Designers vs Developers at EMU Marketing

After reading through this article over at Vitamin Features, i thought it would be a good idea to answer the questions as a designer who has to work with developers on a very regular basis.

1. Would I be a better designer to work with if I knew coding myself? Do developers appreciate knowledgeable designers?

The designers at EMU Marketing code our own pages in XHTML and CSS this takes the pressure off of the developers to make things “look right” and lets the designers have control over the entire visual appeal of the site.

I think developers appreciate designers who have at least some knowledge of how difficult a certain feature will be to implement, or know roughly what the process will be in creating the development back end.

2. Designers: Developers don’t like you because you represent Work and don’t see why said work is wholly necessary. Developers: Designers are scared of you because you are the gatekeeper. This is the dynamic. Discuss.

Because the designers and developers work in the same room and we critique and review each other project regardless of experience with that area it gives our designers a sense of the development process and a general understanding of how the websites work. It gives the developers a chance to see how the design process works and eliminates this problem.

3. How can stronger communication be developed not only between designers and developers, but also between designers, developers, and creative teams (art director, copywriter)? How can a team bring them into the fold more effectively?

Strong communication is one of the great things about EMU Marketing we are always looking at each others projects and keeping up on how things are working. Bringing developers into the project early to help work out features and to give them an overview of the site is always helpful.

4. To developers: if there was one thing ― an ability, a bit of knowledge, an understanding ― that you could instill in all designers with the wave of a magic wand, what would it be?

I would be very interested to know what this is.

5. How do you keep the goal of the project front and center so that design and development can keep a “common good” as their primary function?

The goal is always to give the client a site they can be proud to show off to people. It is up to both parties to do thier part. Designers need to make the site flow well and the information easy to access. Developers need to make the site easy to use and the information flow out the databases and into a readable format. Everyone has the same goal, I think once everyone understands that its easy to keep it front and center.

6. What’s the most helpful thing a designer can do before handing over design files?

Here is the checklist that the developers wrote.

1. Discuss site functionality with programmers.
2. Code XHTML and CSS.
3. Look at site with no styles, does it make sense?
4. Recode CSS from scratch if necessary (should be much quicker the second time).
5. Once site is valid, get approval from programmers.

That makes it pretty clear what the developers want valid and understandable XHTML and CSS from the designs to plug into the framework.

7. How soon should a developer be engaged to sense-check a design? At design brief? Before it goes to the client?

As the list above makes clear sense check occurs after meeting with the client but before the design goes to code.

8. Is it a mistake to make the lead developer the project manager?

Probably not but that might be a mistake and take away from the visual appeal of the site. Just the same and making the lead designer a project manager might create a mess for the developers. The best solution is to have someone outside the web design and development process. In this case it is our boss Lee who has a background in print design.

9. How can I get the developer to give me an absolute answer on whether something is doable?

Do your research and know their skill level. See if an open source project exists that does what you want or have an example ready. I find myself say “you know like how Wordpress does it.” when I’m explaining a feature to the developers.

Its also good to know what the developers know how to do. In my case there is nothing it seems our developers cannot do. See this post on what was going to be the tag cloud for Cultural Forum.

10. It seems that designers are under pressure to design an exceptional and unique experience and developers are under pressure to produce sites with high performance and little/no errors. Designer’s goals add pressure to developers and vice versa. How can our goals work together instead of causing pressure on each other?

Exceptional user experiences and high site performance are not mutually exclusive. These problems are problems of experience and dedication. Because designers are in charge of the front end code developers are not responsible for that area. They are free to focus on performance issues and creating error free applications. designers and focus only on the user experience.