Why Designers Are Always Right

OK, so maybe designers aren’t always right, but as a developer I think it’s time to give those guys some credit (beyond the typical ooooh’s and ahhh’s).

Designers have a much closer relationship with users

When one of my co-workers brings up a good usability observation, it’s typically one of the designers. My fellow co-workers are constantly keeping my developer-centric mind on track, and reminding me what the user has to go through when using the site. Whether you want to believe it or not, us developers are really wired differently. Developers often look at the code too closely and forget about the people who will actually be using it.

Design is greater than code (to the user)

Everyone relates to good design

I can’t emphasize this point enough; if something looks good, or is pleasing to the end user, then everyone notices it instantly. Few of us can appreciate the hidden JavaScript behind the designs; some scripts may pre-load extra content in the background and keep it hidden from you until you click a button, but everyone will notice a well-designed element on the page. Again, the point here goes to the designer. Just so you know, our designers (read: “my heroes”) will meticulously adjust a gradient until it gives just the right amount of transition with minimal emphasis. Yeah, that sort of stuff. On the other hand, us developers are busy making sure that the file size of that gradient stays low and that we don’t compress the image too much. If there are compression artifacts, the designers often see it before I do; polish I tell you, polish! Those guys care about every pixel, and that’s a good thing.

Paintings look cooler than circuit boards

Here’s another one of my strange analogies: What I’m really trying to say is that more users care about the superficial aspects of a website, and when you’re trying to impress users with a slick looking facade, the designer is your friend… developers, not so much. We’re good at the circuitry, not the brush strokes and color blending.

Developers say “no” too much

There are three things holding web design back in my opinion:

1. Internet Explorer
2. Slow Internet connections
3. Developers saying “No” to designers

Too often us developers will flinch and say things like, “Well, we could do that, but…” or “Yes, that is possible, but we shouldn’t do it.” Our resident designers are always trying to push the limits, whether it’s layering an absurd number of transparent gradients on each other or using an exotic typeface for every heading and subheading in a design. The fact is that these elements make a web site look amazingly polished and well designed, but too often us developers will opt for solid colors and Times New Roman or Arial instead.

We developers will say “no” because we are afraid. We’re afraid of the load on the server because of an insanely complex database call. We’re worried about the load time of the page because of all those gradients. The reason that some of us are so reluctant is because we’re lazy. There’s nothing more gratifying than writing a small script that does hours of work in mere minutes; us developers love that stuff! We need to say “Sure” or “You betcha!” to our designers more often and then solve the problems that arise later with our little scripts and tools. After all, that’s what we do, right?

Passion drives designers; laziness and efficiency drives developers

OK, maybe us developers aren’t lazy; we’re just efficient, or we at least try to be. Any way you look at it, we’re different. My designer co-workers are always pointing out the most minute details of design, whether it’s when checking out a Wired magazine or that latest Smashing Magazine post. The simple fact is that we are driven by different forces, and most of the time, our designers are able to tell us what’s cool and what’s not. Us developers might try, but we’ll usually get it wrong and in the end, developers need to listen to designers more often. They are right.

I believe that developers and designers both have valuable attributes that are brought to the table when collaborating, and that there’s nothing cooler than when developers and designers come together and create a great looking and working web page.