Last week, Adobe announced it’s new beta application, Muse. It’s supposed to be the all-in-wonder app for designers looking to break into the world of web.
Microsoft did it with Expression. And it works, sort of. But, hey, it’s from Microsoft. The same company who labors us with PowerPoint, Internet Explorer, and Verdana: not exactly known for creating tools for creatives.
Can it be done? Can a company create a tool that gives you all the free space a designer needs, and spews semantic XHTML? My first thought was, not until the devil’s playing hockey.
Upon a bit of reflection though, I believe that one day (maybe it was today), there will be a combination of UI and code that live in a symbiotic environment. However, it hinges on a key factor that no designer (or even Adobe) controls. Internet browsers and their adoption.
I often design web interfaces that, in Photoshop, are beautiful, engaging, sexy, enticing, rainbow! But when you really think through their interaction, and start thinking degradation to out-of-date browsers, they fall apart quickly. It’s a reality we must relent to as web professionals. That is, until all of the big boys (IE, FF, Google, Apple, Opera) start playing nice and agree on a spec (and then follow through with browsers that actually follow said specs), we’re at the will of the masses.
Beyond the obvious issues of compatibility, you have scalability. iOS, BlackBerryOS, Droid… The list is just starting to get complicated. Can a tool that is not designed to get you under the hood, give you enough flexibility to define rules for exceptions? It hasn’t been done successfully yet.
And then there’s the issue of integration with other tools. One-size-fits-all is a term we don’t really understand in the web world. Although there are great platforms that give you a base, generally, they are then extended, and blended to create a digital compilation that accomplishes (if not always elegantly) the business goal. What happens to the developer who’s job it is to integrate tools into something that was effectively generated by a computer?
The aesthetic design is only scratching the surface of what is truly necessary to create an engaging experience for the user. At the end of the day, do we really want to trust our web tools to the guys who created InDesign?
For me, the jury is still out on this entire topic, but I’m more warm to the idea than I used to be. With the imminent adoption of HTML5, CSS3, and the proliferation of tools like JQuery, and JQuery UI, the tunnel is looking shorter, and the light brighter than ever before. Only time will tell.
What do you think? Can an elegant, and universal solution really exist?
