Excellent article. My distinction is always between website design and website construction. Design is user facing: construction is computer facing.

so…what books on web design (vs. web development) do you recommend?

“What they also don’t tell you is that there is absolutely no correlation between table-less layouts and creating a successful design that people are happy to use.”

That’s a straw man argument and you know it. Web developers know that user happiness is not related to how pages are built. Accessibility and what Dan C’s called “bulletproof” methods are, however, very important.

Of course, most traditional design books also aren’t about “user happiness,” but about boring stuff like messaging, branding, layout, clarity, or type. Muller-Brockman might just be considered “design production” by your definition.

It’s about time someone said this. Design and develeopment are two different elements of the production process. And I am tired of people riding thier high css horses and preaching this xhtml-fully compliant doctrine every chance they get.

IT IS TIRED!

They do this because deep down, they cannot truly design. So they creat this haze of design, which really is as you say publishing technology masquerading as…you guessed it…design.

Matt, “Don’t Make Me Think : A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability (2nd Edition)” is worth a read at a somewhat introductory level. I’m not aware of any design books that focus on the web as a medium. I always enjoy watching the Alan Kay videos on UI design: http://webcast.berkeley.edu/courses/archive.php?seriesid=1906978270

Why is there a bias toward development versus design? I think design is an intuitive skill that is based on personal experience as much as anything else. There are books on how to paint, few on how to be a good artist.

Evan, I’m not arguing that accessibility and solid publishing aren’t important. But if you look at a web design section of a bookstore, you would think that’s all there is to design…and that’s not right.

And saying that code needs to be semantically correct is like saying that we need to speak in full sentences using proper English grammar…just a silly notion.

Great article Josh … thanx!
As for book recommendations here are a few:
Site Seeing – Luke Wroblewski
Designing Interactions – Jennifer Tidwell

But more importantly with these, is just general Interaction Design and Information Architecture Books:
Interactions by Design: Dan Saffer
Information Architecture for the WWW: Rosenfeld & Morville
Elements of User Experience: JJ Garrett

Notice that none of the books I mentioned have the word WEB in it. Why? b/c what ya need for software and web and devices are really really similar. if you make the distinction you are not getting to the bigger picture of design which is beyond specific technologies.

It is important to understand the technologies of your canvas like a good graphic designer will understand the limitations of paper, ink, bindings, etc.

If you are especially interested in Design Web Applications using AJAX and other RIA technologies, I’m teaching at UIE’s UI11 with Bill Scott (AJAX Evangelist at Yahoo) this October. It will be a course on DESIGN first with technology 2nd.

I do think the distinction between working “for” the computer vs. working “for” the user is a good one. I do think though that a good designer has MORE than just the user in mind. They have the business, the environment, ethics, and well THEMSELVES. Yes, ego is an amazing driver for good design and shouldn’t be ignored. I think sometimes we take this UCD thing too far.

– dave

Good article, I am always disappointed when I pick up a so called web design book to find it contains the same old information. However there can be what I would deem as crossover books and one that springs to mind is the CSS Zen Garden Book. Ok it has a lot about css but it also goes into colour choice, fonts etc. I tend to guy Graphic Design books for general design tips.

Hey, thanks for the recommendations, Dave. Interesting point about ego driving good design…I would like to hear more about that.

BTW: You never followed up on our last conversation…

Josh, I would go as far as to say that designers should ignore implementation limitations, at least to begin with. You said “I design interfaces differently knowing what I know about how to make them display well in browsers.”

I would argue that you get a lot more innovation by throwing out the rule book and building flows/constructs that soley address the user’s needs, document that and -then- utilise the resources available (technology, skills, talent) to meet those goals.

I have to admit I only do design and have others implement. From time to time I write up what I call a ‘kitchen sink document’, I throw everything I can dream of in to a spec with no regard for what the vendor is capable of, more often than not I get back exactly what I want for the user.

BTW, although I appreciate the shout-out, my book is called Designing for Interaction, not Interactions by Design. Maybe that’s book number 2.

Design, as well as art, is about working with the medium. In the case of the web the medium involves a browser and its limitations and possibilities. It seems you are looking at the limitations only, as there are great possibilities with starting with the structure of information. If you look at CSS Zen Garden, you are looking at one of the best examples of design on the web, it is using standard structured information and letting designers who understand their craft well design the content to the best of their capabilities.

I would argue very strongly that much of the limitation in web design is having learned the mess of table based layout first, which has horrible limitations and drastically limits the use and reuse of the information within the pages.

Learning the properties of various papers and inks is insanely hard as were the changes made when the printing press moved to color separation and no longer involved a press. The same arguments were portrayed then. The newer technology did not allow for the control for design and required more work. These are the arguments today, but with web design we are dealing with poor browsers as well as the design expectation that everything should be perfect in every browser (it is not and may not be for a very long time).

All of this is learning the materials, upon and with which we design. Learning the materials part of the craft is the reason why there are so many books. The constraints of table layouts are broken and provide more opportunities for a much broader array of design and design that is malleable based on how the person using the site wants it.

Well structured information can be scraped and used/mashed-up as needed. Many web sites are designed to constrain the use of the information and the people wanting and needing the information are not permitted to use the information easily.

Today using standards based markup is part of learning the craft of web design. It is the hard part. I have worked with many designers to shift their focus from table-based layout and move their workflow to a more standards-based approach. Nearly every single one of them says they will never go back to table layouts as it is too much hard work to iterate and it lacks the control and flexibility they need to have the information work as the people wanting the information desire and need.

Tables do how ever work very well for tabular data and those who approach tabular data without tables are breaking what is good with tables, the structure of the information.

“Today using standards based markup is part of learning the craft of web design. It is the hard part.”

My point exactly! It shouldn’t be this way!

Imagine if a writer had to know about printing presses in order to write a book.

Imagine if an Information Architect had to know about floating divs in order to create helpful navigation menus.

Imagine if an actor had to know about cable TV in order to get a part.

Imagine if an ethnographer had to know how to use CSS before they could do user research.

Imagine if Picasso had to know how to mix powders into paint before he could make a picture.

All these things designers can learn. My point isn’t that they shouldn’t, it’s that they shouldn’t have to spend an inordinate amount of time doing so to get their job done.

And the books out there…that’s all they’re about…almost every one of them.

This article tell me that I’m not the only one in the world have this kind of quetion. My job is focus on users’ need and try to make products to meet their need.When I come up with some ideas,I write them down or draw some pictures (not very professional) to show how the web work ,then I take them to discuss with others such as engineers, UI engineers,and editors. I often aksed myself:what role I play in the whole process? I am not coding at all. Could I should also be an web developer? If this is ture it means I will got fired anytime….

Josh, your argument does not hold water. Content and design are separate. Every single item you used as an example was a poor syllogism. A writer does not need to know how to run a printing press to publish a book, but the printer sure does and those that design the books have to know their tools (Quark, LaTeX, InDesign, etc.). We hear these people complaining about their tools changing, but they know they have to learn their tools.

Every single example you gave just made your argument look weaker. An actor does not need to know about cable, but when you look at the long list of credits after a show you see a lot of people that learned the details of their craft (lighting, chromakey, editing with all of its technical requirements).

If you want to publish on the web you do not need one lick of CSS, if you want to design on the web, that is that standard.

I do agree that things are harder than they need to be and their are many fractors that have lead to this, but they are all getting better. When we were boxed into a corner with tables for layouts (no pun intended), CSS gave web designers freedom. The tools, like Dreamweaver are improving with each iteration. The browser are becoming more standardized, but that takes time.

At this point and time if you are a web designer it means understanding the craft and the tools for the medium. When I look at the money and time saved when redesigning or iterating a site in CSS compared to having to do major work when using tables and wanting to do the same thing, we can do so much more by learning the craft.

Josh, the viable arguments for not using CSS layout usually have to do with supporting older browsers (like Netscape 4 or IE 5.0), but nearly most sites do not have traffic for these above .02 percent, which can be a large number of people, depending on the population size.

I agree there is a need for pure web design books, but talking to the book publishers they do not sell all that well. The one cross-over book on Zen Garden that is a how-to as well as a design practice book. Adding to Dave’s recommendations I would throw in the “The Design of Sites: Patterns, Principles, and Processes for Crafting a Customer-Centered Web Experience”. I have picked up the “Education of an E-Designer” by Steven Heller, which I have not read or even flipped through, but I have enjoyed his other design education books.

Ok, I see where the divide is.

I believe that content is essential to design!

That, without content, your design is nothing. That it cannot help users do what they need to do, that it can’t help solve their problems, that, simply put, it can’t be used.

In the same way we can’t talk about design without talking about the people who use it.

And to your point that CSS is the standard for designers…I know IA’s, usability folks, writers, editors, UX specialists, and other people who consider themselves designers but don’t need to know CSS for their job. What about them?

I think that the overlap we see, that designers often know HTML and CSS, actually obscures what it is that designers do. They solve people’s problems, with or without knowing the intricacies of publishing.

It a little hard for me who is living in China to follow you guys’ last conversation….
Too many comments here! Before I finish one,some new one pops up.
Anyone here can tell what you are talking about now? Just in one sentence?
……

I think we can nail much of the problem on CSS layout and much of the rest of CSS is relatively easy. The ability to do CSS layout, or box model design, came about with IE 5.5 for Windows and IE 5 for Mac. This was in 2000 that it was released. Since then IE has not changed greatly, but is making some much needed steps forward soon with IE 7. The rest of the browsers are much closer to meeting the full W3C specifications. Many of the problems come from the variations in implementing CSS 2 by the various browsers and the long lag with adoption of new browsers.

Personally I do not see XHTML being difficult at all to learn. Doing proper mark-up is relatively simple as there are only a handful or so elements and attributes (there are some advanced XHTML elements that can be done with XRI for identification and other descriptive measures, but those are not in common use yet). The only difficult part is with XHTML is understanding the semantics of content, which is about 80 to 90 percent of getting search engine optimization right. This can be learned in a couple hours, with good instruction or a couple days good book.

That said, web design is very broad as an overall field. The people who absolutely must get CSS design are those building the final production implementation of a site. But, having a good strong understanding of CSS will help most everybody else in the design workflow. It all depends on the size of the design team working on a project too. I know some organization where most of the production implementation of the design is done by people on the engineering teams (CSS, JavaScript/DOMScript/Ajax, XHTML) who produce from the precise design specifications. Other places the IAs work work on wireframes in XHTML and CSS for layout, which is the usually makes it into production.

How much CSS is needed to learn and know really depends on what role a person plays in the design process and the organization they work in. In smaller organization that are building and designing sites it is going to be rather important to have a good understanding of CSS. I know many places that do their initial CSS design in the most current versions of Firefox or Safari (they use the same browser through the whole design team) and they bring in a CSS consultant for a day or so to prepare for production to provide the cross-browser compatibility (where the real pain resides).

One of the toughest things about learning CSS layout is unlearning table layout methods. Those that have never learned table layout find CSS layout relatively easy to pick-up. Those that have started with CSS layout think in fluid and malleable grids and work through float and absolute characteristics easily. There are a few approaches that help people understand and get the frameworks needed for understanding, which is why there seem to be so many books.

Another thing that helps learning is keeping layout skills fresh. The people who understand it are ones who are doing it constantly or have done it constantly for a stretch. It is also best to learn it when you don’t have the pressure of a deadline. I know many people that keep a handful of prebuilt layouts they have done or they have picked of from others in a directory on their hard drive and play with those once a week or so for an hour or two. Some of the more complex layouts that approach the grids used in the Onion redesign have been done incrementally in people’s spare time.

Having a repository of CSS layout frames sitting around is also a good idea. When doing design it is also best to keep the layout framework parts of CSS separate from the visual design. It keeps things cleaner and easier to tweak.

Thomas, I agree completely with everything you said, except for the part about working through float and absolute characteristics easily. Perhaps, as you say, I think this way because I started with tables, but I cannot help but think that one of the reasons why *so many* books are sold on the subject is because it is not easy at all.

But for the rest of it I agree, and I think that your middle of the road approach is the right one: design is all these things. But again, looking at the books in Barnes and Noble you would never know it.

I personally think you’re making much ado over poor labeling at a bookstore. For instance, I imagine my books end up in Web design, but that’s not what they are. They never were. They’ve always been about explaining the technology so that actual designers can do what they do.

As for the whole bit about designers needing to know the technology or not, I personally think they should at least grasp the fundamentals. The analogies flying around are like a parade of straw men. You argue, Josh, that a web designer having to know markup and CSS is like an author having to understand printing, but then argue that content and design are inextricably linked– which would imply that an author should have to understand typography and print design in order to produce a book. Neither is true, of course.

Personally, I don’t think content producers have to be designers, or vice versa, any more than actors have to be camera operators or authors have to be printers. And yes, I think IAs and UX specialists, among others, should understand at least the basics of web technology. I don’t demand that they be able to hand-author any page they see, but they should know the nature of the medium in which they’re working. After all, as a technology guy, I’m expected to know something about IA and UX, if only to be able to converse with people who are experts in that area. Why should that street only run in one direction?

“Imagine if a writer had to know about printing presses in order to write a book.”
Writer may have not to understand that.
but,how about some other exmaples:
A college student majoring in mathematics have to take many advanced math courses.A college student majoring in physics also have to read books on math too.
Usually, physicists may have less mathematic knowledges than mathematicians.But,it’s also proved that better mathematic craft for physicists can lead better success on physics.
So it seems that there’s no reason for students majoring in physics to complain too much mathematic homework to do. However,if no book in school library were about physics but mathematic,there’s something must be wrong….

Eric, I think content producers are designers…not visual designers but content designers. Why there is always a divide between the word design and the word content I don’t know. After all, the interface and graphics themselves are content too, right? So we already know that designers make content…

My guess is that we continue fall into the trap of thinking that designers have to be Photoshoppers and coders. However, if design is solving problems for people, as I initially state in this piece, then the publishing role is downstream from where most of the design is. Design is deciding what’s on the screen, and most of what’s on the screen is content.

To get back to the writer analogy, a writer designs a narrative…they create a story and put it into sentences and paragraphs. That, much more than typography or book design, affects the experience of the reader. (that’s why many different editions of books can be sold over time…the publishing part really doesn’t change the experience all that much – it’s still The Tale of Two Cities)

However, in a two way medium the street does need to run both ways, You’re right there. But you’re talking about grasping the notion, not understanding the details. My point, which you seem to agree with, is that book publishers and book stores tend to get this wrong…they equate design with publishing.

Is this making too much of it? Perhaps, but I’m interested in helping designers make better designs.

So while I admit my analogies fail to convey this, I don’t believe they are straw-men, because they hinge on a different idea of what a designer does. Designers are not always interface designers, they are not always graphic designers. They are not always coders. Some actually design content, by writing it.

Creating is not exactly designing. I didnt design this response, you didnt design the original article. Sorry to get petty over a definition (said the midly dyslexic engineer to the talented blogger)

To me, creating is something artistic that can be taken in, enjoyed and discussed. Such as a painting, it is content but generally non-functional. The act of designing is something that can have artistic trait but which produces and object which has a functional aspect, that has a purpose. In our context I would say design is the means towards the end, which is presenting content. You’re blurring the lines and causing a little confusion.

Give us a specific example of how content is designed, and I’ll eat my designer hat in a creative manner.

de·sign Pronunciation (d-zn)
v. de·signed, de·sign·ing, de·signs
v.tr.
1.
a. To conceive or fashion in the mind; invent: design a good excuse for not attending the conference.
b. To formulate a plan for; devise: designed a marketing strategy for the new product.
2. To plan out in systematic, usually graphic form: design a building; design a computer program.
3. To create or contrive for a particular purpose or effect: a game designed to appeal to all ages.
4. To have as a goal or purpose; intend.
5. To create or execute in an artistic or highly skilled manner.
v.intr.
1. To make or execute plans.
2. To have a goal or purpose in mind.
3. To create designs.

fyi

cre·ate Pronunciation (kr-t)
tr.v. cre·at·ed, cre·at·ing, cre·ates
1. To cause to exist; bring into being. See Synonyms at found1.
2. To give rise to; produce: That remark created a stir.
3. To invest with an office or title; appoint.
4. To produce through artistic or imaginative effort: create a poem; create a role.
adj. Archaic
Created.

Forgive me Josh but this statement “Design is deciding what’s on the screen, and most of what’s on the screen is content.” needs to be taken out back and shot with sevaral blunt instruments.

Design is the process of deciding how to present the content on the screen.

“Give us a specific example of how content is designed, and I’ll eat my designer hat in a creative manner.”

A great example of this is Netflix’s register page. This is content designed specifically for the context at hand…somebody mulling over whether or not to register. It might be helpful in other contexts, but really nails the needs of people at this stage specifically.

Now, you could argue that this was written by a “content creator” and not a designer, but we really don’t know, do we? Even if we did, I don’t think that matters. It could also have been written by the designer after thinking about the communication problem at hand.

The point is that it doesn’t matter who wrote it, because it is *designed* to get people to sign up for the service.

And, as I mentioned, it’s all about deciding what content is on the screen *and* how best to present it.

To me, content is something that users absorb and take away when the computer is switched off, it is the part of the experience that is transfered. You read a blog or watch a video.. you learn, you laugh, you feel.

You cite something that is effectively an ad, do users generally wake up and say ‘hey I want to enrich my life with some ads today’? I dont think so.

I would argue ads are not true content. Yes the user is evaluating whether to purchase, yes this is an example that will further that goal. In that sense something was designed. Vendors want cash, users want experience through content. Which goals do the netflix registration page fulfill?

Ads are -designed- to look and feel like content. There are many examples of where advertisers go out of their way to fool readers in to thinking they’re looking at content, infomercials is one case. I will grant you that the culture in the US is bombared with advertisements and it can be hard to tell what has true meaning and what is designed to look like information.

Ads are designed, content is created. Designing is not creating. I’m still wearing my hat.

Josh you are absolutely right about designers not needing to know all this junk. We need more dumb designers who will just make things look pretty. If they achieve “star” status they can get paid well, otherwise they can accept substandard wages and be grateful that they can do what they love for a living.

Of course I am kidding, you are mixing up design theory with practice. That’s what this really is all about. In theory a designer could be free of all constraints. You mention design as being problem solving. First what problem does not have constraints. Secondly, design is not always about solving problems. Sometimes it really is about making things attractive (which is a kind of problem, but one that is not so difficult to solve). In fact there are many cases where functionality and applicability to a problem is better in an unattractive form.

But to work with design as problem solving, In practice a designer must understand as much of the constraints to create great design as possible. This includes understanding your clients, the audience/users, the implementers needs and anyone else who may be involved in the use of the final design. This includes budget, technology, physical and even personalities and emotional constraints.

Back when I was in design school (one where we were told to focus on the theory, and many students griped that it lacked practicality), we would often come up with beautiful designs only to have them look like crap because we did not understand the constraints that they would be rendered under.

Rarely is the case where there is a need for someone who only does the “designing”. Most places value people who can handle multiple roles. I think the great designers are the ones who understand and are adept at both design theory and practice. Someday when you have paid your dues slogging through the practicality of design you can become a “designer” only and not deal with these details. If that is what you desire.

To throw out another useless analogy for comparison there is the fashion apparel industry. Some people have innate design talent, but they still start as a seamstress or assistant somewhere. They have to understand the medium and materials. This is true in all fields where there is a need for design.

If you are wealthy you can cut straight to the “designer” role, but be prepared to pay the price to learn why your designs don’t work. You will also have to be very good otherwise people will not respect you or your work. Either way, if you have real design talent, you will get to that point where you want to be as a designer.

As a web designer, that will involve coming to terms with these hard to learn and difficult to grasp techniques/technologies. You don’t have to be an expert CSS/XHTML developer, but you have to know enough to see that your design is not compromised by lack of knowledge either on your part or the person you work with or hire to do the work you don’t want to do.

Interface is content. The story you can tell on the web is different than the story you can tell on radio or in the newspaper. Therefore, interface design is content too.

There would seem to be no strict definition of what makes content in the web. I was drawing on the traditional mediums. We should not forget that although old media has its limitations when compared to the interactive web, some standards and conventions have meaning and use beyond those restrictions.

So, while not disagreeing that you can say -anything- on the screen is content. Or at least, the interactivity of the menu, the Interface is content, why would you? What is the purpose of such a general catch all term? I may have missunderstood you but its seems to me like a slippery slope towards saying the monitor power button enables content.

While this is getting off topic I just want to reitterate. I beleive content is the part expressed by the content provider and then taken away by the viewer/reader/user. Whether an image or a news article, a blog post or reply. Content is the part our mind interacts with. Not cognitive interaction. The content on news.bbc.co.uk will be different tomorrow, the interface will not. Are you suggesting the two come under the same label?

Think about it… what is the Interface interfacing? the User and Content. So why put them under the same label. I see why someone would arrive at that, but I personally dont agree its useful, I feel you’ve extraploated the term out too far.

Furthermore, I exclude ads from the label of content because users do not set out to interface with them. They are a seperate component of the interface, a necessary one but not something that falls under user requirements or goals. Are the ads that frame the nightly news content? Is the lead in flashy graphics content? Its like saying Edward R. Murrow is content. Yes people switched on to watch him, but he was the interface to the content. People may have valued the interface over the content, but they werent the same thing.

Yes the web is different but there are striking parallels and a LOT of value in using the same terminology

[rant /off] (o;

Ray, from your blog “Monday, March 14, 2005
Content of New Media is Old Media

I’ve always been attracted to McLuhan’s concept that “the content of new media is old media.”

Can you resolve that with your statement here “Interface is content.”

Btw, I’m not trying to catch you out (o; I wont pretend to have any education in this area, just very interested and would like to understand more, thanks

Excellent!

Whew, indeed, it’s about time someone actually wrote this in any sort of a published piece!!

While I’ve been saying it personally for years, job listings continue to list designer as being someone who’s fluent in not only html and css but they love to add in there xml, php, ajax (if they’ve heard it mentioned somewhere), cgi, etc.

Only in my first Web [design] job, way back in 1998 was I deigned the luxury of working with a development team to translate designs. Now it’s all up to me, and frankly, I’m really sick of it, judging that about 75% of my tasks each day are fixing folks’ code they get from, say, Word, guessing, et al.

A little bit true, now, is that I do understand some of what you can and are less able to present, though, after vast experimentation, I find that most IS able to happen, with more and less success across browsers, +/- useability, download times, etc, to any design you might want to implement.

I think that the design+development corner has been turned by every place, and that there’s no going back. Design, always a last-minute thought for content developers, are now throwing in even more stress-inducement for designers, requiring the most difficult part, development, to be the “designer” task as well. In my experience anyway…. My title shouldn’t even be design, it’s more like content-”code”-repairman, most frequently anyway. Until they want something really “Flashy,” that is … but don’t even get me started on Flash!

楼主说的确实对我很有用,多谢了!@_@~~

I am very glad you bring this topic up. I am a Desinger who does web design and also some print design. Lately I have been wondering about where to draw the line when it comes to writing the code. I write my own HTML and CSS but lately there seems to be a demad of doing some JSP from me as well. I mean, I alot more time to do the technical part then the Design. We work in deadline driven environment and it is very hard to get both going at a good pace.

Recently I was looking at the resume for a Web Desinger and I noticed that there is lot more emphasis on techology than on the actual design skills. I mean come on you want us to do design and part of back end promgramming. It’s not like the pay has gone up that much either. Basically you are required to know Photoshop, Illustrator, Dreamweaver, Flash, Go Live, HTML, Xhtml, CSS, PHP, DHTML, Javascript, Ajax and be an exceptional designer and get paid $25.00/hr.

So that brings back to my question, where do you draw the line? I have on many occasion thought about going technical and learch some languages, but my passion is design and I keep coming back to it.

Interesting

I’m hardly a coding purist as I do everything in Frontpage’s WYSIWYG formatting. Anyone reading those books on design at B&N won’t have bloated code, and can score points for accessibility, but I haven’t seen any sites not getting indexed despite sloppy coding. My coding is the equivalent of using duct tape to hold a car together, but it serves its purpose. In the end, a lot of clients aren’t going to be concerned with everything those books teach. If the site is attractive, if it loads relatively fast and still ranks well, then perfect.

I think these blog is really useful for new comers and Excellent resource list.

I’ve always considered “web design books” to be useless. I use Frontpage, and my code may be bloated and awful looking, but it doesn’t effect page function or SEO so I’ll stick to what I know (tables galore). Every time I go into Barnes and Nobles I look at their web design section, and most of what I see doesn’t seem helpful. If you use Frontpage as a WYSIWYG program, you don’t really need to have an in depth knowledge of coding unless you’re trying to pull something complicated off. I remember studying books on Photoshop and Frontpage for months, and learning more in a few weeks of working at a firm than I had trying to educate myself with literature. A book isn’t going to teach you how to develop an aesthetically pleasing site, I think it boils down to working with others, learning what’s effective, and then developing your own ideas from there.

I know exactly what you mean. I have shown up for three jobs in the past to be a web designer and then been told that what I would be doing is coding the pages and the graphic designer would be designing the pages. Not that I can’t write code, but when I see the words web designer, I think of the design not the coding…for that I look for “web coder” or something like that. Although I have to disagree about the books. Don’t you find that your style and what you understand differs remarkably from some of the other people around you? I know that my style of learning just doesn’t fit in with Eric Meyer and I need someone else to teach me with book smarts how to do things. Not that he isn’t good. He’s excellent, but I’m a different kind of learner. Where do you find books when you go to Barnes and Noble? I usually end up in the Graphic Design section and it makes me feel a little weird because I’m a web designer. Do you think it is even possible at this point to make the transition to having people understand the difference? Or are we simply stuck as we are? Lumped in with coders under one name?

There was one time when webdesign was easy …
You did the creation in Photoshop or Illustrator and click export as html ….
Then in Dreamweaver you just had to center the whole design or best put in a table with an austostretching colum for some semi-liquid design ….
If you didn’t need to be so graphic and weren’t disturbed by a fixed design in a world of bigger and bigger screens, you could also design with layers directly in Dreamweaver …
Then came the headache of the CSS layout (for the purely graphic oriented mind we mean) and all this hacks esoterica requiring books and more books to explain how to eventually get this middle-of-the-road look that most standard compliant sites share together …
So what id needed is now that Adobe is owning both Photoshop and Dreamweaver, that they come again with a conversion tool that takes your design in Photoshop and convert it into the equivalent CSS box model, with a couple of radio buttons to check :
- Do you want a fixed layout with layers (only current option of Adobe CS2) or liquid or semi-liquid ?
- Do you want this column to stretch ?
- Do you want the content to adjust or to overlap in case the size of the text is increased by the browser ?
- Should this background be printed too and if not what colour would you like to have for the text in the automatically generated CSS print style sheet ?
- and so on …

Or as well in Dreamweaver make it as easy to generate the “float design” you want, as it was for tables with the deprecated “advanced layout mode”, or as it is easy to get a fixed compliant layout with the absolute positionning of the “layers” (simply drawing squares on your screen, yes siree) …

Then all those books won’t be necessary anymore …
Like, at one point Dave Siegel had to spend time explaining the use of the non-breaking space or the transparent gif etc … which seemed at the time a total aberration for the designer coming from the print and was quite a headache to implement, until the first version of DW and Image Ready came and make this invisible for the designer … By the way did you notice, that even in its latest versions, Dreamweaver is still using those same spacer.gif and nbsp; in the code it creates ..??     I mean Dreamweaver, Adobe, the ones shaping the future of the web in many ways …

The “good” thing is that the law of computers is such that when one difficult thing becomes easy, two that were impossible to do become very difficult to perform …
So, those book writers won’t be on the dole either and the pure designers will be happy – for some times…

So please Adobe make a move (maybe it is done already with CS3, but we didn’t hear the news so far …)

This isn’t the first time I’ve heard an IA/usability type poo poo other web disciplines. I’m curious why that is.

If this is the true essence of Web Design, how can we educate most web designers and/or graphics designers about this? Indeed, things shouldn’t be accomplished in the technical ways most of the time. You see, most web designers nowadays are required to be masters of CSS, HTML, and all. In fact most web designing jobs require the expertise on these applications. If true web design isn’t about these applications, why is it then that these are the primary requirement job-wise?