I had been toying with the idea of using an HTML, CSS & JavaScript framework for quite some time. Will it save me time? Will it help me code more quickly? Everyone else seems to be doing it, maybe it’s time I gave it a try? I did some digging and quickly realised that these frameworks weren’t going to be for me and here’s why.
I started with Twitter Bootstrap – you know because everyone has heard of it and it is everywhere. The first thing I notice is a big “Aww yeah, Bootstrap 4 is coming” banner at the top. OK, so I can download v3.x today, but v4 will be better, right? So I’m out of date already… ok that’s cool I guess, I’ll click on the banner announcement and take a look at what is in v4.
Initially, I read the v4 blog post and think wow, these guys are amazing – they put so much work into this thing! Then I saw the line:
Bootstrap 4 has been a massive undertaking that touches nearly every line of code
Oh ok, right… so if I built something on v3 and wanted to update to v4 then this is going to be a lot of work, surely there is a clever update development path – what happened in 2 to 3?
I read further down the post and hit this line:
When we shipped Bootstrap 3, we immediately discontinued all support for v2.x, causing a lot of pain for all our users out there. That was a mistake we won’t be making again.
Well done for admitting the mistake and working on a better path for v3 to v4 – but this didn’t exactly fill me with confidence.
So, I’m already feeling a little underwhelmed by the framework experience, but hey let’s give this a go, so many people are using this – it must be brilliant.
Downloading
I hit the download page and the page itself is absolutely huge! Great documentation but holy moly this thing is a giant! So now I immediately start thinking about file sizes.
At this point I fire up Foundation – which is another well known HTML, CSS & JS framework.
I download both standard full package files and the minified CSS files are twice as big as my most complicated projects, the JS files are up to 3 times bigger and this is me comparing their minified versions to my unminified versions.
Well that’s okay, I’ll just customise the download, they both have customisers. Visiting each framework’s customise page has an overwhelming amount of on/off toggles. I’m going to need to sit down and work out what I need and what I don’t.
Downloading an HTML, CSS & JS Framework is not going to save me time, it is going to do the opposite.
It was at this point that I realised that downloading an HTML, CSS & JS Framework is not going to save me time, it is going to do the opposite. Yes an initial investment up-front perhaps, but we’re talking about a learning curve for something I don’t need to learn. You see, I know HTML and CSS very well, I’m pretty good at jQuery too. I’m sure I could learn lots of things from digging through both frameworks. I’m sure the people that put them together are smarter than me, faster than me and probably better looking than me – but I’m not going to spend the time learning about someone elses framework when I could do it myself or up-skill my own core skills.
Is this the beginning of the end?
This leads me on to a troubling tweet I saw from someone I follow.
Following on from that, if I ask how you build your front-end, answering with “Bootstrap” is not an acceptable answer.
— Ed Poole (@_ewp) April 5, 2016
This kind of statement worries me. I earned my front-end chops long before any frameworks, hell I started when framesets were cool and CSS was just for making text look pretty!
I know of some developers and past clients who have used Bootstrap and Foundation and can’t answer me why or how it works. This is troublesome. One answer I got was “Well I don’t know why we use Foundation it was a developer’s idea who left the company”. Another answer was “I just used Bootstrap because it is an industry standard”.
Consider your options
I’m not saying do not use frameworks, what I am saying is that you need to consider your options here wisely.
Do you want to add code bloat to a project or have to learn a framework in depth on a basic website? probably not.
Would you want to do this on a mid-sized website, probably not.
Would you want to do this on a large scale website, possibly – but it would depend on how many people were involved in the project and how concerned you are with optimisation and speed.
Let’s break things down a little more:
Bugs & Updates
As good as a framework is, you are always going to either a) Have to wait for functionality updates and bug fixes or b) Make your own fixes and updates and try to submit them for merging into the core framework at a later date.
On one hand, you have a massive community surrounding a framework so it is likely people will already have the answers for you. On the other hand, you’re suddenly fixing someone elses code or making it do something that isn’t in the core – will this cause you issues if you update the framework at a later date?
Ongoing maintenance
What if the framework you are using suddenly disappears or the owners refuse to patch bugs in an old version. Browsers are always updating, imagine if there was a critical bug that was never patched – this bug is then up to you to fix. Imagine you built a number of websites with a framework and now the bug is in all of them instead of just one or two.
Design
I know Bootstrap comes with themes and people have done amazing things with the framework at the core. However, many people throw up a website or product page and it looks the same as everyone elses. You are not going to stand out if you do this. I’ve lost count of the websites I’ve visited and thought “Bootstrap”.
Extraneous Code
If you are concerned with performance and you use a framework, even when you customise the download, you are probably still going to end up with code you do not need or don’t fully understand. If you are able to minimise extraneous code, this is probably only manageable after you have invested a serious amount of time learning the framework.
Ownership
As amazing as a framework can be, ultimately you are going to have to take ownership of the code in terms of maintaining it for your client or customer. Your client probably isn’t going to be interested if there is a bug in the framework or a piece of functionality they’ve requested is conflicting with some core file somewhere, they are just going to want to have it fixed and working.
Do you still know how to code?
Coming back round to the tweet I quoted earlier. Bootstrap, Foundation and any other HTML, CSS and JS framework make it so easy to build a website, many new developers and front-end coders are learning from Bootstrap or even worse just using Bootstrap because it works. If you are doing this, stop, it will come back to bite you in the end. You need to go back to basics and learn it all, learn how to write good code and bug fix it.
The future of web development
I seriously hope frameworks don’t become the norm, I hope designers and developers take responsibility for their learning and their code. Bespoke websites, coded in a way that is fit for the purpose of the task at hand will always be better than a framework. Or they should be, they should be faster, smaller and easier to understand.
When do you use a framework then?
I’m aware that most of this post seems like it is against using HTML, CSS and JS frameworks. I’m not against using a frameworks. What I am against is people blindly using one without a moment to think about why.
I can think of some great examples for using a framework: Prototyping, Back End Administration Systems, holding pages, single use campaign based web pages and I’m sure that frameworks can work on websites, but think before you start using one;
Is a framework right for this project?
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Helen May 13, 2016 at 7:52 pm
Bootstrap and other top CSS frameworks are becoming huge and loading a site made with them in an old mobile is quite slow. I think it’s better to use a basic framework, like Shine CSS Framework or Simple Grid.
Chris Wharton May 13, 2016 at 7:56 pm
Thanks Helen, I’ll check those ones out and see what they do. I’m more of a fan of the frameworkless approach
Jen Smeriglio May 13, 2016 at 7:56 pm
I loved this article. It was a reflection of all the feelings I went through when B4 was announced. I tend to lean more towards not using a framework. I much prefer to go from scratch and at my job we really do write a lot of our own code.
However, Bootstrap is a huge part of our job too. We work within the confines of an event management system that was poorly built, poorly managed and out of date. It is only now with a new CTO and larger team is the parts being re-written. We use our own code to basically strip out the mess and then Bootstrap to rebuild parts.
Gotta love it.
Chris Wharton May 13, 2016 at 7:59 pm
Thanks Jen. Wow the event management system work sounds like… fun!
Phillip Dews May 13, 2016 at 11:17 pm
Hi Chris,
You sound like a man after my own heart! I have carved out a career in web development and design for over a decade now and I am obsessed with it! Seems to me a culture of dumbing down the next generation of designers and developers.
I have used bootstrap once and did not like it so scrapped it! The only reason was a friend of mine said I should try it out because it saves time on making a site responsive. Crazy hey, it’s so easy to use media queries.
I loved what you said about when you look at a website and think “Bootstrap” or some other framework. I too can very much relate! I am a bloke and like most blokes that love to tinker, I love stripping things down to it’s bare components and then rebuilding it, That in my opinion is how we learn.
Recently I have been struggling to get new clients and work off existing ones so in one moment of madness I decided to quit being a freelancer and go and work for an agency! I found that at a lot of interviews I got asked about frameworks. “Do you use Laravel, Bootstrap and the like?” to which I replied, “Well I prefer to build from scratch as I don’t think frameworks are all that they are made out to be!” or some other response
I am glad that I did not take on any of the jobs though as I am different from them and it’s what makes people like us stand out from the crowd! Hell us freelancers are a dying breed these days and we should be spreading the word that learning about frameworks is a complete waist of time.
The only thing I will ever use is WordPress and build my own custom themes for it! However I think even WordPress can bloat out a site with extraneous code as well, but at the end of the day it is what most of my clients like and it can be fast if we code our themes right! Take my site for instance it’s a mixture of WordPress with my own custom theme, and custom php, javascript and css code on most of the other pages!
By not spending hours on end learning about Bootstrap or Foundation I have spent time learning about hosting and how to set up my own lamp stack server on Google’s own servers and how to add the new http/2 protocol that’s coming out! Something that a lot of these new breed of developers would be very proud of if it was for not for that fact they had to learn a career restricting framework first!
Hmm that sounded like me blowing my own trumpet them Chris, my apologies for that buddy! This post really got me fired up as I am very passionate and borderline obsessive about WebDev. I think I may have to write about this also dude! BTW you got a lovely looking site Chris, a lot of time has been spent on getting the typography right I see, something I really must think about while I’m currently developing and finishing off my own site!
cheers for this awesome post Chris, will follow you with interest!
Regards
– PD
Chris Wharton May 14, 2016 at 5:25 am
Thanks Phillip, it is always good to up-skill.
Jing May 14, 2016 at 3:37 am
I totally agree with your viewpoint, and especially the use cases you proposed for the use of frameworks. The way I see it, frameworks themselves aren’t the problem. It is the people who use them and the manner in which they use them which cause problems. I believe Bootstrap was developed as a way for back-end developers to quickly prototype and show stakeholders a proof of concept (this may need some fact-checking) but never meant to be used in a production-ready website.
I love the concept of Bootstrap, that you have a set of uniform reusable components to be used throughout the project. My take is that every website needs to have their own “Bootstrap”. Frameworks were built to take care of a wide range of use cases but odds are, most websites don’t even use 80% of the features shipped. I’ve seen a large number of sites that include the entire Bootstrap library and only use the grid-classes.
Chris Wharton May 14, 2016 at 5:22 am
Thanks Jing, I agree the concept of frameworks is great but when it comes to application of them, this does not always hold true.
Jake May 14, 2016 at 1:38 pm
For a busy full-stack web dev bootstrap is a life saver! Why reinvent the wheel? Reusable tried and true code snippets are your friend. Plus once you start using bower or npm, installs are a breeze.
Chris Wharton May 14, 2016 at 3:10 pm
Hi Jake, I completely agree it can be a time-saver in certain circumstances. I’m not talking about re-inventing the wheel each time though – you’ll obviously bring knowledge and code snippets that have worked well in the past etc.
theGreatMachine May 14, 2016 at 5:47 pm
Finally someone who thinks like me! I was starting to think I was crazy for not liking frameworks. I think they are fantastic to learn from, but they are making the web become so dry and repetitive. Its like when you pull up to a street intersection and theres a Chipotle, McDonalds, Starbucks, Walgreens, Target, and Gas stations on the adjacent corners etc. Then you get to the next intersection 5 miles down and what??? There it is again…the same stores, with the general same design, in close to the same order. This pattern repeats with just a few slight changes here and there.
The mom and pop shops that are all completely unique, with originality and true passion behind them are getting destroyed by the big companies recycling the same working pattern over and over. Sure they do it cause it works and they make a ton of money, but the web is slowing becoming that same street corner over and over again. Im from a suburb of Chicago and when I travel anywhere in the county to completely brand new places I can go to the nearest town and find an intersection that looks close to the one right down my street.
Anyway great article, keep coding from scratch, I agree with Jing, use your own bootstrap that works for you, you don’t need half what they ship with. Even with a reset – why reset every element that exist in the world, when in a simple site you won’t ever use close to half of them.
Chris Wharton May 14, 2016 at 7:36 pm
Thanks, well that’s the cool thing about England I guess, we didn’t build our towns and cities in grids – maybe that’s why I’m not a fan of them or frameworks?!
Mike Way May 14, 2016 at 6:33 pm
Switched to Bulma.io. Flex based small and light. No js though, roll your own.
Chris Wharton May 14, 2016 at 7:40 pm
Thanks Mike – IE10+ though is a bit restrictive – even though I absolutely love flexbox!
Samuel carreira May 14, 2016 at 8:52 pm
I’m also not a big fan of frameworks. In a recent job I tried different frameworks (material design lite, foundation, materialize, Bulma, and other lightweight frameworks). My break point was when I had a bug with modal window dialog on small devices,
I reported the bug and after some days I was contacted by a zurb developer to try a beta version with that bug fixed. I updated the foundation framework version and… It breaks my old code!
Because that bad first experience I stop using frameworks and create all the CSS code with postCSS processor. The time spent on writing the code was the same time that I spent to learn the zurb foundation classes. And I don’t have to worry with default framework styles or unused code.
I understand the people that use frameworks, first they save a lot of time if you know well the framework (if you don’t know well all the classes you will not be very productive), and second they prevent a lot of compatibility issues with different browsers (especially the oldest ones) because it’s hard for a developer to write code with all the tweaks for the IE.
But if you want to create a style agnostic design will you need a lot of code to abstract from the default style of the framework.
Chris Wharton May 15, 2016 at 7:02 am
Thanks Samuel, it seems you had a similar experience to me.
@macartisan May 14, 2016 at 9:18 pm
One of our national clients requested a short-term promo website – about 6 pages. It was a simple 5-question quiz with a reward at the end – free in-flight Wifi on an airline. Since the quiz had to be available to ANY WiFi-equipped device, the site had to be simple, and unfailingly responsive.
I was the QA guy, and I kept posting bugs about content alignment, orientation-change flaws, typography, yadadayadada. Every time I’d get responses like “Let’s add padding, change the copy, how’s that?” More exploration of the buggable landscape. Ugly was what it was. This from experienced devs.
I suggested Bootstrap. “Nope, too big, and we don’t have time to cut it down.”So I let them do what they thought would work. They continued to explore bugspace.
Meanwhile, I took Bootstrap 3.x and cut it to the bone: a teeny version of Bootstrap that weighed about 40k, with 14 CSS classes that fixed all the problems I’d flagged. I even included element color classes.
I renamed the classes to fit the use cases for just that project, and wrote the simple documentation.
About 6 work hours from the second I decided to route around the damage.
Demo’d a fully responsive page to Dev manager. Approved, with thanks.
You don’t have to be Doctor Frankenstein if you know where to look for promising body parts.
More to the point, efficient usage of any HTML5 framework requires three skills:
1. A broad knowledge of the capabilities the framework offers, and a rough idea of how those capabilities are embodied in the code.
2. A broad knowledge of similar frameworks.
3. The ability to recognize which parts of the framework are necessary and which are, for this project, are completely useless.
Chris Wharton May 15, 2016 at 7:06 am
That’s an interesting insight, out of sheer curiosity I just checked a similar “sized” project and my CSS is under 20k for a fully responsive design with 6 distinct templates. I know its not all about file sizes but it is food for thought that’s for sure!
@GHFargo May 15, 2016 at 1:11 pm
Its definitely not all about file size, especially with things like HTTP2 and Socket connections coming onto the scene. I agree with the three points presented by @macartisan. Aka read the source code and understand what you are bringing into your project before you read the frameworks website and click download.
From there it is a matter of properly removing and trimming down the framework to fit your needs. Regardless of where you fall on the stack, you can never assume that something will solve your problems if you haven’t taken time to understand the source.
Another huge benefit of adhering to a widely adopted framework is it will expedite and simplify the on-boarding process for new hires coming in to work on an expanding Front-End. My 2¢
Chris Wharton May 15, 2016 at 7:13 pm
Thanks for your comment, no its not all about file size, but it does depend on the browsers you have to support too, many of which will never receive the benefits of web sockets or HTTP2. Reading the source code of a framework seems a little pointless rather than looking over the customiser page and document outlines, well I say a little pointless – it will take more time. I personally don’t want to start a project by stripping code out of a framework, it seems counter productive and counter intuitive, but everyone has their processes.
Adhering to a widely adopted framework because it will expedite and simplify the on-boarding process for new employees sounds like an answer to a question that was never asked. As in, you shouldn’t be employing someone based on their knowledge of a framework, you should (amongst other things) be assessing their creativity in solving solutions outside of the scope of what can or cannot be done in a prescribed framework. This sounds like a dumbing down of front-end coding in general and an acceptance that Bootstrap (etc.) are becoming the De facto standard of web development. If that is true, it is a sad day indeed.
@Ghfargo May 15, 2016 at 10:32 pm
Totally agreed, everyone has their process and I personally stand by the fact that if you are making a production ready application or website you should understand all the bells and whistles you’re importing. Getting into the habit of looking at the source code not only teaches you the patterns that are being used in popular frameworks, so you can later roll your own, but also alerts you to the modules or components that are ‘extra weight’ i.e. Bootstraps carousel…. utter trash. kill it.. kill it with fire.
As for older browser support, its similar to seeing a duckboat driving down the road. Sure they are a sight to see and fun to try once or twice, but no body wants that as their main mode of transport because it’s wildly unsafe to drive and will cost an arm and a leg to support. The more industry leaders who stand up and say “I’m not going to support this unsafe vehicle for exploration” the better everyones lives will be. Lets face
And It saddens me too, but unfortunately at least 75% of the jobs out there for Front-End development will list prerequisite knowledge of an existing framework as a huge bonus, if not a requirement.
Chris Wharton May 16, 2016 at 8:42 am
It sounds like we are of a similar mindset, just from different backgrounds. A large part of my career has been working for UK and Global corporates. Sadly, even if they stand up and say they don’t want a duck boat, their IT and infrastructure teams are in control of the rollout of machines and operating systems. From my experience these companies mainly used Windows and were at best 2 browser versions behind – often 3 or 4. These systems were also heavily restricted, making running anything other than Internet Explorer impossible. I completely agree about forward thinking and cutting edge technology, but its not always practical. As with everything, it is about using the right tools for the job – which I think we are both saying :)
Nuno Jul 5, 2016 at 2:56 pm
Totally agree! :) I use the Less version on the bootstrap, and only compile the components that i´m using in my project… and that´s it! :)
Eric Giovannoni May 15, 2016 at 1:26 am
My last project use Bootstrap on client’s request. I throw everything and I just kept the grid. So it’s not so expensive in the end.
But I agree with Phillip comment that learning from framework is a waste of time in long term. Nevertheless I think that this kind of tool is very useful in a work on team.
The idea to find a “definitive”, or “ultimate”, or “the Holly Grail” solution to most common problems is tempting. But frameworks are not this answer. Just another response, but it exists other solutions to these very same problems. The “once for all” solution doesn’t exists, yet.
Thanks for this post. Because I imagine every designer is struggling with the same dilemas.
Chris Wharton May 15, 2016 at 7:08 am
Thanks Eric, it is good to hear fellow designers with a similar attitude.
Brad May 15, 2016 at 3:17 am
I gave up on frameworks like Bootstrap when they had so many names for grids that it would take the rest of my life to remember them. That and the fact that some of the CSS files took a long time to load. Lots of frameworks have went the bloat route
Chris Wharton May 15, 2016 at 7:09 am
The naming conventions in some of the framework are pretty interesting!
Chang May 15, 2016 at 9:38 am
Oh dear, wait till you get into the gulp vs grunt, browserify vs webpack, npm vs bower, babel, postcss, [insert new hot frameworks/libraries/trends here].
I don’t know, what are supposed to make our life easier are taking our productivity to the ground, spreading confusion and frustration within the community. The problem is despite all this, I still want to use them.
Not sure if this is a good analogy, if iPhone 6 is out there and I have an iPhone 4, I’d love to upgrade it IF I have the resources, even though there’s nothing wrong with my iPhone 4 and the iPhone 6 has new features that I may never need.
Chris Wharton May 15, 2016 at 7:02 pm
I’m not sure on your analogy either Chang :) Oh yes there is always a hot new piece of something in the web world to discuss. It’s getting exhausting!
Eivind Borgersen May 16, 2016 at 5:23 am
Spot on! We work quite a lot with creative agencies developing bespoke designs and functionality — in which case it’s easier to build the grids, typography etc. from scratch to that project.
Spending time on learning or stripping code from a framework could be better spent solving the issues specific to the project you’re working on.
That being said, we’ve built our own little ‘boilerplate’ complete with a set of SASS mixins and file structure, a bare-minimum JS file and all required template files for WordPress so that we can get stuck into the builds faster. If we use certain code regularly enough, we update the boilerplate with that code so it’s ready for next time.
Chris Wharton May 16, 2016 at 8:43 am
Hi Elvind, thanks for your comment, I too have a boilerplate I’ve created myself very similar to yours by the sounds of it.
Chris Howard May 16, 2016 at 7:37 am
Interesting. Fits with my own experience and drag and drop WordPress framework, of which I’ve been discussing just today.
I’ve been doing it the easy way for five years, but now discovered that makes me less employable.
In my discussions today, a wise woman mentioned of her own experience with WP frameworks, “it was a shortcut and I sacrificed deeper learning”, which aligns well with your paragraph “Do you still know how to code?”.
Because I code WP plugins, I still know how to code. But, by using a framework that does so much of the work for me, I’m way behind the pack in knowing how to code a theme. And that’s what the employers I look at want.
So, I’d heartily agree with your point that using a framework can undermine your deeper knowledge and skills.
Chris Wharton May 16, 2016 at 8:46 am
Thanks Chris, it’s not much of a learning curve from plugins to themes to be honest – so I’m sure you’d be able to to it, but yes – you always need to know what you are coding with even if it is a framework, you have to understand what is what and why things are done that way.
Bilan Hockers May 16, 2016 at 1:53 pm
This article had me silently cheering at my desk at work. Finally, someone saying exactly how I feel about frameworks. I feel like they’ve made people lazy and reliant on not knowing how to actually write code themselves. I do believe that there is value for some projects and I am not arguing that they shouldn’t exist, but I don’t think they’re always necessary. FE developers should first and foremost know how to write html/css on their own and then utilize Bootstrap/Foundation, etc. as a tool for rapid development.
Thanks for the great article!
Chris Wharton May 16, 2016 at 2:01 pm
Why cheers silently Bilan – let your coworkers know! There are always pros and cons, all I wanted to highlight was that frameworks aren’t right for every job and you need to choose wisely.
Brian Reed May 16, 2016 at 2:38 pm
Spot on. At my company, we spent more time tearing Bootstrap out of our app than we did putting it in.
Chris Wharton May 16, 2016 at 2:41 pm
:)
Al Sessions May 16, 2016 at 4:35 pm
Contrarian that I am, I’ve become a huge fan of Bootstrap. It’s bloated as all get out, overly complex and for a pile of CSS/Javascript the learning curve is remarkably steep. That said; Bootstrap, Git and npm have changed my life. I can now consistently replicate my baseline Bootstrap build, the one with all the stuff I never use stripped out, with a few simple commands. A few more lines and I can throw a Bootstrappy Drupal install into the mix. Put together I can run a script on Digital Ocean and spin up a fully featured Bootstrap themed Drupal installation (with whatever bells and whistles I want) in about three minutes. To this old guy, it may as well be magic.
I can do this with confidence that it will work in nearly any environment and on any device. It also allows team members familiar with Bootstrap to get up to speed on the site specifics quickly and if, down the road they decide they want a carousel (or accordions, or product grid, or whatever else the cool kids are doing) it is simple to add the functionality in a way consistent with the rest of the site.
As far as the cookie-cutter sites Bootstrap spits out go, I see that as a failure on the developer/designers part rather than a problem with the framework. No matter how you do it, we’re basically putting boxes on a canvas and whether hand written or Bootstrap derived, it is up to us to display them in a unique way.
Tim May 16, 2016 at 5:49 pm
How about when somebody who thinks they have a good naming convention home-brews a garbage framework and other people are expected to maintain an undocumented behemoth? I’ll take well documented over lightweight any day because those random patches other people made just to “keep it working for now” will ruin your life.
I am dealing with this scenario now.
christian allred May 16, 2016 at 7:02 pm
I typically just use Foundation for the grid. i get rid of all the other garbage that i don’t need and keep the grid. there really isn’t anything else that you need beyond the grid if we are being honest. Foundation 6 was a pretty big step up on the size scale. I think they got it all down in size but still bigger than i like to include.
Chris Gomez May 17, 2016 at 12:42 pm
Employers and hiring managers are unable to distinguish high quality HTML/CSS/JS developers. They turn to frameworks as a way to fill slots on a team. “We chose Angular, so we need Angular devs. We chose Bootstrap, so we need Bootstrap devs.”
This has been going on in other platforms for some time too. To me, it’s merely a hiring tool, and in order to gain developer mindshare these frameworks are being promoted VERY HARD. I’m not saying don’t use Bootstrap. Just remember it is designed to solve one team’s problem and they are sharing their solution with you. Or it might be out to solve 80% of the common problems and you still have to deal with the rest.
I do not know if “standing out” is always a goal. Web sites come in many flavors. They are partially ads, especially where you land or start. Sure, stand out. But when the goal switches over to functionality, you are starting to create an app. At that point, you have to design towards usability, and we are not very good at this, either.
Chris Wharton May 17, 2016 at 1:23 pm
Thanks Chris, if the employer or hiring manager cannot distinguish high quality HTML/CSS/JS then it should be referred to someone on the team who can. “Bootstrap devs” – I refuse to believe that this is a thing! Standing out is always the goal, whether it is in design, functionality, UX or all of the above.
zreeseplus May 17, 2016 at 5:13 pm
I employ three bootstrap devs. It is a thing, and they are very useful to me.
Chris Wharton May 17, 2016 at 7:13 pm
If its a thing, its a thing, thanks for confirming its a thing. I’m glad to hear its working for you, I’ve definitely learnt a lot from the comments on this post.
Ludvik May 17, 2016 at 4:00 pm
Prototyping should be the main reason for HTML/CSS frameworks. However, many agencies and freelancers find it difficult to have few clients and make living expenses, so they grab as many projects as possible and use packaged-up frameworks that are not meant as final solutions. In the end, the client’s project ends up looking like other projects and bloated. Clients also want to pay as little as possible, and as designers some of us, maybe a majority feel like not investing the needed amount of time to truly develop the better solution for the challenge. Great article and based on the feedback, many of us have similar thoughts.
Chris Wharton May 17, 2016 at 7:12 pm
The key here Ludvik is surely to avoid the clients who are pushing down your budgets and your quality of work in the first place, that doesn’t sound like a nice position to be in. Thanks for the kind words and it is good to hear both sides of the arguments. This post has been a real eye-opener for me.