Design Independence from Pixels: A Response to Noah Stokes
February 2, 2013Tweet
I have some issues with Noah Stokes’ recent article “Responsive Web Design Leaves Me Wanting”. This article was released a little over a week ago and has stayed on my mind a little too much. His main arguments are the double whammy of there being a lack of background elements, gradients, shadows, and skeumorphisism in RWD as well as the lack of pixel perfection.
As Responsive Design Weekly explains in his defense “He’s not trolling so much as challenging designers to come up with beautiful, immersive sites executed with perfection in every browser.” While I think giving people a push toward becoming better in their practice is always a great thing his way of doing this leaves me greatly wanting for something much more … shall I say substantial? What may have been his attempt at a constructive challenge seems to come off more like an angry old man with a cane screaming about how culture today is crap.
I’m one of those kids he’s yelling at. I’m in a very unique position of having the start of my professional web design/development career coincide with my adoption of fluid-responsive design. From this standpoint I’d like to offer a counter argument to Noah’s claim by dissecting it.
But I’ve stooped very low in this opening. Its time be reasonable and cast aside the shock value. Time to shave off the mohawk and talk rationally with my elders. Let me start with his final arguments first as I feel they are best at framing my issue with this entire article.
(Note: I do not consider myself a true designer but rather a developer who loves design. Noah Stokes is a true and great designer. With that said, I come from a development point of view and my ideas are clearly defined by that.)
“A pixel perfect design in the browser”
These words make me cringe. I understand what he is saying: “responsive gives me that at certain break points, but the in betweens are what kill me”. I agree with the sentiment that most designs, including possibly even the one here on my site, have awkward fluid transition phases that look worse than the crustache I sported in middle school. However, I object to his word choice, one that frames the rest of his argument. He cries for pixel perfection and I cry for web designs liberation from pixels.
Web designers, even myself, still have this prevailing myth of the perfect browser size(s). Those widths at which our designs make us and hopefully our audience swoon. While he have freed our designs from the chains of a fixed width, we have not stopped designing as if the shackles were never removed. This leaves majority of possible browser widths to suffer from awkward pre-teen syndrome.
His solution: “I would much rather see sites done adaptively for their most popular viewport dimensions where pixel perfection could be achieved.”
I shall play the hippy now: free your mind man.
I don’t believe the issue is that RWD prevents us from pixel perfection but that pixel perfection prevents us from achieving beautifully fluid and responsive sites. Some sights do need a more adaptive approach but to disregard fluid design altogether presents a lack of creativity. Let’s forget the notion of the perfect break points and allow fluidity to over take us.
The trends in web design that I think encapsulate this approach the best are Andy Clarke’s push to get people to design in the browser , content first design strategies, and style tiles. Each of these approaches free the design from leaning too heavily on “ideal browser widths”. The idea is to design in a way that maintains the artistic integrity of the presentation independently from a specific canvas size.
I also love Trent Walton’s idea of Content Choreography. With this he urges us not to neglect our awkward “in-between” browser widths but rather use them to allow our designs to dance from browser width to browser width.
“I was seriously curious about seeing RWD sites weren’t flat”
I’m curious too Noah but I’m honestly not too thrilled about the idea. Noah’s claim is that like RWD, flat design is a trend (read fad) and that we need more depth to our sites on mobile displays. I want to quickly applaud Noah on the beautiful flatness of his own site. He isn’t dismissing flat designs outright but rather saying that the trend is going to far. I want to posit the idea that this combination isn’t the chance marriage of two simultaneous trends but rather the symptom of designers finding a solution to the problem of legibility.
Truly that is the underlying philosophy behind RWD, to make the design more legible in smaller viewports. The issue is that text was being rendered far to small on smart phones and we needed a way to fix this.
Small screens also run the risk of serving up views that are too cluttered. I fear that is the reason why we don’t see much skeumorphisism (though honestly I’d rather see “stitched” web pages disappear) in responsive sites. Shadows, gradients, and background elements run the risk of reducing the legibility of a mobile design.
So I want to allow Noah’s call for these elements to permeate into RWD to stand, because some sites require them based on their content, but I want to further the challenge by asking that their addition not decrease the legibility of a mobile design.
No Hard Feelings?
Noah, yes I’ve used harsh metaphors but it stands in the end that you are my elder. I look up to you even though I say this while squirming a little (jokes). I will repeat though that your arguments left me wanting. I think you offer a couple interesting challenges and I hope these are pursued but I simply beg they are done so without falling back too hard on old habits.
CSS, Discussions, Grids, Layout, Web Design and Development, Web Philosophies
