@Anti0606 I agree with you entirely. I think there is often confusion between design and functionality. In many respects, a fundamental part of good design is making a functional interface that people can intuitively understand. In most professional web development environments, you have designers that create the interface and you have coders that make the interface work the way the designer intended, so professional web development is a combination of talents.
Whilst products such as Sparkle are essentially a design tool, it does offer a great number of options that allow for the creation of a well designed and functional website without recourse to the coders. This is great for those who donât have or need the professional resources to create anything more than an informative, easy to use website.
Of course, there are those who require something a little more sophisticated, such as things like carousels (maybe for product selection), or things like eCommerce or full-blown online apps, such as real-estate listings, blogs, membership registrations etc. Clearly, these functions are beyond the remit of web-design apps such as Sparkle, they will require a different skill-set to make them work. This, I guess, is what could potentially differentiate between a good web-designer and a professional web developer. If one or the other has both skill-sets, then Sparkle could be considered as a âprofessionalâ tool because it represents just one tool in the professional web-developerâs arsenal - in much the same way as Sketch, or Affinity designer/photoshop and code editor apps.
With things like animation effects, those have become an important part of mobile web development - not because they simply look impressive (in fact some of the most animated-rich sites that are not pure entertainment sites, are often some of the least visited), but more because they allow the designers to draw attention to interactive elements that wouldnât otherwise be possible on mobiles. For example, whilst a desktop/laptop site can utilise rollover effects to indicate to users that an interactive element exists on the page, on mobiles, these effects simply donât show up because the device cannot detect a âfinger hoverâ. So, a pulsating button or link element can often be deployed to draw attention and encourage interaction.
Where animation becomes a little superfluous is where itâs used simply because itâs there. It doesnât add anything to the design or function of the web page. However, a good designer can effectively deploy animation to add to the overall experience of USING the web page, rather than just looking at it. I often come across sites where there appears to be little of interest on the page - in some cases almost a blank page. What isnât immediately obvious is that page elements slide in or out or up or down as the page scrolls. This can get a little tedious and infuriating because there appears to be no logical purpose behind the animations.
But, at least Sparkle has thought of the value of including animations. However, it is still up to the designer to use them wisely to enhance the user experience. So, in answer to the original question, yes, Sparkle can be used as a professional design tool that can be utilised to create stunning web sites. But the use of Sparkle alone (along with just about any other web site creating app) does not make the developer a professional. They may well be able to create great sites but only as long as itâs within the remit of the app itself. Beyond that, the âtrue professionalâ will have to add quite a few more tools to the toolbox before considering themselves as a professional web developer. As they say, a single adjustable spanner does not make a professional mechanic!!
