2 Design Without Photoshop
In a recent blog post on 37signals’ Signal vs. Noise, Jason Fried talks about this concept of skipping photoshop in the design process. Personally I agree, it saves time and makes the process more interactive for developers and designers.
Skipping photoshop helps the process to focus on usability based on real constraints. In Photoshop you’re dealing with a sort of fantasy world where nothing can go wrong. We all know that designing for the web isn’t without problems. Ryan Singer in a recent interview at Railsconf 08’, he mentions that when you design in photoshop first, you can’t click on anything.
Designing in Photoshop is like building a sound mixing board stickers for all the knobs and sliders. Yeah, it conveys that the outward appearance of the board is a possibility. But you’ll never know if the design is actually functional and feasible for what it’s being used for. In other words I agree with the whole “Design Without Photoshop” philosophy.
But, I like the whole process
I’m no fanatic about specific aspects of the design process. I enjoy everything whether it’s sketches or HTML and CSS. For me its all one process. Every web designer should understand this process from start to finish. However process will always depend on context. If you’re designing web applications or heavily interacted web projects then it might pay to start right off into the markup. Being able to click on objects and get a reaction provides a lot of value to the overall vision of the interface.
All in all, it’s about what you are comfortable with. If you’re productive in Photoshop, then by all means! But for me, I think its time for a change.
2 comment(s) have been posted!
Was curious what you’d think of this article. Kevin Fox eschews HTML and CSS in favor Moleskine per http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2008-06-02-n56.html
I actually own a couple Moleskines. I’ve been using them off and on in my mockup process. I plan on using them often.
More or less, sketching provides a few barrel of constraints, but a perfect amount of freedom. Most designs stay in my head and eventually translate into blending filters and layer organization in Photoshop. But I think for the sake of productivity, I’d rather dive headfirst into markup using sketches as my compass.