Developers and designers: how to Swords?

There are contradictions between programmers and designers as long as they involve visual programming. When it comes to some program development issues, the two sides disagree, although we all know that two team members are important when creating a valid application. Designers are frustrated when they see the original design version and the final version, while the programmer complains that it is a designer design problem (a bit nitpicking)!

Many conflicts stem from a lack of understanding between the two, which is why designers/programmers disagree. For the peace between the two, this article sums up some lessons, as designers/programmers may wish to learn, the enemy can be victorious.

The designer said: We don't mean to embarrass

We are not trying to do a good job.

Designers need to maintain the reputation of the developers, in your opinion we prefer the form function, but this is not the case. Designers try to make the most suitable features so that they can be used.

More and more designers are starting to focus on user experience (user-experience) rather than graphic design. Understand user requirements before designing this is important to designers. Sometimes we try to add some pretty graphics and we want users to have a better user experience.

Programmers say: We don't want to be embarrassed

When we write code, the completion project is only part of it, the application changes over time, and what we need to do is make sure that these changes are easily changed. We need to write code to test the automated test framework. When a programmer requests to modify a product from a designer, whether it is HTML format, file naming, or directory structure, everything is done to ensure that the product will be more flexible in future testing.

Don't worry, we won't ask for too much flexibility. Creating flexibility is very precious, and we understand the "YAGNI" design that is enough (this principle is simply to consider and design the necessary functionality to avoid excessive design). We try to avoid this situation.

Designer says: Form problem affects function

form does not follow the function, the form can give the feature. Programmers can design features that make it easy for you to get what you need. If we want users to click on a button or perform an action, the graphics and layout will help the user to know or to guess how to get the results they want.

Experience has taught us to design a particular approach that is especially useful for online applications. Even simple designs include buttons, forms, or photo options, and when making a choice we use a sensible decision method. By positioning, color, and visual display you can tell the designer that someone is participating in the interaction, but only if you need to create an interactive environment.

For example, the world's leading brand navigation, pictured below, is a screenshot of Porsche's layered navigation. Simple, good structure design features can make users have a pleasant feeling!

Programmer says: Naming matters

When we build an application there are many different components that need to be followed up. In addition to Web pages, graphics, source code files, database lists, columns, there are many other components that need to be managed. and consistent naming is our first priority.

When a designer drags files in a file system GUI, it may not be possible to distinguish between the two if the file is named Submitbutton.gif or Submit-button.gif. We use standard naming for almost everything from database fields to file names to CSS classes. This means that coding departments have standards or they follow unwritten rules, and consistent naming makes work easier.

We aim to make naming more descriptive and predictable. A similar named item is clearly an important part of a name. For example, the name submit1.gif and submit2.gif do not need to explain the differences between the two pictures, but Submit-green.gif and submit-red.gif are different.

The designer says: Rules help us understand

We can learn the rules, but it just helps us understand. We can follow the rules or not follow them. Developers sometimes talk to us about programming languages, but we don't understand them, just as designers are sometimes talking about development that you can't understand. Once designers and developers understand, the biggest beneficiaries are the users.

The above mentioned examples of using file naming, just to tell us what standards should be followed. I can assure you that if we know that this is the right way, we will name it in some sort of way or in lowercase letters, and we would be happy to do so.

Designers do not resist in nature, because in most cases they like programmers very much. We like to do what we want to do, and no one tells us what to do, we belong to the optimist.

Designers know that there is no need to follow rules and ideas when they are trained, but this is not to say that developers are being embarrassed. Once a designer has followed the rules, she can put innovation above the rules without making it harder to function. They will argue about whether the picture can be used properly.

Once we have a platform or framework such as WordPress, we can design in a known place where the design is more meaningful (background images, patterns, colors), where the design is meaningless (navigation, embedding rare fonts, graphics navigation). Finding a unique or sensible way to solve design problems can give designers a better job performance.

Programmer says: What work on the desktop can't run on the web

Creating a nice Web page is just the beginning of the work. When pushed to the Wen server, this requires that it be rendered in perfect effect.

The distinction between file naming case on the Windows desktop is not important, but when publishing to a Linux Web server, greenbutton.gif and greenbutton.gif are different, and users or programmers or testers will see 404. I prefer to use lowercase filenames, if circumstances allow me to use hyphens to differentiate.

First make sure you access all the links and documents to make sure that the tasks on your desktop work well. This can happen whether the picture on the page is corrupted or if the CSS file is not loaded or the wrong link causes the page to be difficult to run:

You may not notice the browser picture loading time on the desktop, if you use beautiful, full-color pictures as banner, or even occupy the entire half of the page, then the load time is very slow. Many browser plug-ins cause the page to widen, so please use caution.

The designer says: Graphics is just a support mechanism

The designer understands the graphics support mechanism and is not the most important element in the application. Determine whether to use pictures based on your needs, and if your information needs to be decorated and not in the first place, why not?

For "Art", some designers feel that they do the work is the most important, others are secondary. Compared to "designers" they prefer to be called: "Artist". When a designer works with a programmer, she wants to be part of a team, because ultimately it is for the user. The difference is that designers can arrange their own work to focus on the quality of the experience. This is what programmers expect, but the programmer is unable to arrange for itself.

Programmers say: Dry principle, do not repeat yourself.

The biggest factor in system maintenance is the number of repetitions. We don't need to write code to calculate the sales tax for 5 places. To write code in the same place, a function called Calculate_sales_tax () can be used 5 times. If you need to modify the code, you just need to change a function, which can save you time.

In the designer's country CSS is the dry principle the biggest case. Before CSS, the markup shown in HTML is like this:

This is a headline

CSS style:

This is a headline

If you use CSS you should follow the dry principle.

Designers can use dry to help programmers reduce complexity. If you have a picture that needs to be used in two different places, just put it in the same directory and use each page.

The designer said: alignment and spacing are really important.

Alignment and spacing are important. This is the most common problem for strict developers to create alignment and spacing at design time, and of course allows default layouts.

Alignment and spacing are used primarily to make this process more intuitive by ensuring that the end user can easily perform the function. If users can easily find what they want and do it easily, that means you've succeeded; if the opposite is true, you have a lot of work to do on interactive applications.

You can compare the homepage of Yahoo and mailchimp.com or fab.com.

One page is full of content, while the other two are blank and aligned, so users can easily get the information they want. Of course, these two sites are different types of audiences, but you can tell Fab.com and mailchimp.com website design users interested in information.

Programmers say: Learn how to use the version control system

In modern software development, version control systems (VCS) such as git or subversion are essential tools. If both of you are not using, then you are not a qualified programmer. A VCS has two main benefits for designers: change management and historical tracking.

Conclusion：

Of course, designers and programmers learn a lot from each other. No matter which side you are, we want to think about the project. As we have said, neither side wants the other party to suffer. In the project cooperation we all pay attention to the quality problem hope that the project can do better. Both often discuss projects together, and you will find that you learn a lot from each other and your team will become stronger as a result.