UX Design Meaning vs. Front End Developer

Within the realm of web development, the concepts of User Interface (UI) and User Experience (UX) are often misunderstood by insiders and outsiders alike. These disciplines are closely related but are responsible for different aspects of the development process. So what is UX and UI.

It’s important for your company or organization to understand the difference between UI and UX, especially when it comes to the UX design meaning and front end development because each one requires a specific set of skills and adds value to the final product in different ways. Clarifying these roles within your software team will ensure a smoother release process and better collaboration from end-to-end. Not having this level of consistent terminology will risk a breakdown in communication and may result in your company wasting time or losing profits. Differentiating between UI and UX is especially important if you plan to outsource any of your development work. When working with outside agencies, you need to be clear about what responsibilities fall into which bucket of work.

One common dilemma that software companies find themselves in is the attempt to put one individual in charge of both user experience and front end development. You should avoid creating such a hybrid position in your organization and be wary of any prospective candidates who boast about being able to handle both roles simultaneously. Although UX design and UI responsibilities do have overlap, merging them into a single position will likely leave your team overstretched and overworked. Startup companies “, in particular,” seem to be vulnerable to this mistake, as they seek a rock-star designer who can take all user experience factors into account. But this only increases the likelihood that the new project or product will fail.

Whether your company is launching a website or a mobile application, you should have a full understanding of the roles and functionalities of both UX design and front end development. Software development is all about adding value for the customers and users at the other end, and without maintaining a focus on user experience, your company may be ignoring its key audience. Especially in the mobile market, apps are expected to be easy to use without requiring the customer to take time to learn the platform. With strong front end development skills, your company can ensure its websites and apps are visually appealing and performing at the highest speed possible. Your online presence is usually the first experience customers have with your company, and a good or bad impression can determine whether they keep coming back to you in the future.

What is a UX designer?

When describing user experience design, the term can be broadly applied to all user-centered design practices. These methods and techniques are managed through a set of processes to ensure the outcomes for users are consistent and desirable. UX design meaning can cover everything from graphics, to physical interactions, to help manuals. Much of the UX design work is done early in the phase of a project, as it involves various research and investigation efforts into what a business wants to achieve and how users will respond to those initiatives.

Sometimes the UX definition can expand even beyond the application or system being developed. It can include any interaction that a customer or user has with a company, including retail and branding. Overall, it’s important to remember that UX design is a discipline that combines many parts into one cohesive whole.

Often times, UX design is not noticed or talked about unless something goes wrong and users have a poor interaction with your products and services. But by emphasizing strong UX design practices from the launch of a project or product, you can ensure that your end users remain a top priority. Good UX process will take a complex idea and make it easy and enjoyable for people to use.

When you hire a professional user experience designer or an entire UX team, you can expect them to participate in long-term strategic planning as well as day-to-day enhancements of products and services. These individuals should maintain responsibility over all user outcomes and have advanced communication skills and creative flair.

What is a Front End Developer?

The role of a front end developer covers all user-facing functionality of a product, typically in the context of web-based or native software. Programming experience is required, as interfaces are built using a range of markup languages and computing platforms. But what is UI design and what’s involved in it?

Front end developers face many challenges in ensuring that a company’s users have consistent interactions with public-facing products. If web design is involved, development and testing must cover all standard browsers and mobile platforms as well. Front end developers must find creative and efficient solutions to crafting the visual display of products.

Depending on the size of your company and product line, you may need to hire an entire team of front end developers. If that is the case, one lead developer should be pinpointed as the manager of the team and decision maker. Other members may be responsible for a certain repository of code or a specific area of the application’s interface. The lead front end developer should take charge of setting priorities and analyzing reports of software bugs.

Front end development is a competitive field that requires a wide set of technical skills. Much of the work for a front end developer will be done in markup languages like HTML and scripting languages like JavaScript. CSS is also a critical skill, given that front end development covers all visual and stylistic content of a website. To succeed in the role, a front end developer must have a firm grasp of the entire product lifecycle and always be up to date on the latest trends and technologies.

Can a Website Work Without a UX designer or a Front End Developer?

In today’s world, it takes little effort or cost to launch a website. A small business or even an individual can purchase a .com domain name, load a web template from a platform like WordPress or SquareSpace, and start sharing content on the internet. However, for professional projects and applications, the absence of either a UX designer or a front end developer will hold back your progress and limit your success.

A strong front end development team will ensure not only that you have a beautiful and usable website, but also that it performs at a high speed and is easy to maintain. By deploying clean, organized code to your applications and websites, it will make your products more flexible in the future.

The benefits of good UX designers are found in metrics related to customer satisfaction and repeat business. If a user has a pleasing and efficient experience on your website or mobile application, they will have higher engagement and be more likely to come back to your company again and again.

Many organizations think they can get away with launching a website without employing or consulting with a UX design expert. When this happens, users get frustrated in a hurry and their engagement with your company decreases. A lot of the most common UX problems are found in online forms and account management. When required to log in to a website and store personal information, users want the process to be as simple and easy to understand as possible. In addition, they want to have confidence that the owner of the site will be protective over the information provided.

Examples of good and bad UX design can be found everywhere in the world, not just in the online sphere. Thinks like parking signs need to be easy to read at a glance without requiring the reader to exert too much extra effort. The same is true when it comes to web design. Users should be able to navigate your website and mobile apps in an intuitive manner without needing a full tutorial.

When a website is launched without a proper front end developer, will often see compatibility issues when using the site on different browsers or operating system. For example, a company might rush to publish its site after checking to ensure its CSS styles look correct in the Google Chrome browser. But the same coding may look entirely different on Apple’s Safari or Microsoft’s Explorer, and as a result, visual issues may be exposed to the end user, resulting in a poor experience.

The Best Way To Market a Business is having a Brilliant Website

In order to achieve the best user experience on your websites and mobile apps, you need to enlist the help and expertise of both UX designers and front end developers. Simply throwing money on a project will not ensure its success or adoption by customers. Instead, UX and front end teams need to collaborate on end-to-end processes and ensure their work is always focused on the end user’s experience.

With the right team in place, you will ensure that your web presence is visually stunning and easy to navigate. Your team responsible for UX design will envision a layout that focuses on reducing clutter and emphasizing readable content. Then the front end developers can take those directives and translate them into a user-friendly website. Your entire web team must also be cognizant of the mobile trends in the market and ensure that your websites work just as well on smartphones and tablets.

If you are in need of a team who is capable of integrating UX design skills with strong front end development then check out METHODIC, a provider of web production services. They can help businesses promote growth through creative efforts and analytical thinking. METHODIC has expertise in all areas of web development and can help you see a project through from start to finish. METHODIC also specializes in online advertising and content marketing, as well as cloud hosting solutions and domain name registration if you are just launching your first website.

Conclusion

By investing in both UX design expertise and front end development, you will give your company the best opportunity to succeed on the internet. Good front end developers will make your website fast, and speed is one of the most important features when it comes to user satisfaction. Without proper UX design ahead of time, you may rush a project ahead and risk alienating your users. UX design should be a priority throughout your design process, starting with research and information architecture.

Every web design project, even the smallest ones, can benefit by putting two heads together. Your engineering teams should never work in solo environments, as collaboration is key to crafting the best user experiences. That means communication is key, especially when you are juggling multiple priorities and working to a deadline.

Be sure to share your opinions on this discussion about the differences between UX design and front end development and the value that each one can bring to your organization.