So who is Artisteer dedicated to? The potential audience of this program is very large. I can't be sure, but I feel that the intention of Artisteer's creators was to create a tool that allows the nongraphic and nontechnician people to create complete and great-looking websites. This would place Artisteer as a tool for hobbyists and enthusiasts, but the scope of users is much larger. Let's consider this problem from several different points of view.
A hobbyist is somebody who wants to have a website because of his/her private passion. It's not his/her job, it's not his/her business, he/she won't gain any money on it. It may be a private blog on Blogger or WordPress, or just a simple family website, often based on the cheapest hosting service possible. For such a person, hiring a professional web development company or freelancer is usually not an option because of the cost. Usually, the only available option is to try to prepare the page on his/her own (the results will be adequate to his/her skills), or to buy a ready-made template (accepting the fact that there are a lot of different websites that look the same). Artisteer gives such people a third option: buy the program and prepare a unique and good-looking site all alone. The cost will be less than the usual price for a ready-made, standard layout on the market.
A designer is an artistically talented person who can use the graphics editors and create good-looking designs for web pages. In a team, a designer usually does the first stage of work, creating an overall concept of how the site will look, and preparing the graphics. While a designer is good at drawing, he/she can't code. To create a website a designer needs the help of a web developer. But with Artisteer, he/she can design the template and enrich it with his/her own custom graphic elements, which he/she can prepare. He/she can even enter the content and transfer this all into a CMS skin, offering the end user a complete solution.
The frontier that divides web developers and programmers is often very thin, and various companies use different names for the same jobs. In this book, we assume that a web developer is someone with the skills for creating HTML/CSS code. Additionally, he or she often has good knowledge of administrating the CMSs, can install and configure various extensions, and is able to prepare the whole website, including stylesheet modifications, as there's no requirement of individual programming. The programmers are usually "next-level web developers", with programming skills. Usually, they code the core of the CMS systems or its additional functionality (create extensions). In short, we can assume that a web developer is someone who builds websites using the things that a programmer codes.
Web developers and programmers are able to build the whole website on their own, if not for one problem—they can't draw. They may be great technicians, but not graphics designers, and even the most technically advanced site without graphics does not impress anybody. That's why they often use ready-made templates as a basis for further work. The problem arises when there is a need to modify not the functionality, but the look of the site. In that case they have to cooperate with the designers.
Designers are the people who have an artistic taste. They can assess what looks good and what doesn't, even if they couldn't draw it on their own. Artisteer offers them the possibility to design a template independently, by determining the look of the site and its various elements, by changing their parameters such as colors, position, size, and so on. As you will see later, working with Artisteer resembles a situation wherein the designer is sitting next to you, listening to your suggestions, making the changes on the fly, and presenting the results immediately.
One of the main reasons that people work together is that nobody is perfect, nobody possesses all the talent. It would seem that for an individual, Artisteer may be a good option, because it allows him to avoid cooperation (which can be costly) with other specialists and to create the whole project alone. But in case of a team consisting of people with different complementary skills, there's no need to use such a tool at all. Based on my personal experience, I disagree with such a thought, and I can quote several arguments to support my words as follows:
The main cost factors of any work or project is always the time and the skills required for the job to be done. Designing and programming are very time-consuming tasks, and any automation saves time and money.
One of the biggest and most frustrating things in the web-design business is that your customer usually won't pay for something that he or she hasn't seen before. With Artisteer, the first stage of concept can really be done very fast.
The previously discussed examples of why Artisteer can be useful for various groups of people doesn't mean that everything can be done with Artisteer, of course. For example, you can't add any logic to the site, as this would demand a programming work. Similarly with the graphics, even the best automated generator won't replace the real artist. Like with every other thing, the custom and handmade products are the best, and websites are not an exception to this. For example, cars. Do you agree that a representative, handmade limousine, or a sports car is better than a popular compact from serial production? You probably do, but do you have a handmade sports car? Millions of people everyday drive the cheap compacts to commute, and they are pretty happy with it. Price is the factor. The same is with websites.