How Important is it for Designers to Know Codes?
Saurabh Tiwary | 7th February 2018
UI/UX Designers usually work in teams having several programmers, developers, visual designers, interaction designers, researchers etc. Irrespective of the team size, the UX Designer might not need to code but to focus only on the design part. The coding skill might not include HTML and CSS as well. Although, it’s nice to have but not an essential part of their job. There are so many tools that can generate codes for the designers as well. However, knowing the primary tags and syntax might be useful but not mandatory.
There are companies where “UX Designer” has numerous responsibilities to look through the multiple roles. They might get hired for any projects but in some cases, they might require to have knowledge closer to the full-stack developer or at least possess front-end development skills to support their roles.
UX designer as a team leader role needs to work closely with developers and might also need to understand the code that would be running inside the design to guide a developer during design implementations. This role falls under both UI and UX. And in some case, a visual or Interaction Designer.
An UI Designer Should Know Codes
UI controls how a user interacts with the system to make something happen with the digital system. If your job is to create buttons and colorful interfaces, your job is similar to a graphic designer.
However, if you are designing a button or some UI component which is consistent with an overall system, flow, and cognitive behavior, then your role is a visual designer.
In these scenarios, you don’t need to know coding skills unless the appearance of the element is dynamic. In such case, you might need to be familiar and even have an in-depth understanding of underlying CSS or scripting language, however, it again depends on the nature of the team you are working in.
