We so often hear the opposite question of whether designers should learn to code, but what about the flip side?

Should programmers learn to design?

In short. Yes, but maybe not for the reasons you might think.

First some background. I’m a programmer, I’m currently working with my fellow co-founders with the goal of producing the world’s best UX design tool.

In addition to programming, I’ve also been interested in design for as long as I can remember. I’ve been designing 3D graphics as a hobby for over 25 years (my first taste of 3D Graphics was POV Ray). When other kids were playing football on the weekend, I was hunkered down in my bedroom with a pirated version of Imagine3D on my trusty Amiga600.

Imagine 3D on the Amiga, circa 1992

When I was 12 (1992) I was obsessed with the idea of becoming a 3D graphics designer. My interests eventually led me to study Computer Science with a Minor in Multimedia Studies which involved Web, Graphic, Video and Sound Design along with studies in Database Systems and Programming. By 1997 standards, it was an exciting University programme, the first of its kind to formally offer studies in web development. Considering that the very first web page ever published to the World Wide Web was authored a mere 6 years earlier, these were truly the early years of the web.

Reality Sets In

University brought my dreams of becoming a visual designer crashing to ground. In high school I was the only one of my peers to be interested in 3D Modelling, texturing and graphic design. This meant that, among my peers, I was the best at these things by default.

You can imagine my shock when I met, for the first time in my life, people with actual talent in these fields.

I can still picture, as clear as day, exactly where I was when one of my classmates showed me the 3D design work he had produced for an assignment. It was around 1999 or 2000, and by this time graphic and 3D design had been an obsession for me for close to a decade. When I saw his work, the realisation hit fast and strong, I was only ever going to be a hobbyist graphic designer.

The same held true for print design, and the same held true for web design. In each of these University courses, despite my sincerest efforts, my results were middling at best.

Web Design, Y2K Style

I thought it would be fun to dig through backups to find some of the earliest sites I published online. Most of my work hasn’t survived the countless tech upgrades I’ve gone through over the years, but I was happy to see that one site survived, source code and all!

Here’s a website I designed in 2000. Despite my best efforts, the design was average, even by 2000 standards.