Arie A. Nugraha

Ask: Should Designers Code?

Anonymous asks: Should designers code?

Yes and no.

Yes, in my opinion designers should do whatever it takes to be able to collaborate well within their team. This includes communicating ideas and concepts as clear as possible. If visualizing concepts through boxes, arrows, and flowchart diagram is what it takes then do it. If coding is the best way to explain the ideas in certain context, then learn to quickly code and do it.

Designers (including me in the past) are often confusing crafts with tools. Our shortcoming is we focused too much on tools, and the discussion around it often hinders us to be practical and get creative in the face of constraints (I’ve seen designers exploring UI layout using Google Sheets).

It’s useful to see code as one of the communication tools; for prototyping and giving shapes to our concepts and ideas in different level of fidelities. And No, maybe designers would like to be really careful with production level code (unless you know what you are doing).