Designing For The Web, In The Web: Are We Ready?

Let’s take a look at what the web has to say.

I can’t live without most tools and features found in Illustrator - Layering and Layer styles, Vector graphic creation — I use it for almost everything these days.

You’ve more than likely heard something along those lines, right? About how “Photoshop is dead”, or “We need to start designing in the browser”? These types of articles have been popping up all over the web-scape for a while now, and while there is some truth behind the need to design websites in the browser in this modern web we’ve adopted, lets not jump the gun here. This entire topic begs the obvious question: are we even ready?

Let’s start with some numbers.

Recently, with the help of the awesome team at Envato, I conducted a short survey to gain a little perspective from the web design community about this topic, and how they’d respond to a new service that would allow for designing directly in the browser. The survey brought in a couple hundred responses, and boy were the results interesting. Firstly, 81% of the respondents work in a team, a company, or as freelancers, which means there is definitely a professional need for a new platform to design in the browser. Interestingly enough though, a lot of the articles I’ve been seeing around the web share the same concern of web designers not being able to understand the code well enough to actually design [using CSS] in a web browser. It’s interesting because of the couple hundred responses only 7% indicated that they were strictly web designers that had no knowledge of coding their design work, meaning a whopping 93% know at least basic coding skills. So why is lack of coding knowledge a concern? Maybe it shouldn’t be. Without sounding rude, shouldn’t you at least know a little bit of the tools used in your industry?

As for tools, the numbers were fairly unanimous as well: Adobe takes the cake. When asked to check off any graphic design applications used in their design process Photoshop (93%), Illustrator (48%), and Fireworks (18%) were the top contenders for web design amongst graphic designers — with a hat tip to Gimp that received 13%.

The problem with designing entirely in the browser.

It’s more than just web design. Our survey indicated that while graphic design tools are used primarily for web design, they’re also used for other things such as logos, vector graphics, and icons. And at this point in time browsers aren’t quite capable of rigging up the Pen Tool, or producing Vector Graphics. It’s coming, but it’s not quite there.

The web can’t quite replicate what we do with our applications. Layer Styles are taken care of via tools such as CSS3PS or CSSHat. With the exception of Pattern Overlays, things like Gradients and Drop Shadows are easily reproduced with advancements in CSS, however what I’m concerned with is Blending Modes, Filters, and Image Manipulation. Currently you can’t set an HTML element to multiply or blur it’s overlaying colors using CSS, and you can’t style that element to ripple and curl when it’s active. Yes, we have broken these boundaries with scripting hacks and targeted browser features, but that doesn’t represent good web standards, and in a couple years when these styling methods are supported we’ll have to go back and change our work. The browser just doesn’t quite cut it yet.

We’re stubborn and naive. If you’re heavily invested in web design or development there’s a good chance that you have a custom perfect-for-me setup on your computer that you guard with your life. I personally use Chrome, Photoshop, and Coda in my workflow and I sure as hell don’t feel the need to change that any time soon. It works for me, and it’s become habitual in my creative process. You probably feel the same way. So even if there was a new platform that supported building beautiful websites directly in the browser, if it doesn’t do absolutely everything that your graphic design application does you’d just be adding another step to your creative process, and chances are you’d just end up ditching a ‘half-way’ platform in favour of your old setup.

There is hope.

When asked if they thought it was possible that our graphic design applications could be replicated to a platform that would allow us to design websites entirely in the browser, 68% of respondents said Yes. Booyah! However, mostly with exceptions. There are always exceptions.

I’ll admit that a lot of the respondents were skeptical, citing limited browser capabilities, project needs, and simply not wanting to change their workflow as reasons why they thought it would be a tough job to take on. The list of requirements from web designers is long and broad, and will require some pretty clever browser manipulating. Offline support, element libraries, framework designing, script handling, an intuitive UI, online collaboration, client sharing, and wire-framing support were all highly sought after features, but there are many more.

I, myself, am an advocate for moving web design entirely to the web, and I long for a tool that allows this. What is your take on this? Is it possible, and more importantly: would you make the switch?