The i-Technology Media!
Register | Log in
   
 
.NET  ·  AJAX  ·  CLOUD  ·  ECLIPSE  ·  FLEX  ·  OPEN WEB  ·  iPHONE  ·  JAVA  ·  LINUX  ·  OPEN SOURCE  ·  ORACLE  ·  PBDJ  ·  SEARCH  ·  SILVERLIGHT  ·  SOA  ·  VIRTUALIZATION  ·  WEB 2.0  ·  WIRELESS  ·  XML
Comments
If It’s Worth Doing, It’s Worth Doing...Twice?
suedunnell wrote: Hi Again - I should add my name to comment #1 above and ask that if anyone has questions, they can either post them here or ask me directly: Sue Dunnell PowerBuilder Product Manager 978 287 1752 sue.dunnell@sybase.com
Jul. 3, 2009 03:52 PM EDT
Cloud Computing | Virtualization
November 2 - 4
Register Today and SAVE !..
Did you read today's front page stories & breaking news?
Live Google News by SYS-CON!

Top Three Links You Must Click On


News Desk
Are the Job Titles "Web Designer" and "Web Developer" Too General?
The web poses an interesting problem: where for example does slicing, XHTML and CSS come in?

By: Michael Girouard
Apr. 8, 2008 02:00 AM

Mike Girouard's Blog

There are a lot of professions that have emerged from the web: designers, developers, strategists, search engine optimists, information architects, usability and accessibility consultants, the list goes on…

Today, I’d like to talk about the first two. I wouldn’t go so far to say that the titles should be considered harmful by any means, rather we have just outgrown our job titles!

In the last three jobs that I have worked, there seems to large differences of opinions in the definitions of the job descriptions of web designers and web developers. As most folks in management see it, the definitions are pretty obvious: designers make the pretty pictures; developers bring them to life with code. However, the web poses an interesting problem: where does slicing, XHTML and CSS come in? Is it something that only developers do because it’s code? Is it something that designers are responsible for because of the constraints the technologies pose on their designs? Is this an opportunity for a third job to be created?

Roger Johansson of 456 Berea St. wrote a post about struggling with the two definitions:

On the about page of [my website] I used to call myself a “developer/designer/occasional writer”. It’s a bit confusing, and I still find it hard to know what to answer when someone asks me what I do for a living. Am I a Web designer? A Web developer? A Web programmer? All of them? Neither? It really is a difficult question to give a simple answer to.

It’s good to know I’m not the only one stuck on this problem. Later on in the post, Roger says that he’ll use a different description depending on who he’s talking to. I find myself doing that too; and if three of my past jobs each offer their own interpretations of the titles, that tells me that the titles themselves are too general.

At Full Sail

At Full Sail, students who specialized in design were not only responsible for the interface design, but were also responsible for slicing, XHTML and CSS coding. Anyone who has ever done a site front to back knows the importance of designer who is aware of what CSS coders do every day. I’ll even go so far to say that I’ll hire a slightly less experienced designer who knows CSS than a slightly more experienced designer who has only been working in print his entire career.

At Hydra Studio

At Hydra, we had a designer, someone who handled XHTML and CSS buildouts, and I developed the applications. This is where I found myself describing myself as a “Web Application Developer”, which I now find to be a much better title for folks like me who prefer to code the actual application. Our designer was (and still is) one of the best web designers I’ve seen to this day — and he doesn’t know a single line of CSS. That said, I recall a few times where we had to go back to him and teach him a few things about the various constraints the browser puts on designing for the web. In this particular instance it would have been incredibly helpful to have a CSS savvy designer.

At M2 Systems

M2 wasn’t really a job, but rather a full-time contract that was for six months. Still, this provided a very different environment for me to work in. I was contracted to develop a PHP framework to communicate with a Java-based web service. There wasn’t really much design involved with the project, just coding the framework and building “gray screens” for folks to get it working. Since I was a contractor, I didn’t get a real title; so I came up with my own: “Front-end Engineer” (a very appropriate title used often Yahoo!). I handled the PHP middleware, XHTML and CSS, and JavaScript development. Ever since then I’ve been in love with the Front-end Engineer title. The problem is, nobody really knows what that means. Furthermore, some people still don’t get how PHP can be a front-end language.

Magnani Caruso Dutton

Finally here I am, the Sr. Developer at MCD. Here there are many designers and many developers. With so many people on staff, designers pretty much stick to the design, and developers code CSS all day. Occasionally some JavaScript comes in with the rest of the work, but even that is a rarity. For some reason, I found this to be a big surprise. I really did think there would be some kind of application that needs building but when you have heavyweight clients like HBO, Capital one, and Discover, all those companies have in-house developers who integrate the pages we build into their application.

In the end I would have to say that I’m going to try to avoid the terms “web designer” and “web developer” from now on, favoring more specific titles in their place. I wouldn’t go so far to say that the titles should be considered harmful by any means, rather we have just outgrown our job titles!


Published Apr. 8, 2008— Reads 6,414
Copyright © 2008 SYS-CON Media, Inc. — All Rights Reserved.
Syndicated stories and blog feeds, all rights reserved by the author.
Related Stories
▪ Is It Time for a Hippocratic Oath for Programmers?
▪ Do We Need to Teach Designers Programming?
About Michael Girouard
Mike Girouard is a front-end web developer living in New York City. As the Sr. Developer at the creative agency Magnani Caruso Dutton, he takes pride in his ability to introduce web standards and beautiful code to industry giants such as Discover and AT&T. In his offtime, Girouard goes right back to his editor and codes toward his latest open-source baby, Panda PHP Components. You can read more about him and his other projects on his blog, http://www.lovemikeg.com/blog.

Add Your Feedback

In order to post a comment you need to be registered and logged in.

Register | Sign-in

Reader Feedback: Page 1 of 1

Subscribe to the World's Most Powerful Newsletters
Subscribe to Our Rss Feeds & Get Your SYS-CON News Live!
Click to Add our RSS Feeds to the Service of Your Choice:
Google Reader or Homepage Add to My Yahoo! Subscribe with Bloglines Subscribe in NewsGator Online
myFeedster Add to My AOL Subscribe in Rojo Add 'Hugg' to Newsburst from CNET News.com Kinja Digest View Additional SYS-CON Feeds
Publish Your Article! Please send it to editorial(at)sys-con.com!

Advertise on this site! Contact advertising(at)sys-con.com! 201 802-3021

SYS-CON Featured Whitepapers
ADS BY GOOGLE
Breaking Java News
Joint Agreement Signed between World Energy Research and Blue Energy Canada
American Society of Anesthesiologists Releases Following Statement Related to Media Inquires Regarding Michael Jackson's Death
Video: 1,000 Immigrants Celebrate U.S. Citizenship in Star-Spangled Event Friday Morning on Main Street, U.S.A. at Walt Disney World Resort
DreamWorks Animation's Monsters Invade Roswell!

ADVERTISE   |   MAGAZINE SUBSCRIPTIONS   |   FREE BREAKING-NEWSLETTERS!   |   SYS-CON.TV   |   BLOG-N-PLAY!   |   WEBCAST   |   EDUCATION   |   RESEARCH

.NET Developer's Journal - .NETDJ   |   ColdFusion Developer's Journal - CFDJ   |   Eclipse Developer's Journal - EDJ   |   Enterprise Open Source Magazine - EOS
Open Web Developer's Journal - OPENWEB   |   iPhone Developer's Journal - iPHONE   |   Virtualization - Virtualization   |   Java Developer's Journal - JDJ   |   Linux.SYS-CON.com
PowerBuilder Developer's Journal - PBDJ   |   SEO / SEM Journal - SJ   |   SOAWorld Magazine - SOAWM   |   IT Solutions Guide - ITSG   |   Symbian Developer's Journal - SDJ
WebLogic Developer's Journal - WLDJ   |   WebSphere Journal - WJ   |   Wireless Business & Technology - WBT   |   XML-Journal - XMLJ   |   Internet Video - iTV
Flex Developer's Journal - Flex   |   AJAXWorld Magazine - AWM   |   Silverlight Developer's Journal - SLDJ   |   PHP.SYS-CON.com   |   Web 2.0 Journal - WEB2
Apache   |   CMS   |   CRM   |   HP   |   Oracle Journal   |   Perl   |   Python   |   Red Hat   |   Ruby on Rails   |   SAP   |   SaaS

SYS-CON MEDIA:   ABOUT US   |   CONTACT US   |   COMPANY NEWS   |   CAREERS   |   SITE MAP
SYS-CON EVENTS:   |  AJAXWorld Conference & Expo  |  iPhone Developer Summit  |  Cloud Computing Conference & Expo  |  SOA World Conference & Expo  |  Virtualization Conference & Expo
INTERNATIONAL SITES:   India  |  U.K.  |  Canada  |  Germany  |  France  |  Australia  |  Italy  |  Spain  |  Netherlands  |  Brazil  |  Belgium
 Terms of Use & Our Privacy Statement     About Newsfeeds / Video Feeds
Copyright ©1994-2008 SYS-CON Publications, Inc. All Rights Reserved. All marks are trademarks of SYS-CON Media.
Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission of SYS-CON Publications, Inc. is prohibited.
 
close this window