However, I agree with your concern that most designers are muddling. I myself can see in my work (albeit they are small-ish sites) that I muddle in my code and process.

It seems that I tend to just play with the CSS until I get it looking right in both IE and Firefox (though perhaps that is more of a problem with IE than my code!). I also shy away from web tools like Dreamweaver. I tend to stay old-school and code by hand. Though perhaps that will change as I start to develop bigger sites.

Thanks for making me review my process though, it’s quite interesting from an industry perspective.

There is something to be said for finding a reliable solution and using it as long as it continues to work. Consistency in any technical process is highly desirable. Learning to design a web site from scratch with each new project wouldn’t be a viable option.

However, it strikes me that we’re at a point right now where there is a lot of muddling related to the learning curve involved in working with web standards. There are plenty of good sites devoted to helping developers sort out the details and minimize the muddling, but we’re still a long way from having anything close to an acceptable set of best practices. Just look at the number of image replacement techniques we have to choose from.

Don’t get me wrong, a little muddling is probably a good thing. It’s in our nature. But there’s a point where you need to be able to critically evaluate your own methodology and consider new alternatives. Without this ability there’d be no progress.

It was assumed that when they got to a fire they would look at the situation, weigh up the pro’s and con’s of various solutions and then go with the one that fitted the best.

What actually happened was more interesting. They would quickly do a mental check to see if there were any obvious problems with a specific cause of action, and then basically do what they did last time. I guess the thinking is something along the line of, if it worked last time, why should I change it.

They would only change the way they approached something if it didn’t work last time, despite whether it was the best solution or not. Basically people get used to doing something one way and only change their habits if something goes wrong. I’m sure there are many ways I could streamline how I work, but until something goes wrong, I’m happy muddling through.

I think you’ve tapped upon the reason why process expose’s are so popular. Good examples include JSM’s Grey Box Methodology, DB’s Design Process Revealed and RW’s Coloured Boxes. They’re my favourite articles, especially when the process involves picking up a pen and sketching.