<blockquote>
<em>I believe we shouldn’t have to design for the lowest common denominator (cough, IE6 users, cough); instead we should create designs that are beautiful in modern browsers, but still degrade nicely for the other guy.</em>
You say this like someone who’s never had to build a site for a corporation with 40,000+ employees working on company-owned machines standardized on IE 6, every single one of whom will assume the gorgeous-in-safari-and-chrome site you’ve just built is broken.
This happens WAY more often than you’d maybe like to think.
</blockquote>
I’m with Steve here. I currently have a client who still uses the old-school “box” monitors, and they want their site to look good for them and no one else.
Meagan, I could see developing a mockup in HTML/CSS in some cases, but not when working on large projects or more complicated projects. I’ve had clients change their minds more times than I can count, and if I had to re-code an entire website every time they changed their mind, I’d never get anything done.
I’ve found it beneficial to start with a sketch on paper, then a full-color mockup in Photoshop where things can easily be moved around. I have to say that I’m very, very comfortable with both Photoshop, so changing background colors or corners is not a big deal for me. I’ve only had Photoshop crash on me a few times, but anyone who doesn’t save their work often is just begging for a program to crash. (I’m also very proficient with code; I learned everything from scratch using just MS Notepad and still to this day code every site by hand, from the ground up.)
I do like your points here, but I think it’s much more practical to mockup in a graphics program first.
Elizabeth K. Barone
<blockquote>
<em>I believe we shouldn’t have to design for the lowest common denominator (cough, IE6 users, cough); instead we should create designs that are beautiful in modern browsers, but still degrade nicely for the other guy.</em>
You say this like someone who’s never had to build a site for a corporation with 40,000+ employees working on company-owned machines standardized on IE 6, every single one of whom will assume the gorgeous-in-safari-and-chrome site you’ve just built is broken.
This happens WAY more often than you’d maybe like to think.
</blockquote>
I’m with Steve here. I currently have a client who still uses the old-school “box” monitors, and they want their site to look good for them and no one else.
Meagan, I could see developing a mockup in HTML/CSS in some cases, but not when working on large projects or more complicated projects. I’ve had clients change their minds more times than I can count, and if I had to re-code an entire website every time they changed their mind, I’d never get anything done.
I’ve found it beneficial to start with a sketch on paper, then a full-color mockup in Photoshop where things can easily be moved around. I have to say that I’m very, very comfortable with both Photoshop, so changing background colors or corners is not a big deal for me. I’ve only had Photoshop crash on me a few times, but anyone who doesn’t save their work often is just begging for a program to crash. (I’m also very proficient with code; I learned everything from scratch using just MS Notepad and still to this day code every site by hand, from the ground up.)
I do like your points here, but I think it’s much more practical to mockup in a graphics program first.