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Comment by antidaily | Hacker News Reader

For the most part, Mr. Croft and 37signals work in too different arenas (as he points out). Bottom line: if you're designing a webpage, its still ok to start in photoshop. If you're designing an app with buttons and forms, start with HTML/CSS.

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I think his point is if "You are only designing web apps that your will own and operate or are in a family of web apps that will have a similar look" then it is ok to skip photo shop

I agree. I think, like it's been said, that 37Signals is a special case. I believe in the field we all work in, it is wise to assume a graphic mockup as a step in the progress and then carefully decide whether or not it's a neutral step based on the history of projects you've completed. In other words, there is no bottom line.

I don't think 37signals is necessarily a special case - there are plenty of customer oriented websites out there that have a look and feel, and don't require client buy-in.

I know tons of designers and developers who prefer a wireframe before starting to work on a web app.

Omnigraffle and Visio both have great stencils for wireframing forms, buttons, and different UI elements.

Mr. Croft could have spent more time working on the colors for his own website. I can barely read the top menus and the last paragraph. I had to highlight the last paragraph in order to even see it. Its just a good thing it was a live website and not a photoshop image that I couldn't interact with.

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