[Sigia-l] UI job requirements

[Listera]

"Jake Cressman" wrote:

> First of all, this is the first time I've heard of a UI Developer.

I've written about the notion of GUI or UI *developer* here several times,
with real-life job req examples. Actually, "GUI developer" has become a
well-established job category over the past 2-3 years. It's not limited to
Java either. It refers to a class of programmer who codes the UI-level
widgets of an app in AWT/Swing/VB/Flash/etc complete with the actions those
widgets perform, hence "interaction."

The vast majority of corporate intranet apps, especially in the financial
world, are in fact "designed" by these GUI *developers.* Some of them have
some measure of understanding of interface or even UC design, most don't,
and don't care.

Why has this happened? Money. Companies, even when they know that proper UI
designers can be of value, just don't want to spend the extra dough. An
established language like Java or upcoming one like Flex can in fact
separate the Model-View-Controller layers of an app, so that the UI/View can
be separately built and married to the logic layer, but programmers (or
designers, for that matter) who truly understand this are rather rare.

While "regular" designers of web apps may know about the UI-level widgets
and functions of, say, HTML/DHTML, they rarely have an understanding of the
range and limitations of, say, Swing widgets. So, the conventional corporate
thinking goes, why not give that job to a Java programmer who does.

Is this going to be a problem? As I have been preaching here, absolutely.
This is one of the flanks of UCD that can/will be usurped by developers.
This is precisely why I keep harping on the futility of chopping up the
design processes into million titular bits. There are lots of clients out
there who simply don't want to chop up the design stage to half a dozen
self-important title holders who keep passing "deliverables" to each other.

If the beef against GUI *developers* is that they don't really understand
UCD/interaction, then UC designers must begin to fully understand the
technical ramifications of their UI choices. This issue will be resolved
when finally functional prototyping becomes the domain of designers, not the
developers, but that's my other obsession. :-)

Ziya
Nullius in Verba