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I've been a developer for over 20 years. For all of that time I've had to be a bit of a designer as well. I am, at my very best, an adequate designer. Most o

I've been a developer for over 20 years. For all of that time I've had to be a bit of a designer as well. I am, at my very best, an adequate designer. Most of the time my design is merely adequate and it takes me ages to do even that. So, you could call me a designer. A poorly skilled designer. I find most developers, if they even do design at all, it is at a similar level as me. And some designers do a little coding but they tend to find the code rather tedious and boring. Not sure what my point is except that I do think it is a rare creature who is excellent at both - regardless of what this article implies. They are both tough skills to master and generally require focusing on one or the other.

bennyg 14y ago
I would honestly call myself both. I have a traditional BA in Art with a focus on Graphic Design. I love illustrating, maintain a sketchbook of drawings, help create posters for people, and can call out fonts all day. I'm also a developer. I have 6 apps on the iOS App Store, all coded by moi, and all designed by moi. Beyond iOS, I've also written some neural networks in JavaScript and just yesterday I turned my Raspberry Pi into a cloud media player - writing a PHP script to go through all folders on my external HD and find the audio files, check their metadata and add the file path/metadata into a database, then stream it from an app of my own design. I think it's a new age, where the stereotypes of designers being afraid to read/pore over code are gone. Code is becoming more and more commonplace. Almost everyone at my university fulfills their 2 classes of foreign language by taking 2 classes of CS (you have to do one or the other), and one of those classes is usually an HTML/JS variant. I also believe that in this new age, making ugly but functional software has gone by the wayside too. People are utilizing software ALL DAY because of smartphones now - where the bar for great visual design has been raised so much higher due to the big name brands like FB and Twitter investing so much in great products. Because of this, software engineers that have (even a small amount of) front end work to accomplish are forced to make more conscious visual design considerations than they have in the past. And this is a good thing.
- seanmcdirmid 14y ago
  Are you also an interaction designer (wireframe, storyboarding kind)? How about industrial design? If a visual designer, do you specialize in motion, or color and typography? And how about being skilled in doing some user research? Just as developers specialize in different fields, so do designers. And designers...don't really need to code. Its not that they can't, they just don't have time to. Its more likely that the programmer lacks design resources and must make decisions on their own. And ya, those decisions will suck until we've made them a few times. Most apps on the app store are crappily designed; the ones that are well designed had enough money behind them to hire a designer.
  - bennyg 14y ago
    Interaction without doing the wireframing. I love typography and color theory/psychology, and yes I've done my fair share of user testing - still do too. The thing is, as a creative individual, I don't pigeonhole myself as a "developer" or a "designer." On some projects, the majority of coding is handled by someone else and I slip into frontend dev and graphic design roles, and product vision. In others, I'll do more backend stuff as I'm the most competent person on that project. And in others I'll do the whole shabang, because it's my project and mine alone. "And ya, those decisions will suck until we've made them a few times." You're right, but that's with everything. Practice, and learn why what you you've made/done isn't top-notch and then think about how to get it there the next time. Rinse, repeat.
    - seanmcdirmid 14y ago
      > Interaction without doing the wireframing. I think many are quite surprised about what professional IxDs do, design isn't all about pretty visuals. Wire frames, story boards, specifications... > The thing is, as a creative individual, I don't pigeonhole myself as a "developer" or a "designer." There is a lot of diversity in design, so pigeonholing isn't quite useful. Many people specialize vertically (development and design within a narrower product space). But I also don't think being a generalist is a good answer, as the practice/experience element is important and so shouldn't be diluted too much.

bennyg 14y ago

I would honestly call myself both. I have a traditional BA in Art with a focus on Graphic Design. I love illustrating, maintain a sketchbook of drawings, help create posters for people, and can call out fonts all day. I'm also a developer. I have 6 apps on the iOS App Store, all coded by moi, and all designed by moi. Beyond iOS, I've also written some neural networks in JavaScript and just yesterday I turned my Raspberry Pi into a cloud media player - writing a PHP script to go through all folders on my external HD and find the audio files, check their metadata and add the file path/metadata into a database, then stream it from an app of my own design. I think it's a new age, where the stereotypes of designers being afraid to read/pore over code are gone. Code is becoming more and more commonplace. Almost everyone at my university fulfills their 2 classes of foreign language by taking 2 classes of CS (you have to do one or the other), and one of those classes is usually an HTML/JS variant. I also believe that in this new age, making ugly but functional software has gone by the wayside too. People are utilizing software ALL DAY because of smartphones now - where the bar for great visual design has been raised so much higher due to the big name brands like FB and Twitter investing so much in great products. Because of this, software engineers that have (even a small amount of) front end work to accomplish are forced to make more conscious visual design considerations than they have in the past. And this is a good thing.

seanmcdirmid 14y ago
Are you also an interaction designer (wireframe, storyboarding kind)? How about industrial design? If a visual designer, do you specialize in motion, or color and typography? And how about being skilled in doing some user research? Just as developers specialize in different fields, so do designers. And designers...don't really need to code. Its not that they can't, they just don't have time to. Its more likely that the programmer lacks design resources and must make decisions on their own. And ya, those decisions will suck until we've made them a few times. Most apps on the app store are crappily designed; the ones that are well designed had enough money behind them to hire a designer.
- bennyg 14y ago
  Interaction without doing the wireframing. I love typography and color theory/psychology, and yes I've done my fair share of user testing - still do too. The thing is, as a creative individual, I don't pigeonhole myself as a "developer" or a "designer." On some projects, the majority of coding is handled by someone else and I slip into frontend dev and graphic design roles, and product vision. In others, I'll do more backend stuff as I'm the most competent person on that project. And in others I'll do the whole shabang, because it's my project and mine alone. "And ya, those decisions will suck until we've made them a few times." You're right, but that's with everything. Practice, and learn why what you you've made/done isn't top-notch and then think about how to get it there the next time. Rinse, repeat.
  - seanmcdirmid 14y ago
    > Interaction without doing the wireframing. I think many are quite surprised about what professional IxDs do, design isn't all about pretty visuals. Wire frames, story boards, specifications... > The thing is, as a creative individual, I don't pigeonhole myself as a "developer" or a "designer." There is a lot of diversity in design, so pigeonholing isn't quite useful. Many people specialize vertically (development and design within a narrower product space). But I also don't think being a generalist is a good answer, as the practice/experience element is important and so shouldn't be diluted too much.