Jason Knight
2 min readAug 19, 2020

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A good number of these are the antithesis of good practices; many of them not only NOT being design tools, but are a blight that is responsible for more bloated, slow loading, inaccessible websites than any other factor.

Over-glorified paint programs and WYSIWYG's top this list. Whilst I realize that people are visually oriented, the results of these pixel-pushers more often than not lacks elasticity, semi-fluid design, proper responsiveness, and due to the lack of content/markup first development tells non-visual user and user-agents to go plow themselves.

That's why Photoshop is not a design tool. Sketch is not a design tool. Even InVision is NOT a design tool no matter how much they claim it is.

Design is not art unto and of itself. It is engineering that incorporates art alongside the underpinnings of guidelines, specifications, and so forth. To this end starting out dicking around with what a page looks like before you've even established semantic markup is putting the cart before the horse; an utterly ack bassward approach to building a website.

Content -- or a reasonable facsimile of future content-- should dictate the semantic markup. Content + semantic markup should then dictate layout, NOT the other way around.

The end result of dicking around in a paint program or WYSIWYG -- aka starting out with what it's going to look like -- always seems to result in pages that flip the bird at users with accessibility needs, and at sustainability of the code. As such all these "visual" tools you are using are NOT design tools.

The same goes for derpy "monuments to ignorance, incompetence, and ineptitude" like bootcrap. There's a reason I tell people to find a stick to scrape that off with before they go tracking it across the Internet's carpets. The ONLY thing you can learn from it is how NOT to build a website. To be brutally frank, every single claim about how much “easier” it is, or “better for collaboration” and so forth is a BALD FACED LIE rooted in ignorance, apathy, and just plain wishful thinking.

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Jason Knight
Jason Knight

Written by Jason Knight

Accessibility and Efficiency Consultant, Web Developer, Musician, and just general pain in the arse

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