or How traditional businesses who have moved to the web regularly undervalue their front-end web developers, and are worse off because of that
Distinction
The roles of web developers and web designers have been around for over 15 years now, and the role of a client-side or front-end web developer started to mature into a distinct entity around 10 years ago, as the content-presentation-behaviour layer paradigm became embedded in people’s working methodologies (and, with the introduction of Google’s then-new search algorithm, when the need for cleanly structured, easily indexable pages became, for businesses, not just an aspiration but a necessity). Unfortunately the perception of the front-end developer’s role remains somewhat coloured by an early association in observers’ minds with the other, loosely related role of the web designer. The role of web designer is an extremely important and valid one, but it is very different to that of the web developer, and the lack of a clear distinction between the two, in some people’s perception, is unhelpful and does both roles an injustice.
Skill set
The web developer (sometimes also called a client-side developer, front-end developer, web architect or front-end engineer) has a huge skill set and a job description to match. They are often expected and required to excel in many disciplines, and have good working knowledge of many others. They exist at the point where art, design, interaction, programming and behavioural and performance analysis intersect. Given the time, support and ambition of a good business, being a web developer can be an extremely fulfilling job. However, the role of a web developer is often misunderstood within even the most progressive and well-meaning of businesses.
Perception
The danger can be that front-end developers, working in a user-focused area, are seen as performing a superficial function — applying a polish to the heavy lifting done by another developer, say, or that dread comment, “making things look nice”. Let’s be clear, making things look nice is the sole responsibility of the designer. When front-end developers spend much of their time deploying underlying data received from a backend database into their views, or pages, they might mistakenly be thought of as merely translators or interpreters, transferring a graphical image — the Photoshop-ed design — into markup and style rules, purveyors of what is sometimes almost mockingly referred to as a ‘black art’ of making pixels lay out correctly onscreen. While this perception is perhaps unfortunate, it is understandable. It is a particular problem where a development workflow is — some might say artificially — segregated into database infrastructure/domain modeling/server side workflows/front-end workflows. In smaller organisations a front-end developer has the opportunity, if she wishes, to input into any of these areas. In larger organisations, the increased granularity of functional areas means those opportunities are greatly reduced, and as you can see from the segregation model above, the front-end development work comes at the end of a long chain of events and decisions which essentially shape and restrict the front-end developer’s choices.
Frustration
In such cases the development workflow is one-way, negates the developer’s architectural, organisational and behavioural skills and occurs late in the development process. This chronology minimizes the opportunity for the front-end developer to have effective input into, and feedback from, the interaction design they are now expected to code. This is a sad state of affairs and undoubtedly leads to frustration, feelings of being undervalued or ignored, and an extreme cases disenfranchisement and resignation, either in the figurative or practical sense. A good business will understand how highly-nuanced user behaviour is, and value skilled interpretation and shaping of that behaviour in the interests of improving their digital offering.
Value
The modern web developer has huge amounts of value to offer a business. Indeed the type of professional you often find in this role encapsulates the very best the web has to offer:
- up-to-date knowledge of available and emerging technologies
- extensive experience of implementing de facto web standards and programming patterns
- database configuration and data manipulation
- implementation across multiple platforms and legacy software applications
- provisioning for mobile devices
- data aggregation
- graphics sourcing and creation
- search engine optimisation (SEO)
- a thorough understanding of the aesthetics and parameters of designing for the web
Further, the best web developers have wealth of knowledge and understanding around interaction design, user needs, hierarchies of data, navigation systems, user journeys, wireframing, design brief interpretation, focus group and usability testing and the art of a finely polished product. Largely gone are the days of HTML-monkeys, spending days on end converting Photoshop comps to pixel-perfect layouts. A web developer’s role is broad: from developing in what Yahoo!’s Nate Koechley calls ‘the world’s most hostile development environment’ — the browser — and ensuring cross-platform and cross-browser consistency, to working with art directors and designers and remaining true to their vision, to considerations and implementations of accessibility, usability and the overall user experience. A web developer is responsible for everything that sits on the client side of the web stack — the content, presentation and behaviour layers. Few other roles touch so many other key aspects of a business as does a web developer’s. Good businesses realise what an asset they have in their front-end web development team, and welcome their input into the product development process. Even better businesses have a User Experience team which encapsulates all those values, skills and judgements necessary to make great websites. Members of those teams are part of a feedback loop that results in great products, not just acceptable implementations of the first good idea that came up.
Slow
Large businesses and organisations move slowly. They may find it hard to understand they have developers whose skills and interests cross the boundaries their job descriptions impose on them. In addition, large businesses like to modularise their development teams into clearly segmented areas for planning and accountability. End-to-end developers don’t really fit this business model. Web development, certainly rapid prototyping at least, is moving away from monolithic relational database installs and towards schema-free, fluid data repositories like CouchDB and MongoDB. Many other layers of the application stack are now capable of being managed by a web developer. Most developers of this ilk, who are able to own the whole process from from domain and model definition, through to server infrastructure and on to a useful and appealing user experience, are running their own consultancies or are employed by the more enlightened web properties. Some examples of this type of person are Jeff Croft, Dan Rubin, John Resig, Jeffrey Zeldman, among many others. Functionality, data storage and interaction are increasingly moving to the client side (HTML5, Gears, RIAs, iPhone and Android web apps). The web stack sits on top of any technology, making the web developer one of the most versatile members of any business, let alone the technology department.
Undervalued
Unfortunately my experience has been that most large businesses massively undervalue their web developers, employing them in narrowly defined roles as the guys who make the site look nice, or fix the Javascript bugs that make the page break in IE. Larger business and the public sector have made moves towards working seriously on accessibility and usability, but the thinking behind such strategies remains superficial, those conceptual areas misunderstood. Too many people think of them in terms of awards and rating levels, not in ongoing process of improvement. Most of this work is also likely to be outsourced to a specialist third-party.
Career progression
One further, worrying, complication is the lack of clear career progression for front-end developers. Once you’ve spent a year or ten working in every nook and cranny of every browser out there until you can code progressively enhanced web pages blindfolded, what next? Economics and management structures mean there’s only so many architect or senior engineer roles to go round. The other option is to specialize in something and move forward from there. Current trends would seem to be leaning towards a big need for performance specialists in the next 5 years, as the client side moves ever further towards accommodating distributed, complex web applications. Page views will also continue their inexorable rise, placing stress and demand on infrastructure, databases and hardware, and thus even greater stress on a fast, responsive user experience.
Know your value
What does this mean if you’re a front-end or client-side web developer? Know your value. What are your skills? Are you a developer, an engineer, a User Experience architect or an Interaction Designer? Advertise your value. Shout about it. Don’t be knowingly undermined or ignored. Create a User Experience team within your business. If they’ve already got one, join it! Your job is incredibly important, and your present employer needs to realise that, as they stand to benefit.
Updated, 29th September 2009: just fixed a couple of typos
I think this attitude is beginning to change with the growing importance of HTML as an application platform – most of the interesting stuff in HTML 5 directly relates to bringing the open web stack up to the same capabilities as desktop APIs. I have a hunch that the outmoded viewpoints you describe will be forced to change pretty quickly once people realise that 90% of the work in building the next wave of both web AND desktop applications will involve client-side engineering skills.
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Excellent article Paul. I’ve often been frustrated trying to explain the role of a front end web developer, that it’s not just about layout and html/css and jquery tricks. When i’ve worked at agencies in the past sometimes the roles have been strictly segregated – account handler (usually completely non-technical), designer (also usually non-technical), site builder (html monkey) and developer, which can work if done right, but i’ve found that the front end developer is usually the glue that holds all these entities together.
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You may not be comforted by the fact that this is not unique to front-end developers. It is common for non-technical people to assume that a programmer can’t know anything about business, design or usability.
Very good article Paul. Many people (and clients) are unaware of all the areas frontend developers must have knowledge in.
The fact of the matter is that fixing “the Javascript bugs that make the page break in IE” is your job! I am sorry you feel undervalued but please don’t claim that “interaction design, user needs, hierarchies of data, navigation systems, user journeys, wireframing, design brief interpretation, focus group and usability testing and the art of a finely polished product” fall within your realm of expertise or responsibility. These things should be put in the hands of trained usability analysts, interaction designers and information architects
I just want to say I’m happy I’ve found and read this article.
I often think myself as a web developer who still have lots to learn.
If like you said, Web developers are undervalued in English world, then Web developers in Japan are probably not even recognized.
I am proud of what I do, no matter what people think what I do(many don’t).
Thank you for the article.
Great article… I think “Adam” has slightly missed the point though :-)
Adam you don’t happen to work for RazorFish do you? Your reply sounds like your job is being threatened and Frontend Developers (most come from design and UX) can’t possibly do all of what you are talking about.
I got to tell you, I’ve worked with trained usability analysts, interaction designers and information architects and it has been an awful experience. All of our advice was ignored because we are Front-End and now most of the work they have done is being changed based on our own usability studies which we could have prevented in the first place. I say to you “bah”.
I’ve been seeing that shift (from back to front) in a lot of the underlying technology for the web, but in practice there are very, very few people actually desiring the cutting edge front end development afforded by html5 and the like.
I agree with you but I think this article might be years too early :)
Great article. This line especially caught my attention – “However, the role of a web developer is often misunderstood within even the most progressive and well-meaning of businesses.”
I guess then I must be working for the most of the most progressive companies because here our business team value the front end developers (which is an outsourced function) more than anyone else in the world. It’s not just that they are paid and re-paid to fix the problems that they introduced in the first place, but the business will do anything and everything to please them as opposed to understanding the concerns raised by “back-end” developers.
In principle, I do agree that very often the value of front-end developers in not fully understood by their peers who work at the backend.
Honestly, much of what you attribute to a “front end web developer” should lie in the realm of the web designer. If you “design” for the web you should be able to build your design, otherwise you are not a web designer. I have been a web designer for 9 years and I do business analysis, functional specs, wireframes, user flow scenarios, structural design, graphical design and then I build it. The programmer makes it work-that’s their job. Teams that “need” all of these one-off specialists are a joke.
Nail… Head… Hit.
Great article… You may also be interested in this one: http://lethain.com/entry/2009/apr/28/skew-the-frontend-engineer-s-misery/
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So glad I found this article. I just forwarded it to my family to hopefully help them know what I actually do, rather than “stuff with computers.”
Great article. I think being a front-end dev should be a prerequisite to doing IA/UX work. In my experience I’ve seen lots of IA/UX/Usability “experts” that come from art school or academic backgrounds, and attempt to design interfaces that look good as Photoshop mockups, but fail in the browser. You really have to know the idiosyncrasies of programming for browsers to design good user experiences. Unfortunately, a large percentage of organizations currently place a heavy emphasis on hiring people with formal academic training in human factors, rather than those with a master craftsman-like skill in browser wrangling, to do interface architecture.
Nothing like a good brag about how important we are… but (a bit more) seriously, you’ve raised a lot of good points and made some good observations, many of which I’ve personally experienced in my previous role as client-side developer and my current role as interaction designer.
The dynamics of every team are different, but I’ve found my best experiences have been in teams where each others responsibilities are respected and everyone is focused on delivering the best possible product within the given constraints.
There is no reason why someone in one role, say a client-side developer, can’t be skilled and proficient in another, such as usability, IxD or IA (and visa-versa). The more you can develop your periphery skill sets, the better.
However, I’m not convinced one person can achieve the goals of 2 roles as well as two people with clear responsibilities for their own role. Conflicts of interest occur and compromises are made throughout any project – accessibility vs. dynamic behavior, coding standards or quick turn around, reusable component or context specific implementation, progressively enhanced HTML fields vs. .NET controls, finishing at 5pm vs still coding at 4am, etc, etc. As a client-side developer, I invested my time and effort into a particular set of skills and knowledge and naturally made decisions that supported what was considered best practice in that area. Now in my IxD role, I’m advocating decisions which often conflict with what I would have done as a developer … and what the developers I work with now want to do. I think I’m right, and I think they’re right, too. Clear priorities and respect for each other’s specialty/role help, but it’s never easy to give ground on what you think is important.
One last thing for what it’s worth. I think you made some good points, but you lost me with your “bah” comment to Adam. Didn’t you just write a post explaining why people shouldn’t “bah” your opinion? If you want people to respect your opinion and ideas, you’ll have to learn to respect theirs – even if you disagree.
Good luck with it all. Marcus.
Great post.
“Once you’ve spent a year or ten working in every nook and cranny of every browser out there until you can code progressively enhanced web pages blindfolded, what next?”
Well for me, working in this role meant that I understood the process end to end and the obvious next step was to start an agency myself. I think there is a huge amount of merit in this. I’m sure we’ve all been frustrated by bosses who just don’t get it and taking a, quite frankly scary, step to resolve this can deliver huge benefits.
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@Adam: You sound like someone who is threatened. Job on the line to a Front-End Developer possibly?
Anyway, Great post. I enjoyed reading it thoroughly.
Agree totally with this article. In my role, I have to do all that, as well as play platform architect for an internal server-side language. But I totally agree that a good web developer has to be able to span all sorts of topic areas… and I would add copy-writing to your list as well.
The problem is that in my experience, most web developers aren’t interested or can not handle all of the expectations that you list. They do their html, css (in an average fashion), and their javascript poorly, but if they get the job “done”, then they’re happy. A change in that mentality has to not only come from the developer him/herself, but also the expectations from the client/management.
You mention that some people are looking to become specialists in a single area, which ultimately, I think will make fully-rounded web developers even harder to find.
Interesting post, thanks.
Great post. Adam and Michelle, I’ll put odds at 90% that the products you create are crap. I’ve worked with designers, IAs, and UX experts in large corporations and small agencies, and a GREAT web developer is ALWAYS needed to bring things together intelligently to create a great product.
Developers aren’t just monkeys to do other’s bidding. To say so shows a horrible lack of knowledge and respect for what it takes to build a website that is maintainable and performs well.
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What a great article! I’ve been a front-end developer for 10 years and I wholeheartedly agree. Keep up the good work!
Dave B., I never said developers arent needed. I have worked hand in hand with mine for the past 8 years at my current job. I always bounce my UI ideas off him first to make sure that what i want to accomplish makes sense from a coding perspective. Thing is, we let the UI person (me), design and create the UI, and let the programmer do, well, programming, whether that be cold fusion, .net or whatever, and also the database/sql queries, advanced javascript, etc. Why is that so crazy an idea, that programmers stick to programming? The last thing my programmers want to do is web production, which is what html/css is. Perhaps you have always worked with “designers” who are really just print designers pretending to be web designers, but imho, you cant be a real web UI person without having a serious set of technical abilities, along with all the usability and design skills. Really pointless insults, by the way.
So true, it’s frustrating because it seems us HTML/CSS developers are always undervalued :)
Thanks, Paul, for an article that clearly articulates a gap in the markets I’ve been working in. The generalist-specialist debates here in the comments don’t have much value for me without knowing more context. I’ve seen genearlists with several broad skills (and maybe one deep skill)who can work across nearly the whole process (user analysis, business analysis, design, front end dev). On the other hand, I’ve worked on some projects that require such advanced interaction, at such a high level of quality, that only front-end specialists could do the job.
It really comes down to individuals, their brains, and the limited time to gather experience. I’ve seen some projects that are a challenge even for front-end specialists who spent their entire day only on front-end projects. I find it hard to believe that a generalist “UI person” or a java programmer who “does the front too” could deliver these with the quality, time, and budget required. But perhaps there are places in the world where these kind of superheros are available. If so, they should be very, very busy and well paid ;-)
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Great Article Paul.
I have been working as a front-end developer for 5 years now. Here in Singapore, people dont realize how important our job is. They think that anyone can do our job as its just a html conversion of photoshop designs. This notion is what they have to remove from their mind.
I hope that more people read this article and replace those java, .net coders who does crappy html/js work with real front-end developers
regards
vinay
Hey, this is a great set of responses, everybody! Thanks for all your input. Judging by the responses here I’ve been able to infer a number of things:
- Front-end development is somewhat ambiguous in its definition, and there is considerable, often unacknowledged, crossover into behavioral, architectural and heuristic areas of production such as Information Architecture, User Experience Design and Interaction Design.
- Many front-end developers feel undervalued and/or misperceived by their peers and management structures in their current jobs.
- The future for front-end developers is poised to be very exiting. I look forward to exploring the possibilities of front-end technologies, platforms and practices, and sharing those experiences with my peers.
Good luck!
Great post, Paul!
I wish to translate it to Hebrew and re-post it on my blog (with links and credit to you, of course…), is it OK by you?
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Front-end developers aka Pixel pushers :-)
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Mike Riley said:
“I agree with you but I think this article might be years too early.”
Or years too late if the article didn’t focus so blindly on HTML front-end development. Reading this article made me feel like I’d stepped back in time 5-7 years. Flash developers have been dealing with these issues for years now and we’re coping just fine.
Without wanting to cause a platform debate, HTML devs are mostly walking in Flash developers footsteps right now. But I’m glad that HTML is catching up to and, in some areas, exceeding what Flash can do. Exciting times.
“Simon Willison says: I think this attitude is beginning to change with the growing importance of HTML as an application platform”
Well, there are already tons of solutions to make web apps… The fact that Google is pushing HTML5 is the only reason while it has a ‘growing importance’. Technically, there’s no need for anything more than what already exists. Take Flex or JS and you’ve got everything you need on the client side.
The revolution discussed here is, in my opinion, a revolution in development teams minds. They still don’t get the fact that other humans than themselves will use their product.
I can understand it’s frustrating for an hardcore developer to see that phenomenon, as they think front-end is basically a Picasso drawing that doesn’t mean anything. And users that aren’t not power users are dumbasses.
At the end of the day, a web business is a real life business. Users needs to love it.
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FANTASTIC article. As a front end developer working for a big company, I have seen this first hand. Hopefully more articles like these will change the perception of front end developers being “pixel pushers”
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As a front-end developer with 10-years experience I agree with most of what your saying here, but I wonder sometimes if this viewpoint is an attitude and expectation problem from us. I think if you were to ask most people, in any position, at any company they will tell you that they are undervalued and that their job is one of, if not the most important. That their voices don’t matter and that things would be so much better if company ‘X’ did things the right way. That’s not to say we shouldn’t give up the fight of fighting for our relevance, but I feel that some roles are what they are. Nothing more, nothing less.
Great article. In India, there are still not many specific job postings for front-end developers. Usually java/php/asp guys learn a bit of html/css/javascript and clutter the web pages with hell lot of code. And these front-end technologies are usually ridiculed. But, the situation is slowly changing. Lets hope they realize the importance of front-end engineering in the enterprise web apps.
I wish many of the project managers who recruit people for web based projects, should read your article.
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[...] good friend and colleague sent me this article, and it describes very well the difficulties that a UI guy has to live with. I do agree with most [...]
Your article highlights some interesting aspects of a familiar problem. I’m sympathetic, and will continue to champion people such as myself (user interaction expertise won’t get you anywhere in a large business; using ‘champion’ as a verb will).
Couchoud, I see where you’re coming from too. What makes front-end deselopment different is that it is not a craft or profession born out of institutions. There was never a rulebook, or (crucially) a career ladder. Good front-end developers are good because they immersed themselves in an emerging science/art/society and learnt/intuited/invented the craft of their own ingenuity. No classroom or career adviser could’ve convinced them with remote certainty this was a good idea for their professional development.
As a result it’s especially important for front-enders to champion themselves in the present, and to consider their futures carefully. This isn’t because the world has a vendetta against them ‚Äî it’s simply because in this trade the onus is on us to champion our values and shape our profession.