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Programmers, beware! Designers attack!

Mateusz ZdrzaƂek on May 31, 2023

Obligatory (my editor made me add it) Disclaimer 😉 All scenarios presented in this article are intended purely for humorous purposes and reflect th...
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Hendrik Ras

Happens to me regularly that a design works for desktop and few mobile devices and does not scale to anything in between.

Or the designer just shared some examples of the happy flow, no page loading or errors of any kind are expected on those applications..

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mtzd profile image
Mateusz ZdrzaƂek

Yeah, especially larger screens or tablets are the problem for me. Most of the time I just have to improvise. Loaders are also rarely seen, but fortunately usually I do get error states in the designs.

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Koivma

I consider myself a designer, and I think you should level up your development skills! Also, change your mindset, my friend. If diagonal lines and simple :before and :after elements leave you puzzled, then beware! The AI will snatch your job faster than you think—probably in two or three years, or maybe even quicker. Keep up, mate!

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mtzd profile image
Mateusz ZdrzaƂek

I think you may have missed the point of this article, my friend! I’ve highlighted that there are many approaches to addressing the diagonal separator issue, as it is quite common. Personally, I am not particularly fond of using :before and :after in that case, as they feel a bit hacky to me. The main idea is that designers can significantly simplify development by avoiding some practices. By achieving easier and faster development, the client's costs can be minimized. As for my job, I must say that I feel quite secure. Thank you for your concern, and I hope you have a pleasant day!

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Todd Pressley

i feel pseudo elements are a great fit for this use case, since the diagonals aren’t semantically important. đŸ€·â€â™‚ïž who cares 😂

good article and sense of humor
 thanks for highlighting the importance of intra-team comms.

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koivma profile image
Koivma

Pseudo elements, in my opinion, are also a good solution, especially when dealing with a wave-like shape. If it's just a straight, non-horizontal line, then I would use CSS clip-path

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Koivma

I understood the idea of your article - designers and developers need to communicate with each other. And the communication must be reasonable, so that people can learn and grow. As for untranslatable design and the inconsistency of elements, those are clearly problems faced by beginner designers. Let me tell you something, everyone has to start somewhere and learn, so don't mock and assume that you know better.

Considering that you struggle with basic CSS, you're probably a complete beginner yourself. When two beginners come together and one mocks the other, the result is always bad.

As for the notion that offering a lower price to the client through simpler and faster development is rubbish. Maximize your profit and maximize it in long term. Always give your best and try different things, so that all team members evolve. If you only stick to boxes and circles in CSS, you'll keep scraping pennies.

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cloutierjo

Try to persuade the designer to use the already implemented elements, fail at it and finally go with route no. 1

Saw that way too often đŸ€Ł

But yes in all case, communication is key, and as early as possible.

My other "fights" is overly complex feature that will take 5 months to build and doesn't make sense to be split in smaller chunk as everything is designed to fit with everything else...

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ivorator profile image
ivorator

Spend a month arguing something won't work due to conflicting concepts, being talked down to, as if you are missing some secret insight.
Spend two weeks hacking your way implementing two disjoint parts which will never fit together.
Spend couple of more weeks finding a semi working way to build adapter and build the two.
Get feedback from users that they are really confused.

Throw away one of the concepts.

Try to see your brain by rolling your eyes while listening that this is how "agile" works, and we needed to do all this extra shit to discover what some people have been saying from day one

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fruntend

ĐĄongratulations đŸ„ł! Your article hit the top posts for the week - dev.to/fruntend/top-10-posts-for-f...
Keep it up 👍

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cloutierjo profile image
cloutierjo

Programmer vs Graphic Designer | Coder vs Designer - YouTube

Subscribe to @SarwarSateer #shorts #designer #programmer

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Bryan King Pecho

Inconsistent components can be a real headache for developers, but finding ways to collaborate and adapt can lead to remarkable applications.

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Mateusz ZdrzaƂek

Thankfully, in my case, usually it is an honest mistake on the designer side. If you tell them that we can keep the app consistent by using our pre-made components, they are fine with it. The trouble begins when they do it on purpose...

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Ayabonga Qwabi

Or sometimes you are just given a desktop design and then you have to build the mobile site as well but then they complain when they don't look the same .

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cubiclesocial

"Programmers, beware!" or "Designers Attack!" both seem like reasonable titles for an indie video game.

I know that's not what the article is about.