[thelist] Content Publishing Systems Squash News Design

[Michael Kimsal]

aardvark wrote:

>
> i completely agree with what you are saying, but i had a different
> perspective when i read that -- it *did* annoy me a bit, but i think
> the logic behind it is this:
>
> - the article states that developers often refuse to implement more
> than one template or design, and that designers are told to create
> very generic templates, with little room for true design play...
>
> - these designers have no other way to do it if the developers won't
> do it, as opposed to their previous experience using DW, where
> they could create all they wanted, and let developers integrate it
> afterward...
>
> framing it from the context of the designer, i see their point, even if
> their understanding of the tool is flawed... they feel boxed in, and
> long for the old days of being able to DW out of that box...
>

I think part of the reason developers 'refuse' to implement more
than one (or two in our case) templates is that you often
don't know how much data will be on the screen.  Some content may be
long, some short.  To keep everything 'boring' may infuriate
some designers, but the reason a system is being implemented in the
first place is that there's too much for the people to handle
on a timely basis by hand.

Ensuring that things *work* as expected, before concentrating on the
visual changes for various sections of a site, is always *our*
first concern.

Hopefully the days are passing when people judge a site *solely*
on its looks.  I don't think we'll ever get past
judging a book by its cover completely, but projects we're involved
in tend to *do* more, although the visuals may not be appealing
to a designer who is used to being able to tweak every 'page'
individually.

If someone is going to insist on coming up with an invidual 'look' for
each 'page', they may as well stick to doing everything by hand,
because there's little or no need for any type of automation system at
that point.


Michael Kimsal
http://www.logicreate.com
734-480-9961