Ahmed Shuja

Something that I have been stressing a lot since lately, John Urban has written about the same very well in his article “Why Designers Should Learn How to Code”.

Found an interesting article on Six Revisions: http://sixrevisions.com/web_design/why-designers-should-learn-how-to-code/

Besides designing I have been coding myself since 1997. Since sometime near the end of 2006 I have been focusing more on design tools like Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, and Fireworks. I kept on this practice till late in 2007 when I realised that no matter how hard I try or the code gurus at Obscure try we were not able to deliver the right effect and/or the interaction I was looking for in a particular application or website. Through out the last year and this year I got back into coding my own XHTML and CSS. The results were quite obviously better.

It doesn’t stop there! I have noticed an immense increase in efficiency of the UI development process. I can quickly iterate my design, add some padding to the right, increase the margin on top etc. Oh yes… and I do not have to look at the faces of the developers who I feel often look at me with hatred because I have asked them to change the code slightly.  As John Urban also mentions it, the friction is gone and the developers do not need to re-re-submit their code to me any more.

I reckon according to Joel Spolsky I am the Program Manager at Obscure.