So a while ago I read a post by 37signals called "Why we skip Photoshop” and since then I never truly understood why not to use photoshop. I’ve learned a few things, and I have tried a few things. I have come up with this. Photoshop is a great tool, if your working on a new design or site, I think Photoshop is a great way to show what your thinking in terms of design not functionality. I think this is partly what 37signals is talking about. You truly don’t understand how something works until you try it.

They suggest going straight from a sketch to HTML and CSS, which is something real, you can touch (click) it, get a feel for how things should work and what’s not working. You can make changes on the fly and best of all, it’s already made when you’re ready to use it. No converting a mockup from an image to HTML and CSS.

So here I am at work instructed to create a mockup for functionality (the site is already designed and live). The problem is that they expect every little aspect is to be shown, what happens when you click this drop down, or start to perform a search. Showing functionality in a mockup just doesn’t make sense. Just start creating something real, then the client or user can see for themselves how it’s suppose to function, look, feel. From there it’s up to the developers to plugin the working functionality.

Now you have gone from something real to something functional. Leaving out a step saves time and frustration trying to have the client “visualize” the mockup and sign off on something that isn’t real.