Benjamin De Cock – Smashing Magazine

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Author: Benjamin De Cock

Benjamin is a freelance icon and interface designer living in Belgium. He specializes in iOS and OS X software design. You'll find some of his work on his Dribbble profile.

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Designers: Start Coding With uilang

By Benjamin De Cock
February 11th, 2015
CSS HTML Techniques
60 Comments

Editor's Note: Designers could learn how to code, and developers could learn how to design. Sometimes it might not be an option. In this article, the author makes a suggestion to designers without coding skills on how to start crafting code. You might want to take the suggested tool with a grain of salt (or not) but the idea might be worth looking into.

Designers have widely adopted HTML and CSS for a while now. They usually feel comfortable enough to implement their own designs, at least in a static form. However, they’re often intimidated by JavaScript — and rightly so! HTML and CSS are declarative and, I’d argue, closer to design than programming.

JavaScript, on the other hand, is “real” programming. This means you not only have to learn a whole new and complex syntax but also have to “learn how to think.” The barriers to entry are high and prevent many designers from taking the plunge. uilang tries to fix that.

Refining Your Design In Adobe Fireworks

While certainly not as well known as Photoshop, Adobe Fireworks is a great tool for creating user interfaces, website designs and mock-ups, wireframes, icons and much more.

However, most designers who have been using Photoshop for years may find Fireworks a bit awkward at first. Fireworks does have a slightly different workflow and requires a slightly different approach than you may be used to.