Adobe launches new website tool, Muse

This tweet from Andy Clarke pretty much sums it up http://twitter.com/#!/Malarkey/status/103054061686898688

IMHO Muse is setting web design / dev back 10 years. We as designers & developers work hard to create code that is lean, semantic & accessible to improve the web, muse does the opposite. If it outputted well constructed code then I'd be all for it, but it doesn't.

There are a couple of really good tweets from Andy Clarke on this topic, none of which speak overly well of Adobe Muse.

Looking at it as a developer who dabbles in design, I'm horrified at what Muse creates by way of markup. I know many designers who are capable of producing very good designs using the very things that this software seems to think we want to get away from. Madness.

Wow. That's a mess.

I've spent time and effort defending Adobe in the past, but this really annoys me. It shows a total lack of understanding of the web design industry.

On the bright side, if it was half decent I may be slightly concerned for my job. Keep it up adobe, make crap.

It might sound harsh, but I think Muse is going to make it easier for mediocre designers to flood the web with bad design (and code!). It's a massive step in the wrong direction for Adobe.

If graphic designers want to start building websites themselves then they should start by learning basic coding, not simply rely on pressing a button to do it all for them.

As a side note, I truly believe that understanding the creation of a website from concept, through design and development make designers much better at their jobs… we shouldn't be encouraging this 'lazy' attitude to building websites.

The problem with the previous comments is, designers who use Muse won't care what the code looks like or whether it's semantic, and Joe Public viewing the Muse created website will care even less then the designer about the code. As long as the site looks and works properly in the viewers browser, that will be all that matters. Coders should start planning for a career change.

The same thing is happening in other creative fields. In ten years Joe point-and-shoot will upload his crappie photo to an online printing service, check a few boxes and get back a print that looks like it was taken by Joe McNally.

@RogerRamjet - The same argument was used years ago when Dreamweaver pumped out tables everywhere instead of nice CSS.
I haven't noticed any CSS gurus planning career changes yet.

I actually feel dirty looking at the markup generated by Muse...And IMHO, I don't see much of a difference between Muse and using Dreamweaver's Design View, except that Muse seems a little more comprehensive. However, just like DW design view, the code generated is terrible. Viewing the source on the MUSE homepage was ridiculous, and if a designer created that page and they knew the least bit about HTML/CSS/JS, it would be about 1/4 the amount of code.

And also, quoting from the article: "He argues that the overlap between people who are passionate about coding and graphic design is very small ....".

IMO, this is a very stupid mindset to be in, I am a print designer that also loves designing websites, and the coding part of it is just as fun as the design part, but I don't know, maybe that's just me.

However, final thoughts. There have been many GUI website builders over the years, I just see this being another one of those tools that will only be used by people who know nothing about web design and development and don't care. But also, if you're an aspiring web designer looking for a job, and your entire portfolio consists of websites built in MUSE, you'll be laughed out of ANY interview, as companies don't want to hire someone who can only build websites by pointing and clicking.

RogerRamjet, with comments like that, I do hope you're not a creative.

with comments like that, I hope you don't call yourself a webdesigner

woops, sorry @WSTN, got a little post happy before i realized it wasn't directed at me...LOL, usually my attention to detail isn't that bad...

haha, and yes, I do call myself a web designer. ;)

Another thought...Just think, if every website on the internet was built with GUI programs like MUSE, how much bandwidth litter would there be? It seems like such a waste of space...The new world trend these days is to GO GREEN! Don't use more resources than absolutely necessary. Shouldn't we adhere to the same principle in our code?

Companies care about the performance of their websites, so a program like this leaves me with no other conclusion, that only no-nothing designers will use it and only for clients that no-nothing.

While I would agree there's value for Adobe to crowd source input on a public Beta release, Muse is so not ready for primetime as to bring Adobe's intent for future development into question. On all of the pages on http://muse.adobe.com Adobe states they have been created with Muse. And while some pages do validate (as did the pages I created with Muse & exported to HTML), that Adobe has chosen to implement inline CSS, iframes, and to convert text to images is not in the spirit of moving web standards forward. While each and every page is is marked-up , tagging the pages HTML5, none of the elements new in HTML5 are present on any of the pages. To convert text to images will greatly diminish any hope for implementing a successful search matrices. The maxim 'content is king' refers to content in text which is visible to search engines.

As someone who is just starting out in the web design field (currently a student), I am really let down by services such as this. I have been racking my brains to learn the code, write the code, breathe semantic code and this is kind of taking my dedication and almost laughing at it!

Hey Adobe, just because you can, doesn't always mean you should!

I personally feel that as great as this may be to some (non web designers), it sucks for the people who are taking the time to learn how to do it the right way. I can only imagine what it feels like for seasoned vets!

Glad to see others properly assaulting this new product.

I could do a bit-by-bit teardown of this product, but some things really stand out.

The first minute of the Muse video turned me off immediately, with that bit about how it's for people who "just want to focus on design" and "they don't need to know what CSS is, Javascript, or anything like that," and "express your ideas without letting technology get in the way."

All these "don't need code..." products create an illusion that somehow the code disappeared. No, you just don't have full control over the code: you only get to manipulate the code the way the GUI designers decided you can.

Even if Muse somehow moved beyond code, it only gets you through the superficial design phase (at best). What happens when your client needs you to categorize pages? What about setting up complex search parameters? What happens when your client needs a form that collects information and automatically generate page layouts from the field submissions? What about complex user rights for adding and editing content? What happens when your client needs an e-commerce element? Well, you'll have to take your Muse site to a coder, who will tear down the whole mess and start over using... CODE!

I'm not an expert coder. I'm a designer who has learned code and appreciates the beauty of code to give me the freedom to design. Anyone who thinks coders will be out of work in five years must have no sense of deeper site creation.

There's always going to be a place for designers who know their craft and perform a first-class job, but less skilled people are allowed to create things too, even if the result is somewhat less efficient. I use WebPlus and have made a few sites, the people I made them for have been pleased, not critical. Horses for courses.

"Anyone who thinks coders will be out of work in five years must have no sense of deeper site creation."

This pretty much sums up my thoughts on this new piece of rubbish offering from Adobe. To be fair, I went to the Muse site and checked out some of the showcase examples and, as expected, they are nasty under the hood - very messy code, div soup, meaningless class names, no regard for semantics, speed or SEO. It's disgusting that Adobe can market this as "web standards compliant", relying on the fact that most of their target audience (graphic designers) won't know the difference; and that's not their fault, it's not their job to, but Adobe shouldn't be trying to capitalise on it!

Shame on you Adobe, you have a duty of care to the web industry and all you're trying to do is make money. You have a duty of care to the graphic designers you're trying to sell this steaming pile of ** to, and you have a duty of care to the web developers who will have to try and fix those websites in years to come. Release Muse and your name will be mud in the web dev community within a few years - and don't discount us, we're responsible for at least half your Photoshop and Dreamweaver sales.

I'm a senior web dev with 11+ years experience designing and developing; I work 40 - 50 hrs a week taking beautiful web designs from our Creative Director and coding them in a way which matches his design as closely as possible, is standards-compliant, fast, and can be easily edited by other developers. I then port my code across to a standards-compliant content management system. This work requires human (not computer) intelligence because you always have to be thinking about "how can I code this so the client can't break it when they edit this page", "how can I code this for best SEO while also incorporating that design element perfectly and making sure everything validates".

Not to mention print stylesheets, mobile websites, login systems, usability, accessibility, web content, shopping carts, search, the list goes on.

Human's are always going to be needed for this kind of work, it's not something computers can do, it's not something software can do. The ability to question, and make intelligent decisions on the fly, is the difference between a piece of sh@t software program like Muse and a developer who actually knows what they're doing and has a good few years experience to call on to help them make those decisions.

"focus on being creative, to express your ideas without letting the technology get in the way"

Guess what, if you want to do that stick with print design. Web and mobile ARE technology, you can't just ignore that (duh Adobe).

"and in five or ten years I don't think very many people will be coding to design websites".

Heh, and you've just shown how little you know right there, and how little right you have to even try to produce website software. In the 11 years I've been in this industry I've seen less and less work for web designers, and more and more work for anyone who can write decent, human-friendly code. There will always be demand for talented web designers, and there will always be more demand for talented web developers because development takes so much longer than design, and there's a reason for this - done badly, done with the kind of appalling code Muse spits out, client's won't get any kind of decent search-engine rankings, they won't be able to edit their own sites properly, they will be frustrated and feel they've wasted thier money (which they will have), and some poor developer down the track will get handed their Muse POS website and groan and tell the client the site has to be rebuilt from scratch because nothing they want or need from it will ever eventuate otherwise.

You should be disgusted with yourself Adobe. I am. Grow a brain, and grow some balls and use your considerable power in this industry to do some good, rather than just thinking about how much money you can make exploiting an audience that has been faithful to you for so many years.

If you want a place to start? Trash Muse. This thing is an abomination and you're opening yourself up to considerable embarrassment for many years to come by associating your name with it.

Many of the comments above focus on the perceived impact of tools such as this allowing 'lesser designers' to intrude on the pros territory. There have always been WYSIWYG tools and a common factor of all is they cannot automate the skills of the visual designer. Muse's workflow has a lot of similarity to Indesign and I don't see professional designers fearing and looking down on Indesign.

Secondly, much comment has been made of the poor output code generated by Muse. It is naive of anyone to think that Adobe will not refine its output and eventually Muse will write code as lean and compliant as is expected. As a web designer who handcodes I accept that it is inefficient use of my time and I look forward to the time when Adobe and others produce software which negates this activity so I can concentrate on design and UI. Of course html/css knowledge will always be useful if only to understand what these tools output and to modify as necessary.

Let's not forget that Adobe WILL integrate Muse into the design of sites and templates that work with Business Catalyst.

BC is a powerful hosting platform - 90% of the comments above mentioning site elements like Field Submissions, ECommerce, User Control & Admin, Mobile Support, CMS, CRM are all modules currently included in Business Catalyst.

Personally, I think non-coders who get in on Muse right now will be in at ground level of a very powerful tool that has the potential to deliver on nearly every aspect of site design. From concept to CMS integration, and even hosting / automated publishing.

Becoming a BC partner even pays you commisions on your clients hosting fees!

Lots of potential here.