Tips for Designers Who Don’t Code

With the new technological boost and appearance of responsive design, the designer responsibilities have altered greatly. Today they do not need to write long codes to create a powerful and interesting project.
Until recently, it was almost impossible to design a web page without the knowledge of front-end development. An offline or print designer in comparison with a web studio is not able to create a web design that will meet interactivity and responsiveness requirements. These professionals can work only with pictures, while their lack of knowledge about web development transforms their creative ideas into nothing. Even being aware of how the basic website functionality looks like an inability to prototype is a huge obstacle. You can create an outstanding design but it happens that its prototyping is incredibly time-consuming or has an awful usability. It is impossible to foresee these troubles until you start designing for web browsers. So if you wish to create practical web designs without coding, learn the following tips.
1. Difference between web design and one created by a program
It goes without saying that both Photoshop or Illustrator are great tools for creating a nice design, but unfortunately the things are rendered to web browsers very differently. It mainly concerns typefaces and the way a browser renders your design: there might be differences in sizes, colors, brightness etc.
2. Chrome has little in common with Photoshop
Photoshop filters are often used by designers for an achievement of the background effect. It really contributes to the visual beauty of the design, but if you are not sure that these backgrounds can be extracted as separate files, your time-consuming efforts will appear useless. There are no such filters on the Web.
Another piece of advice is to name all the folders and layers properly as well as try to bring the design to a minimum not to make developers’ work tough.
3. Responsive design differs greatly from desktop and mobile
Only a couple of years ago we even did not hear a boy such notion as design responsiveness. There were two basic designs for desktop computers and mobiles. With the appearance of many other devices all the newly designed pages must be first of all flexible.
Being used to a standard screen width many designers do not consider other widths, and developers have to bridge the gaps in order all the website functionality does not collapse.
This problem is solved not by designing numerous screen widths but by creating flexible and simple page elements. That means designers should consider the elements of the page separately, think of related and reusable modular entities.
4. Interactive but not static
Offline designers have troubles with dealing with interactivity as the software they use is absolutely static. You have to do ten times more work to realise the website interactivity in Photoshop if to compare that with browser design, where all the elements can be accessed easily.
This problem can be spotted only at the prototyping stage, so to avoid such troubles it is advisable to use UK kits, a number of catalogues that contain page element listed in the file.
Of course, it solves the problem partially, so it must be taken into account in advance.
5. Focus on content
It is important to design a website focus in on its content. Of course, if it is the initial stage of website design, you might not be aware of its content, so ask for guidance from your customer for the website not to look unsuitable.
In cases of design around the content added by users, pay attention to fringe cases.
6. Communicate with your developer
What is the sense to create a design that will undoubtedly have many corrections and changes? If you have no coding skills, leave your ego behind and discuss your design with the developer as often and precisely as possible. Try to sit next to each other both during the design and development processes. It will decrease the chances of design ambiguity and make the creation process smooth!
