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Comment by justsee | Hacker News Reader

> This is part of Steve’s legacy. Deep in the culture of Apple is this sense and understanding of design, developing and making. Form and the material and process – they are beautifully intertwined – completely connected.

This is also true of modern web design. It's easy to work out which designers embody it:

* old-school designer - is still slinging over PSDs with little concern or consideration around multiple screens, technical limitations (is there a webfont available for the typeface(s) etc). Doesn't embody the philosophy Ive expresses.

* modern web designer - provides designs as static HTML, necessary to reveal the 'developing and making' considerations around assets, responsive design experiences etc. Definitely embodies the philosophy Ive expresses.

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I'm sure you can make your trivial point about the intricacies of web design without having to piggyback on Jonathan Ive's interview.

For the record, a lot of the UI prototyping at Apple is done in Photoshop.

It's also done on paper napkins, in Keynote, in Illustrator, in Xcode and with whatever works.

Good designers don't judge you based on what tools you use, and they're not picky about what tools they use. They'd use anything. The important part is how you think.

You can think about all sorts of screens and devices and do it in Photoshop. You can also produce unusable trite crap in static HTML.

It's much harder to do it in photoshop for things like responsive design. Responsive is dynamic and fluid and it's very difficult to capture that in a few static comps. I like this point about web design is very relevant to Ive's point. Apple isn't perfect, and the fact that Apple does web design a certain way doesn't mean other ways aren't clearly better and closer to the values Ive is discussing. Trying to use apple.com on your phone should lead one to the conclusion that apple isn't doing modern web design well.

>It's much harder to do it in photoshop for things like responsive design.

Then again responsive in the web is a co-out and a fad -- instead of creating the best experience for each screen size, you give them some sliding or expanding divs and some dissapearing elements from the "full-on" design and call it a day.

I've never seen a responsive page I like on a mobile device. I'd take the full page, in which I can pan and zoom, anytime.

I've seen a number of responsive designs I like better than the full page of a regular site. Compare the following sites to using this site, HN, on a phone.

http://dish.andrewsullivan.com

http://video.disney.com

For a site that would be much better with a responsive design look at

http://nytimes.com

I'd draw a parallel to storyboarding for animation here [1]. Most storyboarding artists get their start as animators themselves, so they know the "form and the material and process," so to speak. But when they do storyboarding work, they need to work in an agile and rapid fashion, to consider a user's flow through the "application" at such a high level that they would be hindered by trying to draw every single detail. Should they know innately what is and is not feasible to animate? Absolutely! But this does not mean that they should use the same tools and techniques as animators to perform their work.

Responsive may be difficult to capture in static comps, but when these comps can be made much more quickly, attention can be given to user experience overall, not just isolated fragments of user interface. And it's difficult to deny Apple's success at driving conversions and purchases.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storyboard

I don't know. The top two most frustrating things I encounter on modern web sites are: "infinite" scrolling effects & badly done responsive designs.

While adaptive UI can be done right (and yes, that's the correct name for it, "responsive" typically refers to reaction lag, not screen size), and is definitely a nice tool in the designer's toolbox, it's very telling that various "responsive evangelists" keep popping out of everywhere talking about the virtues of "responsive" where no one asked them. Say like the poster I was replying to here.

This behavior is typical for something at peak hype. They're just so excited about it, they can't comprehend why everyone isn't getting a boner about "responsive" so they have to talk about it non-stop to clue us in on the awesomeness we're allegedly missing. It's like Ruby on Rails all over again.

Which is to say the "responsive" movement right now is 80% bullshit and 20% useful technique (when used in moderation). And I have examples to support that.

Part of "responsive" is the horrible practice of rolling menus into obscure hamburger buttons, outright hiding panels with useful content and functionality, or presenting bizarre interaction patterns that some harebrained designer thought are more smartphone-ey.

This is not helping your users, it's pissing them off and making them spend a lot of time hunting for the "desktop version" link on your site.

"And I have examples to support that."

Do give them.

"This is not helping your users, it's pissing them off and making them spend a lot of time hunting for the "desktop version" link on your site."

Not for the site I worked on. When we switched to responsive mobile use skyrocketed on our site.

Judging by your hostility and focus I think my point (which I don't think is trivial to those working with the web) wasn't clearly communicated.

The best of modern web designers embody that philosophical approach in regards to the 'building / making' element of how a final web design lives. This is a fuller consideration of how the design works, and can only be achieved by working with the 'materials', just as Ive mentions is essential at Apple for product design.

I never said design can't or shouldn't use napkins, keynote, Photoshop, Illustrator or whatever a designer chooses, or pass any commentary on how designers at Apple internally prototype UIs.

I did imply though that a web designer that stops at the PSD mockup stage doesn't embody the design approach Ive is discussing in the article. Without working directly with the materials (HTML / CSS) you are deciding not to entirely consider all elements of how the design lives:

* are webfonts available for this typeface?

* does CSS provide those visual effects, and if not, what fallback designs should I consider?

* can the design work across all target devices / browsers?

* will the page weight be too large to support this particular design approach. Can I simplify to avoid this?

Mocking up a variety of screens in Photoshop does not cut it at the best end of the scale as a web designer.

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