Code vs Design Process Discussion
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A Call To Arms. In defense of Photoshop
Although mark-up can provide a truer experience for clients, Photoshop is clearly an important part of the design process. Ridding it from our toolbox could prove disastrous. What we need is not to change our methodology, but rather to amalgamate our tools. We need a tool that supports the creative process but at the same time gives us access to the subtleties of our medium.
Modern WYSIWYG editors are off the mark. We need something more like Photoshop, but with capabilities that allow us to create DOM elements as easily as we can create shapes. John Nack seems to be on the right track with his idea of HTML layers, which would enable users to create and style HTML elements and render them with the WebKit engine all within a standard PSD file. While this idea is not completely practical, it gives us something to work with. Imagine opening the layer styles dialog and being able to add CSS3 styling to an element. What bliss!
HTML is a language with roots in library science. It doesn’t know or care what content looks like. (Even HTML5 doesn’t care what content looks like.) Neither a tool like Photoshop, which is all about pixels, nor a tool like Illustrator, which is all about vectors, can generate semantic HTML, because the visual and the semantic are two different things.
I have to agree. Any tool that is meant to translate visual elements from canvas to code will inevitably fail in the semantic realm. Computers are monolingual: they need us to make that translation. However, do we need perfectly semantic code if we’re only creating a mock-up? Why can’t we accept the reality that we’re not crafting the final product and simply spit out HTML and CSS that’s “good enough” for mock-up purposes. Once the design is approved, we’ll put on our foreman hat and begin the real construction.
Until our paradigm is rocked by some killer new app, Photoshop will reign as the best tool for designing websites. Although it doesn’t currently speak to our medium the way we wish it did, it proves itself priceless when it comes to the process of designing. Photoshop is a virtual playground of experimentation; dropping it from the process only prevents your design from being fully developed. So, before you switch to the mark-up methodology, understand that you’re sacrificing creativity for a few browser capabilities, which could be explained to clients anyway. For the sake of your client, creativity and work,stick with Photoshop.
