Should a developer be a designer?

Question

I have been developing websites for quite some time and I am not so good in designing websites? My Boss is refering me to take some lessons on it.

But I really want to stick to development rather than designing?

Dorsett

Answer 1

You don't need to be a designer. But I would highly recommend you understand the process and some of the techniques used. Having that knowledge will assist in both working with designers and providing better back ends.

I'd do the course, but make it clear to my boss that it's not what I want to do as a main job.

Friable

If nothing else, it will make working with other designers easier. And more skills is rarely (never?) a bad thing. – Verbiage

Answer 2

Answer yourself these questions:

• What is your objective, the dream? developer or designer?
• What are you best with?
• Will I be able to justify with my design requirements?
• It this common that a developer should be a designer too?
• Will you be able to to concentrate on both, the ever changing trends and techs.

Having said that, I have seen such people having both skills but still they don't weigh equal in both parts.

Developer as well as designer:

Chris Coyier of css-tricks.com
Pekka

Jolda

+1 For the last point. Concentrating on both is, in my experience, almost impossible. For a really well done site, coding and design often take about equally long and take equal dedication. If you try to do both, one or both parts will suffer. – Pathogenic

Answer 3

It depends on what you want to be in the future. Actually, designing and programming are two different skills. Obviously, for websites two things are both required. As a developer, if you have some basic knowledge about design, it would help you and also the designer to make the website much easier to maintain. But personally, I do not thinking you have to dive into design.

Varietal

Answer 4

a good developer knows a lot about design, but dont have to be good at designing something.

i've seen to many developers building up a given design and making so much mistakes, because they don't see the little intricacies that are enormously important for a well designed website.

Eyre

Answer 5

One particular design aspect I find many developers (good ones) are not necessarily extremely strong at is understanding of colors harmony. Even though it seems like easy thing to do, find the right combination of colors on a page, it is not always that easy. That course may be helpful in that regard.

Antivenin

Or you could use something like colorschemedesigner.com to generate a nice color scheme of course :p. – Balkan

Answer 6

I started of as a developer and then progressed into being a Developer/Designer.

You start to understand design aspects, UX aspects and the likes.

So i believe a good developer should also have a good understanding of design aspects as well

Minoru

Answer 7

The bottom line is your boss thinks you'd benefit from a bit of immersion in design, and you probably will.

It doesn't sound like he wants you to become a designer, just get a feel for it. He's not asking for a career change.

There's always benefits in learning something new. And if your boss is backing you taking some time to do it got for it.

Septivalent

Answer 8

As a developer you should know something about usability and software ergonomics. You should know the basic structure of a website. And you should be able to implement a given design.

I think it is not the job of a developer to create a design.

Operetta

Answer 9

Try to answer: "Why does your boss want you to improve skills in design? "

• Your team is too expensive and boss is going to fire designer. He is wondering is it possible.
• Your designer complains to boss that developers constantly ask him to refactor insignificant details interrupting from common tasks. So your boss wants to delegate small design decision to developers.

If it's so, I think nothing is a bad to improve design skills if your boss doesn't want you to convert to designer.

I also agree with all those people, who state: Developer and designer are two different roles.

Nickolenicks

Answer 10

Well, if developing is the field you are comfortable with, stick with it.

But learning is never bad. Try to gain knowledge first, after taking the classes, you can answer this question yourself

Livable

Answer 11

Wow, I'm actually in the exact opposite of your situation. I'm a designer just crossing the line of web development. But in my case, it was my own decision and it wasn't imposed by anyone.

It's always a plus if you have web development skills on top of design skills. I guess it holds true if you're a web developer and have design skills as well.

It never hurts to learn the basic, like others have mentioned, but keep in mind to stick on what you're good at and master it. Its better to be a master of something rather than being a jack of all trades. With so much competition out there, you really have to excel at your craft.

Horst

This comment is interesting. I can see a lot of competition from the design side, but not from the development side. I am only a half-assed developer--I mostly turn designer's redlines into markup (HTML or XAML)--but I have more job offers than I know what to do with. Sure beats the situation I had when I worked in video.... – Delagarza

@Delagarza When you say job offers are those fulltime or just freelance gigs? For me, after 3 years It turned out good, switched to front-end development basically converting mocks to usable html. Now considering adding backend to my stack. But I am still in the same company only a different department – Horst

Answer 12

Learn both, but master one, I'd say. I personally see myself as a developer foremost, but I do know a thing or two about design - and, more specifically, implementing it (think CSS and the like).

However, I gratuitously admit that I am not good at making a design that looks good. A functional one, maybe, but not good. You could say something like that to your boss - that yes, you are capable of learning to design, however that you will never be as good as a real designer. Likewise, a designer learning to program will never be as good as a dedicated developer.

Mccary