The Wilson Project Blog of UX/Front-End Developer Ivan Wilson

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  • UI or UN? The Life of a Front-End Developer

    (Originally published on CDG Interactive/Innate blog)

    Hello.

    My name is Ivan Wilson and I am a user interface (UI) developer for CDG. I’ll be a guest author on this blog, posting every month or so.

    When I first asked about contributing to the blog (and I’m still wondering whether it was a good idea to agree), I thought it would be helpful to explain exactly what I do. After all, outside the tech industry, front-end/ui developers are a somewhat unknown breed.


    UI Developers, in Plain English

    UI developers aren’t full-time designers (though I had a three-month stint as one), but the best of us know enough to have a good conversation with the designers. And we can do more with Photoshop than just adjusting the image brightness/contrast.

    We don’t do full-time back-end programming (though I spend the great deal of my career doing PHP programming), but the best of us know enough to make things easier for the programmer and do some programming ourselves in a pinch.

    Basically, we’re like UN interpreters. We know how to speak multiple languages and if we are really good at what we do, very good things happen.
    Like other interactive agencies, CDG develops many dynamic, database-driven sites. My job is to build out the layer that you see and use every day on your computer or web-enabled mobile phone.

    That means I take all the graphics files from the designers, wireframes from the information architects, and build templates in HTML (or XHTML), Javascript, and CSS (stylesheets). I also have to create web-ready graphics from those same files. In some cases, I might even need to break out some Flash skills or work on other interactive features.


    “Well, That Doesn’t Seem Too Hard . . .”

    It sounds easy.

    Everything is easy before testing.

    And testing requires…six browsers in two platforms…or more.

    Still sound easy? (I hear a few plates dropping…)

    And it has to look good and function without a hiccup.

    Did I mention all this has to be done before passing it on back-end programmers?

    And if I move a pixel in the wrong place, the designers have pitchforks with my name engraved on ’em.

    High stakes, indeed.

    Yes, it’s definitely like being a UN interpreter.