Published on | Prototyping: From UX to Front End — Medium Plant

The need for a version control system for designers is not a novel problem. Several companies have attempted to solve this issue from varying perspectives. LayerVault and Pixelapse were both able to provide some solution to designers in need of version control, but for distinctive reasons both companies terminated development of their Products.

This history has led to the growing popularity that there are existing solutions on the market that can support specific tasks for designers. More recently, some have proposed that Git is able to provide such a solution.

Below, we discuss this idea and the reasons why it may not be warranted.

Reason 1: Orientation to textual format

When one opens any repository on Github and views any commit, for example:

Source

It is evident that Git functions through a “line removed, lined added…” format, indicating the heavy reliance on text-based functionality.

Designers do not use text as their tool or medium. Rather they used objects, which can only be interpreted in their original form.

In fact, all of the graphical shells for Git: SourceTree, Github desktop, etc., are text-oriented. Although there is some support for graphic formats, this support is weak and does not arm the designer with the freedom to make specific decisions.

Reason 2: One file, more conflicts

When Git is not employing the use of lines, it uses files; yet another obstruction to the design process. Programmers tend to distribute a project in sets of thousands of files. Designers tend to do the exact opposite. They make many changes within a single file, which is best done in Sketch, which stores an entire project in one file. This approach is becoming even more streamlined and popular with the constant development and improvement in the functionality of symbols.

When multiple teammates work in the same file with a clean Git, we encounter these problems:

Increased frequency of conflicts.

Designers require a version control tool that provides details about the changes made to a file and Git fails to do exactly that. It does not have the capability to inform users that, for example, the fifth embedded layer of the second artboard on the sixth page has changed. It simply states that the file has changed, which is of very little utility.

The necessity for heavy information transfer.

Git users must upload entire files each time an update is made to a design, which is inefficient and simply painful, especially given the large number of raster graphics within these design files.

Inadequate file detail and metadata.

Given Git’s lack of ability to separate files into their composing atoms, it is practically impossible to search for details of a given file.

Reason 3: The main pain of Git is to merge branches

In a situation where users attempt to merge branches, Git leads to significant conflicts. Git users are unable to individualize changes to specific users. Everyone must be able to understand what their project teammates changes, why they changed it, and most importantly, how these changes integrate into your design. It’s ok if the branches split into 1–2 commits, but what if they split to 22 or if someone forgets to commit often and has 1 commit for 50 commits? Then the process of merging is like beating your head against the wall, you would not even know which part to sew to, let alone how to do it.

And now imagine this situation occurred to a designer and this problem can not be visualized graphically.

Git is a useful tool that can help store changes and organize work on one project. However, it is simply not compatible with the design process.

Some of the popular tools for designers Sketch, Zeplin and Invision use versioning so that it does not matter how the version control system works. Everything seems familiar to the designer.

Three reasons why Git is not suitable for designers was originally published in Prototyping: From UX to Front End on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Three reasons why Git is not suitable for designers

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