A lot of time and money is being invested at the moment in tools to improve the designer/developer workflow. Both Microsoft and Adobe are fighting over this space with each trying hard to win over the others core audience. The result is that the tools are definitely getting better. Latest versions of Microsoft’s Expression range are much improved on the first generation and Adobe’s latest FlexBuilder (v3) has made strides with a more visual experience and the use of MXML.

Both camps are now creating very visual environments for both designers and developers. Drag and drop controls, property panels, data binding wizards and so on mean one can get a long way into the build process without touching code which is great for designers and developers. The challenge that the tools do not address and perhaps cannot is one of understanding.

The issue is that designers in many cases lack an understanding of how the plumbing of web applications actually works. Whereas the tools make it easy to add the necessary controls to a page and style them designers often do not know which controls to add or what the differences are. This is not unexpected; I do not know many developers who would know how to add a mask in Photoshop or when to do it.

The result is that designers still create traditional layouts (for example PSD files) and then pass them to developers who construct the interface. The new tools allow this to be passed back to designers for modification but the process is still clunky and time consuming.

Fortunately within Howard Baines we avoid this issue as designers here have a greater familiarity with the workings of web apps and the component parts (or controls) that developers use to create them.

For example, in a recent Flex project the designer was able to construct the interface in FlexBuilder using the applicable controls and MXML leaving the developer to just hook up the ActionScript. The more designers come to understand the mechanics of applications the more powerful the new tools will become and the more efficient the workflow.