I think a lot of this goes back to the fundamental skill set of a designer.

I once heard Mark Braddock say that when a client asks him to do something arbitrary like Add more blue he usually will ask them to describe what is wrong with the design. The problem for many people is that they don’t know how to communicate with designers. Add more blue is a solution, it’s the job of the designer to come up with that solution while It doesn’t feel bright enough is a problem, that’s what you need to communicate. I think he’s pretty spot on here.

I don’t think Designers need to know the Solutions for web development problems but they do need to understand how to communicate their needs, which is where having an understanding of those skills comes in handy.

I think probably I’d shorten Gary’s list to the fundamentals of web development that don’t rely on the Solutions but instead outline the field of play.

For example, I think Information Architecture, Javascript and Backend Coding could all come under one simple heading: Understand how a dynamic webpage is rendered

What you want out of that is a designer who knows that all the data in a CMS site is stored in a database, that they can use things like “date” and “title” as fields and make them repeat and all that sort of thing. A basic understanding of how a single “page” is actually made up of lots of little bits and how CSS works pretty much like Object Styles in InDesign, so they should always think in terms of those objects. And any images, movies, typefaces etc need to be accessible to everyone who views that page, again just like linking objects in InD.

Then there’s the General User Experience, Interactive Interface Design, Accessibility and Usability. I think that fits under the simple heading: Understand how changes are made to the website in real time

With that in mind you’re asking the designer to be familiar with how websites change on the fly. This includes an understanding of Triggers, so they know things happen based on Events like timers, mouse over and out, clicks, that sorta thing. Knowing that they’re still doing the same Object-Style tricks as in pre-render (obeying the same linking rules too) but it’s called up by special scripts now, so we can cause some changes in movement. A box that appears to scroll up is just having it’s height value changed every couple of miliseconds but, apart from that, it’s the same as a pre-rendered box.

Finally there’s your Mobile Interface Design and the other side of General User Experience and Usability. In a way their outcomes of knowing the above two processes. If you understand how a website is displayed and how it changes then you know what you’re able to do which is the empowering that i think most designers need. With that they’re usually very capable of dealing with user feedback and pre-evaluating the user experience a lot more.

I guess I agree with Gary in intent but I don’t think it’s so much about the skills a designer picks up as opposed to spending time learning about the Process by which their work is going to be displayed. Much like they don’t need to know how a particular type of paper is made but only what it looks like, feels like and how it responds to various colours.

A more focused approach perhaps

If you could let me know by private e-mail (ian@hixie.ch) why you felt turned away or not welcome, I would be very appreciative and will do everything I can to ensure that this doesn’t happen again.

Er… What freelance magazines? There are freelance magazines? Please enlighten me.

1) what is a big problem for a freelancer is when the market is dead, literally dead. Then someone as a very average employee may have a chance to stay even if there are layoffs, while almost all contractors are out of work. They will always as priority retrain employees even if they have absolutely no knowledge and layoff all contractors/consultants (i have seen it in some companies). It is the “temporary resource” side of contracting which i do not like.

2) another issue is overspecialisation and overexperienced.
When you are very specialised with lots of experience you have to normally to ask decent rates (at least more than junior people), the problem is that many clients prefer to hire JUNIOR people with no experience for various reasons. Sometimes its even. Simply there is only a very small market for senior experienced people. This is someway a marketing issue. Furthermore if you have very specialised skills, you have to travel a lot or work very long time for the same client (then its better to be an employee). Also do not believe the bullshit in freelance magazines.

As you said, economy rises and falls, it’s a part of the cycle and the trick is to weather the storm. If you reflect on past history of ‘depressions’ you’ll notice that over the long term we always come out ahead. That is the thing to remember.

In the now it’s important to “Maintain Fundamentals” and “Go Back To Basics”. These might sound similar but are two differing practices.

Maintaining your fundamentals is all about taking care of the little details. Keep up with your book keeping (even if it’s a little bleak), be dogged about invoicing, keep sending out queries, and continue to do the day to day activities that make up your usual business practice. Just because times are tough does not mean you need to make dramatic changes to the things that work and will continue to work.

Getting back to basics however is about going simple. Did you upgrade to a 20 gig download plan on your internet? Cut back, you can live without the latest episode of Heroes and can save a chunk of cash on a lower plan. Did you get into the habit of having a rich slab of steak each week? Nothing wrong with Bangers and Mash! Honestly, we spend so much cash on luxury items because we learn to live in a higher income bracket. If you get back to basics for the time being you could save a great deal of money and find yourself financially well off when the fog of economic breakdown lifts.

I’m sure there are many other ideas that help get us through the tough times in a tighten your belt economy. Now is the perfect time to reflect and take action on them.

Sadly, I think we have a long way to go yet. I’m actually grateful to Microsoft’s security upgrade policies that pushed out IE5 far quicker than we would have seen otherwise. Hopefully IE6 will have the same fate by… oh I dunno, 2012?

The question on scalable font and accessibility is not really related to the age of the browser, but the usage rate in the wild. Currently for IE6 it’s around 35-40%. This for me it just way to high a percentage to discount. There is also the other factor people with disabilities downloading and installing new software. Many find this a daunting task. They are changing the configuration of their system, their lifeline in many cases. This as you can appreciate is full of danger. And hence they tend to err on the conservative side, as you would expect.

So until the computer they are using dies they will usually continue to use the installed browser. Which sadly is usually IE6 (even up to a few years ago). Hence I don’t expect IE6 to slip below the magic 2% mark in the next few years.

Jeff, I am over forty, I have vision problems, sometimes I have an issue with contrast, but more often with font sizes. I have an extreme problem for instance reading your blog. So should I be discounted because I have vision problems. Should parts of the web be inaccessible to me because of my age.

All I’m asking is that you consider your fellow man. Maybe go observe how people with even minor disabilities have to struggle with parts of the web. I can tell you personally it’s a very humbling experience.

1. I get mixed reviews about the fast-talking delivery. As many people seem to love it as hate it. Not sure what to do it about. Can really only be me, I guess.
2. As I said in the presentation, I don’t at all think hanging bullets are “correct”. What I say in the presentation is that they’re “traditional.” Traditional may or may not be what you’re going for in a particular design. Suggesting that we should always use indented bullets and quotes is as ludicrous as suggesting we never should. “New rules” should not apply here — and neither should old ones. Rather, these decisions should be made on a case-by-case basis. That’s what design is all about.
3. I was a bit shocked by the response to the absolute vs. relative thing. I’ve given this talk a few times in the states and in the UK, and haven’t ever had anyone take it as dismissive of accessibility. As I said in the talk, this, too, should be case-by-case. Everything is a tradeoff. Absolute sizing is easier — no one can deny that. You can get things done faster using absolute sizes. Relative sizes are *arguably* more accessible, though I would contend that they are less and less so, as the browser which can’t resize relative text slowly fades away. So, which is more important? Deadlines or accessibility? Well, that all depends on the project. As to: “We will see what Jeff has to say about absolute sized fonts when he is over 40 and his sight is starting to fade.” When I’m 40 (that’s 7.5 years, for those counting), IE6 will be long gone and all browsers will be able to resize absolutely sized text. In fact, all current browsers already can.