them, and that this is awful advice … A designer typically works as part of a team to design, develop and deploy a website, I think it is wise to rely on other parts of team to do the things they were hired to do. To think a designer should do it all, is irresponsible and definitely won’t produce the best website for the client. Yes there are a few geniuses out there who can do it all, but they are the exception rather than the rule.

November 8th, 2009 at 12:56 pmScelza

The comments here are great, for the most part. The article was a bold one, and struck up quite a bit of controversy. That’s a good thing.

Not everyone will accept Mubashar’s ideas, and yes, I don’t agree with them all. What I would feel more comfortable agreeing with, however, is replacing the word “ignore” with the phrase “temporarily put on a shelf”. From that frame of mind, it’s not saying that you should be oblivious to the five points, but to not let them influence your design and creativity.

Follow up with some of the points after the design, and refine as necessary. Putting the blinders on for a bit can help you design outside of the box, instead of feeling confined within it. This helps to create new innovations that others may someday find useful, and maybe, just maybe, start a trend.

Keep the comments coming, but keep them constructive. This will benefit us all.

November 8th, 2009 at 1:29 pmMubashar Iqbal

@scelza: Thanks for the comments, I agree totally.

I’m happy to see comments that disagree with me, as long as they are constructive and provide their point of view.

Also, you are correct my choice of words didn’t help with the controversy I created, but “ignore” reads a little better than “temporarily put on the shelf” I did try and follow that sentiment by saying “you’ll have plenty of time to think about them later”.

People have a tendency to react to the title of an article instead of fully reading (and hopefully understanding) the article.

November 9th, 2009 at 12:29 pmStone Deft

The first one is a good point, we don’t want our design to look like any other stereotype trend-based design, but ignoring CSS and HTML is not a good advice and logically you don’t do web design if you don’t know either.

Cross Browser compatibility is for the developer but SEO will fail if the designer doesn’t consider it in his design( w/c is bad)

November 9th, 2009 at 12:41 pmMubashar Iqbal

@Stone Deft: I’m still at a loss as to why you need to consider HTML/CSS while you DESIGN website. Yes if you want to code it fine, go ahead learn HTML/CSS and do it, but a lot of designers don’t and shouldn’t have too.

As for SEO, please explain to me how the DESIGN of a page is going to affect SEO. Yes the content and the and build is hugely important for SEO, but the design?

November 9th, 2009 at 1:13 pmDavid Blanchet

Sounds like a lot of the people commenting and leaving very harsh criticism don’t really understand how most design companies work. Most design companies that can afford it have a designer, a front end developer and a backend developer, houses with larger income may even have people in between these 3 basic people, production artist, etc.

Mubs point is that while all designers for the web should understand and know about how a website is built, they dont need or should not need to get bogged down in the details of what they are creating in photoshop/indesign ect., I aggree with Neil and Rob. any front end developer worth their salt can take pretty much anything a designer gives them and turn it into proper html and if they have trouble with something then as any team based environment, you go talk to that person and ask/explain your position on why something might not work as intended or how something needs to change to work in the page.

I myself have long complained that being self employed and having to graphically design, code/build frontend and code/build backend has greatly hammpered my visual design because i am stuck in a rut of ‘ok i have to design what i know will work easily cause i have to code this’ which on its face might seem lazy or uninspired, but after having to do this on a few hundred projects it wears you down.

Its my belief that in this haste for any and everyone to be designers or dare i even say developers shafting designers and saying i can design this and develop this i dont need a designer, has forced more design oreinted people to have to learn how to develop more than they really should be responsible for in a project and thus the design suffers in most cases.

I long for the day that we get back to our roles and relationships and i can say by having worked with Mubs that I have never designed something and turned it over to him that he could not create a well coded SEO sensitive user friendly working document. If you are working in an environment were the html coders are having fits with the designers work, then no disrespect but you need to hire a new developer. Either the communication skills to go back to the designer and work with them are not there or the skill to pull off any design is not, not to say designer can do absolutely anything or no wrong, but more often than not its not the designers flawed design that is the issue.

designers need to design, developers need to develop, understanding your role and what that encompasses with make any situation work, not understanding that and wanting someone else to make your life easier simply because you don’t want to do extra work is fail and thats what im hearing from most of your arguments against what Mubs is saying here.

November 9th, 2009 at 2:41 pmJohn Schires

I think the problem is how you are defining “web designer”.

Graphic Designer: one who creates graphic elements used in the construction of a site.

Web designer: one who creates graphic elements used in the construction AND codes the html/css (look & feel) of a site.

Web Developer: codes the backend of the site, may also code the look/feel.

I would expect a graphic designer to not know or ignore how a site would be built, but not a web designer.

November 9th, 2009 at 3:22 pmMubashar Iqbal

@john: I never used the term “web designer” or “graphic designer”, so I’m not sure how I’m defining either one.

Regardless of that, as I’ve stated above, even if the “web designer” knows HTML/CSS they should try and forget what they know, when they are in the design phase. The design phase should concentrate on what is best for the design, not how it should be built.

Also, I think you’ll find that in many companies the split between designer/developer has had another person added to the mix. A front-end developer is responsible for coding in HTML/CSS and Javascript, removing the responsibility from the designer.

It’s also no surprise to see the rise of the PSD to HTML services. Most designers (web or otherwise) want to design, not get bogged down in coding.

November 9th, 2009 at 5:19 pmEvan Byrne

Could you do me a favor and not tell people to ignore bandwidth when designing something?

It is flawed thinking to say that everyone is using cable these days, most of the rural USA is still running on dial-up. Including me of coarse.

A designer should at the very least keep it in mind before they create a huge 2000×4000 HD background image…

All in all I see what you are trying to say in the article and it’s unfortunate that some people have interpreted it in the wrong way.

November 10th, 2009 at 1:57 amStone Deft

@ Mubashar Iqbal design and SEO comes together as you need to consider parts of the design where seo keywords and contents should be integrated like h1 tags etc. You don’t just do fancy stuff leaving out important goals of the website right?

Also a lot of designers have a particular framework in mind when they are designing like wordpress or joomla. They already know in advance w/c modules to design and the possible location for these modules in their design.

I think you still need to know html and css or your developer will return your work saying that the deseign is impossible making you look incompetent for the job

November 10th, 2009 at 2:27 amKim H

I’m not gonna lie – sometimes I ignore cross browser compatibility. It just takes up way too much time, and it gimps so many designs to sit there and think about. But I do agree with pushing things to the limit; there’s always some way to implement every part of a design, or at least that’s my thought, even if it means hacking a little bit. Because in all honesty, I really don’t find “hacking” a bad thing.

November 10th, 2009 at 10:04 amCedric Dugas

I agree that designer should not consider there knowledge of HTML, because mostly they are not good at it,

A front-end developer will create the template you asked and come to you if there is any problem with your design, and you can look for solutions together from there, there is a lot of solutions to a lot of problems, and limiting yourself to what you know may make a website really blend.

Design and SEO are not coming together, however there is a limit to this, a good graphic designer will not create a good web design because he do not think web content wise. Any designer thinking web content wise and usability, should produce a design that will be easy to work with seo.

Trends is not an issue, unless your client want something trendy on a site that will not stay online for long, a good example is a sweepstakes site.

As for bandwith, well it really depend om what you are doing, there is some interesting study that shown that 1 seconds delay in loading time = loosing some users

ps: why people are so harsh?

November 10th, 2009 at 10:38 amMubashar Iqbal

@stone deft: So while you’re sitting there with photoshop or illustrator or whatever open, you should be thinking about that HTML tags wrap around your content? I don’t think so.

The capabilities of the CMS you’re using are very important and something the designer should be aware off, that’s why it’s not included in my list of things to ignore.

November 10th, 2009 at 10:41 amMubashar Iqbal

@Kim: That’s my point I guess, if you have to hack something to get it work, that’s something you should worry about later. When you’re designing worry about what’s best for the design.

You can always make revisions to your design, I’ve never seen a design finished in one sitting anyway.

November 10th, 2009 at 10:49 amMubashar Iqbal

@cedric: Thanks for the great comment, and I don’t know why people are so harsh!

With regards to the bandwidth item, you are correct there are other factors during the process that will drive what you should do with bandwidth.

Often the graphics used in the design will be the last factor that determines how fast a website loads.

The speed of the server, the connectivity at the server location, the load level on the server will all have a larger impact on how fast the website loads. All important items to consider, but probably not while you’re designing.

November 10th, 2009 at 10:57 amMubashar Iqbal

@evan: Yes the bandwidth issue is a tricky one, sorry you’re still stuck on dial up. I wish things where different, and everyone had a high speed connection.

However, if the design calls for a 2000×4000 HD background (and I can’t think of too many instances that it would), then the designer should use it, sorry if that affects your experience

If something like that really is necessary there are other techniques for improving the performance, or making the experience better for users on lower bandwidth.

November 10th, 2009 at 12:32 pmStone Deft

@muashar well ok I’ll have to agree with you, I think most of the people who don’t agree with this article are people who do both the front end and backend aspects of a web project, meaning the ones who also do the coding for their designs.

If designers were to take your advice, then work will be a lot easier, faster and well focused on the task itself.

Let the developer worry about htm/css and other stuff, it’s out of your league.

November 10th, 2009 at 9:16 pmMubashar Iqbal

@stone deft: I’m not quite sure you’re being serious in agreeing with me

Remember I’ve never said a designer shouldn’t know HTML/CSS, just that they shouldn’t let that knowledge affect the designs they create.

November 11th, 2009 at 12:05 amStone Deft

@ Mubashar really hahaha lol, oh well I’m out of here, let me just browse through your latest site inspirations and… uhmmm come to think of it, your site features a lot of latest and hottest trends and it’s very ironic this article is posted here advising the reader to ignore trends.

Now I’m not saying I don’t agree with it, it’s just ironic it’s been posted here.

Keep the inspirations coming and you look great ! I mean it !

November 11th, 2009 at 12:19 amMubashar Iqbal

How can you ignore a trend if you don’t know what it is

November 11th, 2009 at 2:13 pmJames Lin

Everyone, we have to define the roles of web designer and web developer. I think most of the people complaining here is because they think web designer is doing everything – from wireframes, to photoshop designs, to coding… but in this article it’s just referring to the person making Photoshop designs… in which case I agree and that they shouldn’t worry too much about what’s possible to do… or at least what they think is possible to do (assuming their skills in html/css isn’t as good as the front end developers).

The article is correct in that they should worry about having a great design… and let the front end developer worry about implementing it. Now if you consider a web designer someone who does everything (photoshop mockups, coding, etc) then that person should worry about many of things mentioned in the article like site loading speeds, SEO, etc.

November 12th, 2009 at 10:07 amMubashar Iqbal

@james: Thanks for the comment.

Yes the assumption is that web designers should code their own designs, which I’m not even sure I agree with, but it is the reality we are in at the moment. One day perhaps people will be able to focus on their strengths instead of having to do it all.

November 13th, 2009 at 9:51 amJROCHON

Mubashar, thank you for this article. I am part of a team of designers that are responsible for both design and HTML/CSS. We have a very developer-centric environment I do feel that our designs often are diluted because of this type of thinking. The fact that you are getting such a backlash only proves how much this message needs to heard.

November 18th, 2009 at 10:50 amGareth Ablett

An interesting read but from one point of view I feel this could of been retitled as ‘5 Ways to Keep designers happy and Developers unhappy’, don’t get me wrong as a developer I like challenges of getting designs into working sites but sometimes it would make life easier if there was a small consideration for some of these 5 elements.

November 18th, 2009 at 11:11 amal

I was outraged first but I think you’re right.

As a designer who develops her own pages a while back I found myself designing everything while constantly worrying on how I was gonna code it. I would take out ideas that I liked and thought creative cause I thought it might be too difficult to implement. As a result all my designs were pretty “squared” and similar to each other.

Then, I read an article on the design process of a website (I think it was Carsonified) were they said they designed the early mockups as (paraphrasing) “designing a poster”. It was like a light bulb went up in my head. I still think about the coding aspect because I work by myself but I definitely think its a good idea to work freely and think big during the early design process and edit yourself later.

BTW, kudos on expressing your opinion knowing it was gonna enraged a big group of the designing community, heh.

November 18th, 2009 at 11:37 amHeather Feimster

First, kudos @Mubashar for taking the time to listen to your readers and respond.

I’d like to add that I think your points are valid, but the extent to which you ignore certain things when designing depends on the project and your client.

I’m working on a client whom I’ve given a low project fee for a simple site. However, if I designed just to design and ignored the HTML/CSS capabilities of implementing it, then I would waste my time twice – the initial development of a design not suitable for implementation and again when I have to go back to fix it.

Overall, it is good for us designers to stay focused on our main “job”, but being cognizant of how our work enables others to do their jobs is part of what separates a good designer from a great one.

November 18th, 2009 at 12:48 pmMubashar Iqbal

@JROCHON: Thanks for sharing your experience. I’m sure that in most cases people are not doing it intentionally even, but it seeps into the work, just trying to break the chains!

@Gareth: You are right, **BUT** as a developer you shouldn’t just be handed a design and be expected to build it. There should be a feedback process where you can give feedback and have the designer make adjustments if necessary. My point here is that that the designer should reply on the other team members (aka you as the developer) to help decide what is best, instead of doing it themselves.

@Heather: I agree with the time issue about going back and having to redo things, but the question then comes back to how do you know what is possible or not. You can self edit your designs based on what you think is possible, or you can talk to the developer if you think you’re doing something out in left field.

November 30th, 2009 at 12:55 amJuan Manuel

Well I honestly LOVED this post. Lots of times I have this discussion with some of my friends. Sometimes it just looks like people isn’t really “designing” anymore (being creative, no matter the restrictions).

November 30th, 2009 at 8:15 amMubashar Iqbal

@al and @jaun: Thanks for the comments.

I’m not surprised by the reaction to the post, designers knowledge/being able to code in HTML/CSS has been something of a holy war topic in the world of Web Design.

In the past I probably would have come down on the other side of things, but the improvements in HTML, CSS and Javascript over the past few years make so that just about any design can be coded. This makes is less important to FULLY understand what is technically possible.

This should free the designer to do what is best for the user and client needs, but often they are still shackled by their technical knowledge.