Balancing Act: Graphics Vs. Coding
Coding, Imaging, Reader Opinion, Trends, Web Design, browser compatibilityPosted on Feb 14 by SkyeAdd comments
In the last post, Do they have the rightful judgement?, Ydreece brought up the question of what roles reviewers should take. In the comments, a new question was posed so I thought I’d continue it here.
Which is more important? Graphics or Coding?
When I first started out in the community, the consensus seemed to be Graphics. The graphics side feels that the visual side is the most important because that is what is viewed. It doesn’t matter if the coding is bad or not up to standards, as long as the webpage works. It needs to be visually pleasing because that is what the viewer sees, that is what they base their opinion on when they decide whether to stay and browse or leave. In some cases, the high-imaging is backed up by decent coding but in many others the site is displayed using outdated coding like tables, internal styling, etc.
As I’ve grown more experienced, I’ve met many others who believe that Coding is more important. They feel that the site is there to display content and that too many graphics will take away from the content. Thus, coding and styling are used to make the content visually appealing. They see coding as the most important because, with bad coding sites would lag (bloated coding), might not load for all visitors (cross-browser incompatability), and could display improperly leaving graphics pointless. Many times these sites do have pleasing designs focused on content styling and colors rather than imaging. For example, Jemjabella, Jingwen, and In Obscuro.
More and more sites are realizing the importance of good coding and are flocking to minimalistic designs with little or no graphics. But is that the answer? Personally, I believe that a balance should be in place: both visually appealing graphics and up-to-date semantic coding. A comfortable medium which works in all browsers, displays properly, keeps content at the forefront, and has a nice layout surrounding it.
So is the answer to make a drastic change (like I did for one layout) and focus more on coding without the imaging to back it up or take a few steps to the center and even it out? For example, Elena. She kept her image-heavy layouts but got rid of tables/bad coding in exchange for div layers backed up by good coding. Rather than having to decide between graphics and coding, she has both going for her.
Might I also add that it’s easier said than done.
February 14th, 2008 at 3:33 pm
The main reason for my minimalistic design is not that I think coding is more important (and I never claimed so), it’s that I have enough graphics in the content. Making a complicated image-heavy layout that compliments this content, and doesn’t smother it is hard and I simply don’t want to fight with it right now. I had experimented through many versions and found that this solution works well. I’ll change it only when I’m sure the next one is actually better.
As usual, a lot of people have misunderstood the whole point - and the result is countless web sites with “minimalistic” designs which are simply not designed well. Yes it looks more simple, but it’s not any easier to do it right.
February 14th, 2008 at 4:05 pm
Nela: I was pointing yours out because it was a good example of minimalistic done well with good coding to back it up, not meaning that those are the reasons you chose to have it that way. You’re just a good example XP
And that is another side effect of so many sites changing dramatically to minimalistic designs. Others see it as what’s “in” and seek to do it themselves, not for the good reasons but just for the trend.
February 15th, 2008 at 12:28 pm
I understood that, and thank you
I just wanted to clarify for those reading this post that I don’t put coding above aesthetics, and I don’t glorify minimalism. I think there’s enough CSS showcases proving that both beauty of design and purity of code can be achieved at the same time.
February 17th, 2008 at 9:23 am
IMO, graphics and coding for making a website should be balanced.
minimal graphics is good and can be a good point for search engine which is highly recommended for business sites and alike that gives emphasis on information rather than design..
But with the trend we have on graphics community, the more extensive the design, the more you will get viewers. maybe as you go along the way, i mean, while learning more about website coding or as your site grows, the importance of having minimal graphics is observe or being experimented which is discovered useful.
February 18th, 2008 at 11:28 am
I agree with what your saying, though often it is really hard to make a good graphic then code it properly. Or, sometimes peoples strengths lie in only one of those areas.
I don’t think minimal grapphics is “the way to go” (for a graphics site or even portfolio) and I also think that alot of webdesigners have picked up on “minimal graphics” and tried a simplistic layout, only to get it wrong as their strength lies in graphics and also the coding is still not 100%. Does that make sense? Though there are some really good sites that combine both, like karmakaze designs and your own skyfairy.
Basically, I agree : )
February 18th, 2008 at 5:41 pm
I agree with Saya, although it’s nice to have a balance of both the graphical area and semantics, it depends where your strength in either of those two lie.
In general, the balance is good and well but depending on the differences in the types of sites out there, minimalistic design is “the way to go” whereas a graphical overload is not and vice versa.
So in essence, my opinion is to just go with whatever floats your boat, although conforming to certain standards, especially when coding is huge nowadays, is a good approach (but that’s just me, as long as the message you want to get across gets across, then all is well and good).
February 19th, 2008 at 7:17 am
I believe that, although it would be ideal to have an equal balance, a good chunk of designers do not have it. That, however, does not mean that no designers have that balance. There are, in fact, some designers who have pretty good design AND coding skills. It’s just that when they choose to go with minimal graphics on their layouts, people seem to dislike that idea.
I believe minimal graphics for a design can and is very intriguing if done correctly. I also believe that minimal graphic designs can actually look a lot better than graphically heavy designs.
I don’t agree with Saya because I think simplistic and minimal graphical layouts can be as beautiful as any with graphics on it. In my opinion, simplicity is one of the best ways to go. It makes it a lot easier to understand the concept of the design (where the content/navigation is, etc) and, generally speaking, the color scheme is a lot better as well.
Anyway, “simple” layouts can be done both ways…minimal graphics or graphic heavy. So, I don’t think people should assume that if a layout doesn’t have very many graphics, that it’s not as pretty (or that people should stick with graphic based layouts only since their strength lies there mostly). Whether or not a person’s strength lies in one area or another, I commend them for attempting their weakness. It shows the learning spirit that person has…and it also shows that that person has the passion to get better in the area she or he lacks. After all, as we all know it, it takes practice to get better at anything.
I suppose, my general opinion would be…an equal balance is what’s preferred, but not always attained. However, people should reach out of their comfort zone a bit more and try their hand at what they’re not so good at too, to better and further their experiences and knowledge in it. We shouldn’t just shun them simply because they can’t make nice and clean (mostly) text-based designs or clunky but gorgeously graphical heavy designs…or that nice mix in between.
February 21st, 2008 at 7:32 pm
This has been brought up in the previous article (there was also a debate about it on AB back in the day; ref: http://ab.seven-bladed.org/?p=29#comments), and I still believe there’s some big misunderstanding about what design is in this community. It serves a definite purpose; “art” and “design” isn’t interchangeable.
Since I collapsed DigiC, I’ve chose to go minimalistic because, like nelchee, I wanted to emphasize the visual content. It’s neither that one aspect is more important than the other nor that my strengths lie in either coding or in graphics. It was a conscience design decision to make ends meet. (Chosing amongst different coding solutions is also a design decision where each approach has its drawbacks and advantages.)
Having coded hundreds of layouts, my coding is pretty standardize at this point for all kinds of layouts. If I wanted to go graphic intense, it’s a matter of adding a background image to a container. If I wanted complexity, I can reduce widths and float elements.
Coding or graphics is no longer the right question (with the tools that CSS brings to the table–no pun intended), and trying to hit a balanace is no longer the solution because this shouldn’t be a problem anymore. Before you couldn’t have graphic-intense/complicated layouts because of the amount of tables you have to use. Now it’s essentially one line of code in your style sheet. The new choices are graphic-heavy or graphic-light, floats or position. Presentation and content are separate and rightfully so; they still complement each other but there should no longer be conflict between them. Now the problem becomes “What’s the purpose of this website? What is my audience here for?” which is much closer to the nature of of web design and is what separates art and design.
There are times where graphic intense websites are more appriorate. E.g. interactive web sites for movies/games whose purpose is to draw you in. They can get away with it because there’s minimal written content.
Graphic sites are more difficult to design for. On one hand, you only have one shot to impress your visitors, but as a graphic site, the attention should really be on the graphics that you provide. You don’t want your site layout to overwhelm or even compete with what you have to offer. As a rule of thumb, portfolios may choose to be graphic-heavy whereas resources should be more minimalistic.
March 4th, 2008 at 4:45 pm
I just read a great article on A List Apart, and it pretty much hits the right spot - most designers simply have a wrong idea about creativity really is.
If you don’t want to read the whole thing, here’s a quote from the section “Creative mythconception”:
July 28th, 2008 at 4:16 am
It’s also a problem to find the right balance because everyone has different tastes, something might be too simple for someone and not simple enough for another person.
I’m planning on downsizing and organising my site and I want to change from Tables to Div/Css but I’m having a hard time finding inspiration, so far I haven’t seen any designs I like. It seems now the fashion is either one or the other (graphic base or content base)when last year I use to find sites that managed that combination perfectly.
I know with my current layout I was really proud of it until it received some bad reviews based on coding. That’s something I plan on improving now, as a friend said they tried to visit my site on their phone and said it didn’t work - I know now it’s because I didn’t care about validating it.
Also with coding some people just unnessarily go over the top with like 50 databases and link and security effects when all you need is just the codes to make your site functional - but then that could also lead into too simple and basic, so once again like everything that requires a balance it’s hard to get that balance.