…or at least go away.
The whole purpose of “greeking” (the all too popular use of Lorem Ipsum) is to flush out mock-up designs in both print and web. It gives the designer a false perspective on how type sits within a layout. While greking does allow designers to nitpick line-heights, letter spacing, etc., for the web however, it can be very harmful. Essentially, it forces the designer to predetermine what the content is going to be and designs around what isn’t real.
Greeking is the equivalent of wireframes for images. A website using any sort of CMS or user generated content will immediately break the intended layout. Wireframes cannot predict image dimensions. For example, in a perfect world, all images would be 5:7 ratio in size. However, just like someone uploading a photo that’s too tall to fit within some designer’s meticulously styled content block, real world headlines would never wrap, paragraphs end up with bad ragging and widowed words, uncomfortable line breaks and ridiculous looking justified text.
The larger problem with greeking is the assumption that designers make without ever knowing the content for which they are designing. The new standard in website building is Responsive Web Design, and with that comes understanding your content. This affects both the brand and UX. It’s the only way to truly prototype, iterate, and make a site that can operate (and looks great) on all devices. Something that can’t be done with non-words.
This is not a pipe.
Should designers have all their content prior to design? YES! Well, ideally that is. There’s no reason that representative content shouldn’t already exist. If the content doesn’t exist, then—as shady as it sounds—content from a competitor or a like-minded site would go a long way to give design meaning.
Another option is faker.js, a script that can put in the random, yet meaningful and practical content that realistically tests the UI. Its API generates several kinds of data types that greeking just can’t match.
Having real usable content eliminates a lot of the guesswork and assumptions in designing web sites. Content is a part of web design, so use it.
Retina display graphics problem