The relationship between developers and designers

We’ve all heard that XAML is bringing the developers and the designers closer but there is just something about both teams that this relationship is destined to fail.

We’ve been working in a project (a small project) for some time, in which the designers have been working with the HTML, Flash, menus and all that nice stuff they do, and we’ve been working with the shopping cart, administration site, security and our nice stuff.

So we created all of our ASPX pages, classes, master pages, and used the designers images, CSS classes and layout to create a consistent, good looking website. BUT, the mother of all problems happened, “COMMUNICATION FAIL”. We created ALL pages for the “brochure site”, the site everybody will see and to our surprise, we didn’t have to do it, we were to have a mixture of HTML pages and ASPX pages. How cool ha?!?!

I think as a developer, no surprise there, so my guess was to have all pages converted to ASPX, and so did my boss. I’m use to receive designs to create my layout but I just hate it when this things happen. Now, don’t get me wrong, there is no problem (technically speaking) about having html+aspx pages in a website, it’s pretty common, but html is so hard to maintain by itself, I created master pages which helps with that, so it was pretty obvious to me (at least…).

Bottom line, always get things as clear as possible so you focus on what your job is. Make it clear with the designers on the limitations of your work and their work. Workout the “COMMUNICATION PATH” so everybody is happy in the end and the job gets done the way it’s supposed to. Never assume anything.

Care to comment? Feel free!