Re:Where will UX Design be in 5 years?
by seanmcdirmid on Thursday April 06, 2017 @10:44AM
(#14050932)
UI dev tools are tools for producing a UI. Prototyping and modeling tools are quite different; it would be unthinkable today for a professional architect to build the building they are architecting and not actually model the structure. Also consider that much of the design that goes on is far away from the actual pixels that show up on the screen; e.g. interaction designers have very little to do with the UI.
> Why can't we have the same in software?
Because devs and designers have different needs.
You mention that designers have their own toolchains for prototyping, but these has nothing to do with UI dev tools. I've often wondered why this would have to be so.
Look at other advanced design fields like architecture and industrial design. It would be unthinkable today that professional architects would just draw a facade and not use CAD to actually model the structure. Similarly, it would be very unusual for an industrial designer to model a product using a toolchain that is entirely separate from manufacturing. The assumption today is that CAD and CAM work together, not separately.
Why can't we have the same in software? For my part, I've been trying to work on a solution in the form of apps like React Studio [1]. It's not there yet, but I'm convinced that proper software modeling tools will happen eventually.
[1] https://reactstudio.com