What do you think about the idea of designing something very few people will ever see yet in the long run could save you time, money and sanity?

One of the paradoxes of web design in the early years was people had to take on certain skills that seemed totally opposite in mindset at first appearances.  People who had been accustomed to graphic design and desktop publishing were suddenly taking on aspects of computer programming and computer programmers who usually did nothing but see and work with code started to take on learning graphic design.  Often, however both sides tended to do neither job as well as someone who was dedicated to a particular discipline.

In the past someone could get by with the title of “webmaster” if they took care of every aspect of the site but for more sites that’s getting to be an unmanageable task at least for larger sites. Site Administrators may be taking on the role of webmaster but instead of doing it all themselves they are responsible for a staff of web designers, programmers, database administrators, etc.  In our company we have people who are skilled in programming, content creation and graphic design.

How can the programmers make things easier for the graphic designer, content creators and yes even the “non-human” machines that read the code and translate it into what the consumer uses?

Some of these practices are indenting, commenting and refactoring.  Indenting can make it easier to find sections of code. In fact the programming language, Python, requires indenting and other clean code practices. Commenting is the practice of leaving notes in the program that can explain what’s going on and what nearby lines of code do, Refactoring is a change in computer code which improves readability. This practices are very helpful if another programmer has taken over a project or is helping to contribute.

That’s all well and good but what can the graphic designer and other content creators do to aid others who may be using the files they have created?

Three things I love about modern digital images and other graphic design files.  One is metadata.  You may not realize it but a lot of digital images you see may actually have hidden text in the file itself. Digital cameras often add information like the exposure time, type of camera, etc. but graphic design programs like Photoshop, Lightroom and Aperture give you the ability to add other information. Secondly most design programs use what’s called layers.  By default the layers are numbered but a designer has the ability to change the number to descriptive text.  Finally perhaps the most easy thing to  do is to give graphic design files, documents or photos a descriptive file name that can be appropriate for the job as well as for internet search engines to find.

If I could use a term to describe myself and what I do I guess it would be “organized creative.”  I’m sure I left off a ton of stuff.  This is mainly an introductory article but I would love to hear from both programmers and creative professionals how you format and add extra information to your creations that make work easier for others. What would you like to share?

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 5th, 2008 at 6:22 pm and is filed under Innovation, Internet, Tips, web design, web development. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.