Why not?
I've lost count of how many times I’ve had programmers tell me about how WordPress is an slow, bloated piece of software. They tell me it doesn’t scale well, that the plethora of plugins is actually a bad thing. It’s too big. It’s too popular. It’s too old. And indeed, that may all be true, to some extent. Likewise the complaints about jQuery. Talk to a lot of the experts now, and they’ll talk about it like it was the worst thing that ever happened to them. There are other frameworks, now. New, better frameworks that are so much... less like jQuery, I guess? Then you get the arguments about application platforms compared to plain old regular hosting, and that’s another thing altogether. But there’s one very little thing about these “older” tools that many people seem to ignore, nowadays. It might seem like an insignificant matter, compared to the beautiful new code that developers are writing now, but it’s important to me: this software gets s*** done! Once upon a time, people were putting together early content management systems, and giving them away to the world. Some, like Blogger and others before it, restricted you to their servers, their platform. Others gave the code away and expected you to figure out how to install it with little documentation. Then WordPress came along. They began to market themselves and their “five-minute” installation process. They may not have been the first to do something like this, but man, they did it right. All of a sudden, your average semi-knowledgeable computer user could install a blogging platform on the host of their choice! Later on, they created wordpress.com, so people with even less experience could experience that PHP and MySQL-based joy. You see, not everyone who makes a website is a programmer. Lots of us are building our own sites because we don’t have the budget to hire someone. Others are designer-types: good at the front-end, not so great with actual programming. While efforts to “teach everyone to code” are noble and all that, they’re not realistic. Most of us aren’t going to put in the time and effort required to learn the basic principles of programming because we have other stuff to do. We have other work. We have hobbies. And hey, remember how I spent my teenage years playing with Linux all the time? Well I have friends now. I don’t want a CMS that requires me to code in half the functionality myself. That’s not what they’re for. They’re supposed to make building websites take less time. Give me a system that lets me use my knowledge of HTML and CSS to make sites faster. Give me one that does that while leveraging new technologies and embracing new best practices, and I’ll love you. Give me one that works well on disgustingly expert-level, but beautifully engineered, platforms like Heroku with a minimum amount of fuss, and I might marry you. (I said might.) The point is that your beautiful software isn’t going to go as far as it could if us mid-level users can’t use it. There are people who won’t even touch stuff like SquareSpace, and they want a custom solution for their site. Or they actually need one... and they often come to us. They might not go to you because you’ll charge them upwards of ten-thousand dollars. Maybe they don't know enough about computers to know that a “web developer” is a thing. Maybe they just want a really simple site, and the ability to update information once in a while. You might think newer generations are more technically savvy, but they’re not. They’re better at tapping on interfaces. Ask them how those interfaces are designed and built, and most will give an unconcerned shrug. They’re too busy using them to care. I believe that the consumer market of website-building will, for a long time yet, be at least half-driven by those of us who know just enough technical stuff to get into trouble. Us, the power users. Us, the professional muddlers. So write that awesome code that’s been bouncing around your brain. Write the software that takes us into the next decade, or century. But as you build your next big thing, as you engineer your next great platform, and as you architect the future of web technology, please don’t forget about us. Featured image, software image via Shutterstock.Ezequiel Bruni
Ezequiel Bruni is a web/UX designer, blogger, and aspiring photographer living in Mexico. When he’s not up to his finely-chiselled ears in wire-frames and front-end code, or ranting about the same, he indulges in beer, pizza, fantasy novels, and stand-up comedy.
Read Next
20 Best New Websites, April 2024
Welcome to our sites of the month for April. With some websites, the details make all the difference, while in others,…
Exciting New Tools for Designers, April 2024
Welcome to our April tools collection. There are no practical jokes here, just practical gadgets, services, and apps to…
14 Top UX Tools for Designers in 2024
User Experience (UX) is one of the most important fields of design, so it should come as no surprise that there are a…
By Simon Sterne
What Negative Effects Does a Bad Website Design Have On My Business?
Consumer expectations for a responsive, immersive, and visually appealing website experience have never been higher. In…
10+ Best Resources & Tools for Web Designers (2024 update)
Is searching for the best web design tools to suit your needs akin to having a recurring bad dream? Does each…
By WDD Staff
3 Essential Design Trends, April 2024
Ready to jump into some amazing new design ideas for Spring? Our roundup has everything from UX to color trends…
How to Plan Your First Successful Website
Planning a new website can be exciting and — if you’re anything like me — a little daunting. Whether you’re an…
By Simon Sterne
15 Best New Fonts, March 2024
Welcome to March’s edition of our roundup of the best new fonts for designers. This month’s compilation includes…
By Ben Moss
LimeWire Developer APIs Herald a New Era of AI Integration
Generative AI is a fascinating technology. Far from the design killer some people feared, it is an empowering and…
By WDD Staff
20 Best New Websites, March 2024
Welcome to our pick of sites for March. This month’s collection tends towards the simple and clean, which goes to show…
Exciting New Tools for Designers, March 2024
The fast-paced world of design never stops turning, and staying ahead of the curve is essential for creatives. As…
Web Tech Trends to Watch in 2024 and Beyond
It hardly seems possible given the radical transformations we’ve seen over the last few decades, but the web design…
By Louise North