Programming aptitude will only continue to grow as a foundational skill for any designers hoping to crack open web design with any sort of seriousness - there will certainly be plenty of designers who find successful collaborations with individuals who are even bigger code gurus and create the visuals for the “mechanics” the programmer is providing.

It’s already a bit staggering to examine what the basic toolbox of a web designer needs to be: HTML, CSS, XHTML, ASP, JScript, etc. and that’s simply scratching the surface. I’d add to that: motivated learner, not easily frustrated by repetitive work, highly detail oriented, exploratory / analytical, and ready to bang their head against code for hours trying to find minute errors.

All of this is still somewhat the beginnings of an even bigger side effect of web development: web design education and its eventual alumni. As the faculty I work with continue to discuss the realities of offering web / multimedia / interactive courses at our school (the next “big thing” in education along the lines of the boom in the late 80’s / early 90’s when schools decided to bring digital design / art into their programs), it’s clear that general programming knowledge / understanding is going to be necessary at the foundations level and then build from there.

Your comment about feeling more like a programmer than a designer when you debug code seems simply like a necessary growing pain - I’m sure there will also come a time when new media designers will simply talk about code issues like print designers toss around kerning issues and bitmapping concerns. It was only so long ago that typographers handled all of the type issues and designers were more concerned with overall page layout along with directing the photography (maybe).

The world keeps turning and our desktop continues to fill up with technologies that put numerous abilities at our fingertips…It only seems we’re running out of fingertips to operate those technologies with!

I guess the bigger hope is that something like the phrase “He / she codes like a designer” will also quickly become a rich compliment rather than a slam in the near future…

Adrian, my story is identical in every way. What I want to put out there is how come a web developer; which I usually refer to, quite rightly, as a “Code Monkey” can earn north of $50, 60, even 70k or more while us lowely Graphic Designers are often expected to do what they can do for much much less.

Yes, yes, we are no dbase developers, but oddly enough, I’ve already been asked to do this. And before that, I clearly remember being offered a contract, that, at the time seemed so easy — until I walked into the meeting with the client on monday morning. The entire site was CSS and div tags. At the end, the Project Manager turns to me and says “…If you think you can do it, that is…”

Oh well. I don’t complain about work. But interesting stories will always be there.

At least this new age is one for the digital pen, agreed all?

Adrian,

You baited us, so you got it: I disagree. To say “…a good web designer is going to have to be a good programmer, too” is like suggesting that a good print designer has to be a virtuoso on a Heidelberg 6-color press.

Certainly, a designer becomes a more well-rounded communicator the more they know about the processes which translate their ideas into reality. But our firm designs for a wide variety of media, and we are not highly-trained pressmen, web coders, sign fabricators, or toy manufacturers. To be valuable, we need to focus our energies on creatively solving the problem at hand, and letting trained professionals translate our solution into reality. At least at Oxide we focus on our strengths — strategic design and visual communication — and let best-of-breed partners handle the commodity end of things.

Great topic. You all raise some interesting points. Since the beginning of the web, I’ve heard print graphic designers whine and complain about understing web programming technology turning them into programmers.

Understanding how to do some coding and markup if one does interaction design is akin to understanding pre-press and print production if one does print.

When I first started my career in the late 80’s, I started out in print. I quickly learned as a junior designer that if I wanted to be able to produce great print work, regardless of how beautiful my comps were, I was going to have to learn about pre-press and printing techniques. Without a good knowledge of pre-press and printing techniques, I would consistently see my beautiful comps result in disappointing printed pieces.

During the mid-90’s, when I decided to pursue interaction design, I quickly learned that if was going to produce great interactive work, I was going to have to learn about programming and web technology. Without that knowledge, I’d forever be dependent on programmers — who do not have design sensibilities — to take on my own responsibilities in designing the interactive experience of the user.

The same way that poor pre-press/printing knowledge would result in disappointing printed pieces, poor knowledge of programming/web technologies would result in disappointing interactive experiences.

Chris Gee

The coding that many of you do is not designing. You may be a designer, and your knowledge may inform your design decisions, but when you are working with code, you become a programmer.

Coding is different from programming just as pre-press is different from operating a printing press. When I did print, I was required to know something of print techniques and technology. What I knew amounted to less than a fraction of what the printing press operators knew.

Similarly, my wife is a programmer. She can write entire applications from the ground up. The coding I can do which can bring minor effects or affect the style of a page/site is a tiny fraction of what she knows as a programmer.

Like any kind of design one may do, you MUST know the medium and the technology used in it in order to do an effective job.

Chris Gee

I should correct myself in saying that XHTML has nothing to do with logic. Being ‘Strict HTML’ of course implies that it must follow a certain syntax/structure, but still this is nothing in comparison to writing an application from the ground up.

I’m a designer, I used to create my own code until I realised not only was I frustrating myself, I was not helping ANYONE move forward in terms of development. I outsource programming now, and honestly I think it makes for a more creative environemnt (collaboration) and the outcome is better sites/applications developed properly which hit the mark creatively as well.

IThat being said, I do like to stay in touch with some knowledge of code etc, so when managing an interactive project I am able to understand what the designer/programmers are on about, rather than them getting pissed off with a project manager/art director who just stares dumbfounded at them when talking “tech”

Congratulations, Adrian, on getting the site to validate! I know how tough it can be, but the site, and the web for that matter, are better for it.

I’m pleased to see so many people in agreement with you. I had given up on discussing this issue with print designers, as it seems only those who truly understand web programming are convinced of its value. Those who don’t don’t even know what they don’t know, and it’s difficult to explain this to them - since they don’t know! Are there any designers who have learned web programming yet later deemed that knowledge unhelpful? I think I hear claws scraping along the walls of the pit of obsolescence.

Programming the presentation of a site (XHTML, CSS, JavaScript) is absolutely design, because you must understand the strengths and limitations of your medium to create your vision on the web just as you would have to understand the strengths and limitations or oil, acrylic, or watercolor, or spot vs. process color.

There are blurred areas of web design where it is a point of diminishing returns to know. While I have learned some PHP, and hope to learn more database stuff and more JavaScript, those technologies are really icing on the cake that help me get by on small projects when I don’t have an engineer available to me. There are realms that the engineers I work with have an expertise in that really require knowledge of the fundamentals of computer science, and would be a waste for me to get too far into (heavy Java, database optimization, web security, and server hardware).

interesting….i enjoyed reading your comments. as for my share, i dont know but when i started learning in a computer school (my major is multimedia and web design) so basically they taught us both how to program and design in the web. either way,i think a designer can also be a good programmer depends also on their interst, it doesnt matter anyway as long you do what you can do and your happy baout it

I like the rainbow/lap remark. I’m going to have to use that one…

Fortunately 99% of my clients use iExplore on WinXP. Unfortunately it’s the most difficult thing to work with, since I do all my development on FireFox with Mac.

For any of you stuck in the trenches of XHTML validation, there’s a great FireFox extension that will check your pages for you without having to bring up the W3 site each time.

http://users.skynet.be/mgueury/mozilla/

Dariusz, Why can’t we have both “Indie” style designers and “Hollywood” style designers? I think both are valid models, and work well for different people. I think it all depends on your personality type.

There are also those directors in the Hollywood arena that do more than just direct. For instance, sometimes Robert Rodriguez writes, directs, edits (in Avid) and scores the movie. He feels comfortable in all of these arenas, so why should he be constrained by the title of “Director”?

What about those designers that print their own work? Should Aesthetic Apparatus stop doing their own printing, because it is not design.

Definitions and titles can be important, as long as they don’t constrain us.

Sure, Spielberg knows his lenses, and supposedly even has a large soundtrack collection. But, I do believe he does not meddle in John Williams territory by correcting the composer’s score notes…

But I’ll bet Spielberg gets to edit his own movies — a rare luxury amongst Hollywood directors.

It’s something most directors fight for because they realize that to allow the studio to have the final cut of the film means they are giving over their creative vision to those who do not have the same creative sensibilities.

It’s the same with interaction design, really. I think that programmers absolutely should be used but not to do the work that lazy, designers with a curiosity deficit should be doing. Programmers — just like any other professionals — should be brought in to do the things a designer can not. To bring things to a project that a designer never could.

Call me crazy but I think the designer should rule the style sheet/layout and define the site’s overall interactivity. Naturally we bring in photographers, programmers, writers, etc. but just like with the movie director analogy, each of those professionals must do their job in concert with MY vision as the designer.

I pull the strings. Steven Spielberg will not tell John Williams what key he should play in or how to conduct but he will certainly tell him his vision for the mood of a scene and have Williams compose and re-compose until Williams’ music conforms to Spielberg’s vision.

The better Spielberg understands music and how it can build tension or manipulate emotion, the more successfully integrated Williams’ music will be with his dramatic visions.

Does this mean Spielberg should become a musician? No. Does this mean Spielberg would be as successful a director if he simply “handed over” his film to John Williams and said “you take care of that music composing stuff?” NO WAY!

It’s no accident that Spielberg has made some of the most effective use of music to build emotion and tension that film has ever seen. “Jaws” and “Raiders of the Lost Ark” come immediately to mind.

It’s the same with designers who design for the web. The more designers think their job has ended once they put together a neat Photoshop layout, the less effective their design solutions will be — whether their work is eventually produced for print or web.

The interactive designer has to understand how each of the various interactive elements will fit into their overall vision. If they don’t have an overall vision, they need to get one rather than push their responsibilities onto non-designer contractors.

.chris{}