PSD to HTML is Dead • Hacker News Board

Re: PSD to HTML is Dead

#121

Post by Sssnake » Tue, Jan 14, 2014, 9:06 PM UTC

crazygringo wrote: post #96

reuven wrote: post #9

It drives me totally batty to work on projects in which the designer assumes that their only responsibility is to provide a PSD file, which the developers will then turn into HTML and CSS. I want to work not just with designers, but with Web designers, who intimately understand the workings of HTML, CSS, some JavaScript, and the implications for different browser sizes and versions. Web designers speak HTML/CSS nativ…

As someone who's done a huge amount of front-end development, I disagree completely, at least when we're talking about graphic design (as opposed to interface design, and even then it depends). The job of a good designer is to come up with a "look" for a page that feels a certain way, that communicates certain ideas, with careful consideration of clarity and emphasis. Their skillset is emotion and communication. Know…

I've never seen a designer that knows anything about UX and doesn't know html and css. The look of a page is not graphic design, it is UI. The only thing that is purely graphic design is literally designing graphics, like a logo.

Re: PSD to HTML is Dead

#122

Post by Pxtl » Tue, Jan 14, 2014, 9:08 PM UTC

wonderyak wrote: post #57

AJ007 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In house developer's time certainly should not be spent converting a PSD file in to a full HTML/CSS website. If the designer can't build an HTML/CSS site its likely that massive chunks of usability knowledge is missing as well. The thing that hit me about abandoning PSD mockups (coming from a 15 year Photoshop user) is not responsive design but high DPI displays. A lot of big companies still have terrible upscaled ra…

This is one of the nice things about the occasional comp delivered in AI. Its so much easier to translate assets to the web that it confounds me why AI wasn't the standard from the beginning.

I haven't used it recently, but a few years ago? AI was terrible compared to PS. I mean, I like vector graphics and was willing to struggle with a lot of pain for the advantage of using vectors instead of rasters for a project... holy crap AI was awful. Crashy, cumbersome, cringeworthy.

I'm an amateur, so I'm not going to be an expert on the professional features, but a few days with AI led me to go right back to Inkskape.

I have no idea why they put their resources into that thing over Fireworks.

Re: PSD to HTML is Dead

#123

Post by wwweston » Tue, Jan 14, 2014, 9:14 PM UTC

Well, as long as we're making controversial statements (those in the "____ is dead" usually are)....

I think Photoshop as a design/layout tool may have done more damage to front-end design/development productivity than Internet Explorer. And this article is just an indicator that there's a growing awareness of how.

Photoshop is an amazing raster image manipulation tool. But the dominant mechanics have always been about composing a series of fixed-dimension bitmapped layers (outside some shoehorned not-quite-layers-but-actually-layers there's really no other kind of entity to work with). For that reason there's always going to be an impedance mismatch between the tool and the web.

Re: PSD to HTML is Dead

#124

Post by anthemcg » Tue, Jan 14, 2014, 9:37 PM UTC

I am not here to say that web designers should create PSDs and just throw them over the fence.

But, I don't think most web designers really agree with this. I think this philosophy really tries to downplay visual style to practical problem solving and I believe they are both essential.

I can write competent HTML/CSS/JS, Frameworks etc. At least, I know enough to work with engineers and work effectively in my projects. For me using Photoshop isn't just about what browsers can and can not do. Its certainly, not just about pixel perfection or making a design ready to code.

Working with HTML is just clunky. Working with paper is too loose. I can think about how to build a design, plan it on paper but exploring visually is actually quite constrained by trying to do it with markup or just paper/wireframes. Photoshop represents an open environment where I can create anything I need from an illustration to a button and its powerfully close to what it will really look like. To some people that might sound like a clunky or wasteful step but I think it really helps.

For sure, I think Nick makes some great and valid points here. I agree, there are problems with the PSD process but direct prototyping and CSS frameworks just don't solve those problems.

I don't know, I feel like if in reality everyone used HTML to design, everything would look like Bootstrap and that would be acceptable.

Re: PSD to HTML is Dead

#125

Post by grey-area » Tue, Jan 14, 2014, 9:41 PM UTC

IgorPartola wrote: post #112

grey-area wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a designer and a developer (I often do both), I think I see where you're coming from, however I feel this is more a sign of a breakdown in the relationship between the developer and designer than a shortcoming of the tools. Design isn't so scary - I think a lot more developers should try to pick up a little, just as designers should know at least a little about the final medium for their work, and in an ideal work…

So this works really well when you are working with the designer. When I can walk into your office and say "hey, can you pull up the dev site and take a look at page X? I think we need to figure out a better way to display this" I am very happy. Even mediocre designers can deal well with this modus operandi and produce much better than mediocre results. Where we run into a problem is when a client hires a design firm…

I truly believe both design and development must be ongoing and collaborative processes, and the problems you've identified above are all down to trying to divide work at points where it cannot usefully be divided - the first scenario you mentioned is the only way to produce good design IMHO - as a collaboration with the client and any other parties like developers.

Re: PSD to HTML is Dead

#126

Post by goggles99 » Tue, Jan 14, 2014, 9:44 PM UTC

Link bait warning. Author even admits in the comments that what he means is "Going directly from a PSD to an HTML file is dead".

Link bait may get you more traffic in the short turn, but will likely just hurt you in the long run. Especially since lots of people think that he an idiot now.

Why? Who would have thought... Modern day web dev needs to be rendered to different sized screens and we have CSS3, more skills, and better tooling now.

Who does not know this already. I was baited and now he is hated (JK)...

PSD is still used quite commonly for conceptual purposes. Of course no one expects anymore (did they ever?) that it will be pixel perfect across devices ETC.

Re: PSD to HTML is Dead

#127

Post by colmvp » Tue, Jan 14, 2014, 9:48 PM UTC

efsavage wrote: post #91

I disagree. In the hands of a competent web designer, photoshop is still the most expressive tool available. I've been bouncing PSDs with a designer for the past couple of weeks and I want him being creative and making something beautiful, not constantly worrying about how the images are going to get sliced up or sprited or what's svg and what's not. That's my job. So long as there is in iterative process in place wh…

Finally someone who gets it.

I first started out with Photoshop, then learned a bit of Rails and front-end code. Now I use both.

Photoshop makes it super easy to design things quickly and iterate different concepts. It's also great for storyboarding effects before trying to finesse them.

And then when it comes to coding it up, that's when I get more particular about element positioning.

Re: PSD to HTML is Dead

#128

Post by SkyMarshal » Tue, Jan 14, 2014, 10:10 PM UTC

Well it should be dead, but like COBOL it'll be around a long time simply because there are tons of expert Photoshop designers who are much more productive with that tool than raw html/css and need their designs converted. I'm working with one right now, don't see it going away anytime soon.

Re: PSD to HTML is Dead

#129

Post by estel » Tue, Jan 14, 2014, 10:56 PM UTC

telecuda wrote: post #79

seivan wrote: post #52

PSD to iOS as well. I just wish companies would stop wasting resources on photoshop goons and let the engineers who work with the platform & SDK design.

I'm not sold here on this one. Since we know the specific small set of resolutions on iOS devices, I'd rather have a designer/UX lay down exactly how it should look, then have devs execute on that. If dev provides a valid reason why a design component would be a royal pain, then design can go back and adjust. Just had this argument 20 minutes ago on using a native control versus designing our own and adding a few lis…

I guess this is more an argument about designers without experience of the platform - but most designers /don't/ have experience with iOS. Especially in an agency model it's easy to "receive" a design that uses very slightly non-standard controls, attempts to use Android UI paradigms in iOS (or vice versa) or generally make everything a pain.

For example, I've had discussions where a designer has insisted that the navigation bar is 50px high, which is a proper pain. (The correct solution here being to leave it at the default of 44px, safe in the knowledge that they'd have to be properly anal to count up the difference).

Re: PSD to HTML is Dead

#130

Post by Bahamut » Tue, Jan 14, 2014, 10:56 PM UTC

As a frontend developer, I like having designers figure out the look of a page, and implement the look in a way that doesn't break what I've implemented. If they need help, I don't mind helping - in fact, I have a bit of design experience as well. However, it is not a good use of my time, so I don't do too much of the css.