“An expert is a person who has made all the mistakes that can be made in a very narrow field.” -Niels Bohr
And what’s a web designer’s job description anyway? Lately, I’ve been asking myself this question, especially at this time when the demand for specialization gets greater and greater. In the early 2000’s when I initially got started in the web, it was easy. The prevailing identity on the Internet was that of a webmaster. If you were called a webmaster, you were like a magician; the practitioner of an esoteric and novel art form. Everyone respected that and knew what it meant, even if they knew not what it was all about. A webmaster in 2000 did what a jack of all trades does today, from designing the Photoshop template of a site to administering the database of the CMS. That, as we all know, was not a good proposition. Do you remember the first designs to surface the internet and how hideous they were? Thank god the graphic designers took an interest in the web and resuscitated visual goodness.
Today however, the playing field has shifted. True, there are still coders out there who do it all. But is it efficient? Are they happy? And most importantly, are they good? I cannot agree as the layers of complexity in web design increase. There needs to be a division of labor for truly powerful builds to come alive. And each specialist has his or her place. So in search of truth I posted a question on LinkedIn to see what other designers and developers had to say. I received a decent number or replies and with the exception of a few, most tended to say the same.
With the expansion of the web new roles have evolved which go beyond the title of web designer or web developer. That’s why I think these terms need a revamp in 2009. Today there is no person who can juggle both ends of the web industry spectrum like the webmaster of the late 90’s, because today there are a slew of new technologies that didn’t exist back then. To clear things up I did a search of employment positions in the well-respected creative job boards Krop.com and AuthenticJobs.com. I found that there are about 8 key areas most digital agencies look for and a whole assortment of names associated with each capacity, some of which you’ll find pretty amusing. I think these are more appropriate names for the web specialists of today. So here’s the round up of positions that inhabit the web industry ecosystem and their job description. Bear in mind that this is as granular as you can get. If you work in the web field you usually fall into one or two of the following categories, give or take a few skills.
1. Interactive Art Director / Creative Director
This guy is the visual designer with more than five years of web design experience. He makes the fundamental decisions that deal with aesthetics and technology. He’s balanced in his knowledge of both and knows the limitations of each. He makes things look good and finds a creative way to implement functionality and interactivity with conceptual thinking in every design. An Interactive Art Director usually works with all other personas in the web industry and leads the way by molding his grand vision into the final interactive experience.
2. Visual Designer / Kick-Ass Designer
A visual designer is a graphic designer with experience in all types of visual media. Usually a professional with a fine arts background who demonstrates outstanding design talent, creativity and sense for visual, interactive, and motion design. His weapons of choice are Photoshop, Illustrator, and After Effects. Sometimes if he overextends his reach he can go into 3D modeling, Flash, and video, but this is not the norm. In the strictest sense this guy is not a coder and doesn’t know a lick of HTML. He just passes the finished Photoshop files to the Front-End Developer who later crystallizes his work into code.
3. Front-End Developer / Front-End Programmer / Front-End Engineer / Front-End Badass
This guy knows his XHTML, CSS, and AJAX backwards and forward. He can also slice a mean Photoshop pie. He’s a half-breed because he has the visual understanding of a graphic designer and a coder’s point of view. He uses his jQuery library to make things functional and occasionally he’ll go into Flash if needed, but this is not his forte. He works with the visual designer and the Back-End Developer to make sure things run smoothly. In the strictest definition he doesn’t design visual mock-ups, he just converts them to XHTML and makes them functional.
4. Back-End Developer / Back-End Programmer / Web Development Engineer
This is the guy you call if your database breaks, or your server is down, or if you want to know what Ruby on Rails is all about. He talks about databases like they were girls. His core expertise lies in PHP or .NET. His vocabulary includes Ruby, Python, Cake, Code Igniter and other frameworks to make scripting faster and better. He likes to check under the hood of any CMS or web app to tinker around with code. He has a secret crush on WordPress, but is married to Joomla. He likes to develop web apps for breakfast and churns out a slick CMS for lunch.
5. Flash Designer
He’s a programmer with a fine arts background. In the early days of the web he messed around with Director before Flash went mainstream. He got started with Flash because he fell in love with the visual power it represents. He knows ActionScript well but is not as concerned with data as much as animation and visual impact. His partners in crime are Papervision, SWFobject, and SWFaddress. You’ll usually find him browsing the theFWA.com website to get his dose of Flashy treats as he harbors the secret desire to be some day listed on this award site.
6. Flash Developer / Flash Engineer / Actionscript Ninja
This guy dreams in ActionScript, his tool of choice is Flex and sometimes he’ll even use Eclipse. His modus operandi is Flash Remoting because he loves to hook up with databases since he has to coordinate data interaction between Flash and other server data entrypoints, be it in PHP, .NET, Ruby, or Python. He regularly works with XML to feed data into his work and makes sites come alive with information in multiple formats.
7. Digital Producer / Web Producer / Interactive Project Manager
A Digital Producer is responsible for coordinating the work of various designers and programmers. He gathers all the resources needed to push an interactive project forward. If he’s not on top of his game, projects fall apart. Sometimes he’s also the liaison between the client and the technicians behind a project, so he usually has to take the heat from both sides. He understands basic technological principles, and it is not unusual that he develop the wireframes and sitemap, as the starting point for a project.
8. User Experience Designer / User Interface Designer / Information Architect / Jedi UI Designer
A UI designer’s sole mission in life is to provide the best possible web experience for the end user. He usually acts as the devil’s advocate and thinks of covering all the bases in navigation and information flow, sometimes sacrificing aesthetics. He likes to impress his peers by using fancy words like heuristics, user based research, focus groups, and prototyping. He talks in flow charts, storyboards, wireframes, mockups and user interface specs. In the purist definition this guy doesn’t get his hands dirty with CSS and HTML. He’s more strategically focused on user experience and information architecture. He works with Visio if He’s a PC guy or OmniGraffle if he’s a Mac head.
Conclusion
Certainly the larger the organization you work for the more specialized the skills. The opposite is also true: the smaller the agency the more hats you wear. Most small studio outfits with three to five people are filled with jack-of-all-trades. Bear in mind, just like personality types, there are no pure breeds. Some front-end web developers do some back-end work. Some Flash developers do some graphic design work as well. Capablilites overlap and we all give each other a hand.
So hopefully after reading this article at least you know where you’re standing. And with this knowledge you can say goodbye to your old title and bring in the new year with a new found title, like say Front-End Developer instead of Web Designer. It’s a jungle out there and many people claim expertise when there is much to be debated. Oh, and if you’re looking for employment and find a job advertisement for a kick-ass graphic designer who can ActionScript in Flex, custom build a CMS in PHP, with AJAX, design in After Effects, Maya, and edit footage in Final Cut on the side just skip this ad and laugh. Laugh hard because you can be sure these people have no sense as to what they’re talking about. They want the whole package, but guess what? The whole package doesn’t exist. You’re either a phenomenal programmer, but you’re a mediocre graphic artist at best, or vice versa. If you want good quality work, hire an expert.
I think I covered all the bases in this round-up but if I forgot to mention any position please include them in the comments. And tell me, what kind of web industry animal are you and what do you do?
Nice post, but I think that if you are looking for quality results, you need experts who know the ins and outs of it all.
Well written and really revealing. I am thankful you took the time to post this because it was extremely useful.