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Hire HTML and CSS People

robinrendle.com

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Re: Hire HTML and CSS People

#11

Post by axelerator »

FrustratedMonky wrote: post #3

"Every problem at every company I’ve ever worked at eventually boils down to “please dear god can we just hire people who know how to write HTML and CSS.”" Isn't HTML and CSS a base line, every programmer knows this? "This UX is awful? " But that doesn't make them good UX designers.

There are bunch of good UX principles baked into HTML and CSS. Plus to become good at HTML and CSS you will be exposed to a lot of UX talk as well.

So one could argue it's really hard to get really good at HTML and CSS and not care about UX at all.

But yes, a fool with a tool is still a fool - if that's the point you're trying to make.

Re: Hire HTML and CSS People

#12

Post by cies »

> This UX is awful? That UI looks old?

Is was made by HTML+CSS people. That's why.

If you want your UX to improve, look for a skilled UX designer. Then agree and sign off on some designs, and let your HTML+CSS ppl hammer it out.

Usually HTML+CSS people are NOT the people that fix your UX (sure there are exceptions).

Re: Hire HTML and CSS People

#13

Post by ivan_gammel »

recursive wrote: post #6
FrustratedMonky wrote: post #3

"Every problem at every company I’ve ever worked at eventually boils down to “please dear god can we just hire people who know how to write HTML and CSS.”" Isn't HTML and CSS a base line, every programmer knows this? "This UX is awful? " But that doesn't make them good UX designers.

> Isn't HTML and CSS a base line, every programmer knows this? Yes, it isn't a baseline. I'm talking about what is, not what should be. In some (large) circles using HTML or CSS is regarded akin to writing machine instructions rather than python. It should be avoided because no one understands it and you'll create a maintenance problem.

Wow. I wonder who are those people in those circles. They clearly have no clue about frontend development, because a decent abstraction layer on top of those “low-level” instructions has never materialized. 100% of frameworks and renderers do leak abstraction and you have to deal with HTML and CSS anyway at some point.

Re: Hire HTML and CSS People

#15

Post by icedchai »

FrustratedMonky wrote: post #3

"Every problem at every company I’ve ever worked at eventually boils down to “please dear god can we just hire people who know how to write HTML and CSS.”" Isn't HTML and CSS a base line, every programmer knows this? "This UX is awful? " But that doesn't make them good UX designers.

It seems building SPAs and using related frameworks unnecessarily is now the baseline. People who really know HTML and CSS are few and far between. Many are just copy-pasting.

Re: Hire HTML and CSS People

#16

Post by notpushkin »

Epskampie wrote: post #4

I know CSS quite well, as I've been working with it over 15 years. I've been surprised that new programmers hardly know it at all, and heavily lean on component libraries or css frameworks. Can see why though, css has become very large and complex, and it's only getting worse. The upside is that my simple fixes sometimes seem like a superpower to others.

> css has become very large and complex

Respectfully disagree. I think CSS is simpler than ever, and it’s only getting more streamlined and powerful. E.g. what used to be a complex blob of floats is now a simple grid layout.

Re: Hire HTML and CSS People

#18

Post by legitster »

I'm a crusty old HTML and CSS person. The problem is that most of the skills are in the marketing department - not engineering.

I've noticed lately a huge "React-ification" in the past few years where the UI on apps are both getting overly designed, but also more confusing and worse. Bigger buttons, bigger text, overuse of whitespace, bad pagination and breadcrumbs, etc.

There are a lot of best practices that were "solved" a decade ago that now seem to be getting lost. And the explanation that I have is that React and Figma have made it so easy to spin up a web app without any prior experience or reliance on prior works. "Enough rope to hang themselves" as the saying goes.

I worked with an engineering team that was struggling with their UI. The buttons were all the wrong sizes, colors weren't consistent, placement wasn't consistent, etc. I asked them if they were using a CSS framework at all and the response was "we are using React, we don't need one".

Re: Hire HTML and CSS People

#19

Post by wmil »

I think the issue is that HTML and CSS are awful braindead work that are a career killer.

If you hire developers who know HTML and CSS please rotate in some more interesting work for them.

Also be careful not to elevate the design team above people doing the HTML / CSS. Too often the design people go back and forth with a higher up until an "approved final design" that makes no sense gets thrown in the laps of the devs.

Re: Hire HTML and CSS People

#20

Post by hk1337 »

notpushkin wrote: post #16
Epskampie wrote: post #4

I know CSS quite well, as I've been working with it over 15 years. I've been surprised that new programmers hardly know it at all, and heavily lean on component libraries or css frameworks. Can see why though, css has become very large and complex, and it's only getting worse. The upside is that my simple fixes sometimes seem like a superpower to others.

> css has become very large and complex Respectfully disagree. I think CSS is simpler than ever, and it’s only getting more streamlined and powerful. E.g. what used to be a complex blob of floats is now a simple grid layout.

As a markup language I think it's getting more complex but there's a lot more functionality that makes it a lot easier to do things with it. Knowing when to use what functionality can be overwhelming and seem complex though.

There's a lot about it I like though. It seems like it's starting, or perhaps already has, made things like SASS obsolete.

I am working through now creating a Hugo theme for my blog using just CSS (no Sass, Tailwind, etc), trying to avoid needing to use Hugo extended.

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