Dangerous duality in digital experience design

Wednesday, July 22, 2015    

A sparkling, voluptuous body, sitting on beautiful wheels with a deep, throaty growl emanating from the tailpipe. Open the door and sit down and lights and gauges tempt you to touch every last one of them. All you want to do is buckle up and let this gorgeous beast of a vehicle not only move your emotions but move your spine deeper into the back of the driver's seat.

Years of design and engineering coming together to deliver an amazing experience! Since Karl Benz patented the first automobile in 1886, car production has become a very highly evolved process involving multiple teams from thought to finish. As time passed, car design has gone from plain utilitarian to being in many cases the reason a car shopper will pick one vehicle over the other.

During this evolution, cars have become known more for the skin they wear than for the engineering that propels them and actually causes them to even exist as a real, modern system of conveyance.

Automobiles, like most modern inventions, began as engineering marvels and then got cloaked by a layer of design that as time went by defined how the engineering would work and fit into the new shapes designers would create. The two teams, though at times somewhat arch-enemies, transformed horseless carriages into mind-blowing, head-turning, modern marvels.

Almost 130 years later we have an established automotive sector powered by two distinctive core teams -- Design and Engineering.

Two-horse set-up

This "two-horse" set-up of course is not unique to car production. It exists in almost every sector of human endeavour that entails making something. One such sector is that of website production. A broader and more appropriate term would be the creation of digital experiences (websites, mobile applications and virtual reality). The creation of digital experiences as we know it involves the application

of two disciplines:

Design/User Experience andDevelopment/Coding/

Engineering.

The duality required in the production of our modern digital experiences has led many human resource departments to post job descriptions like the following seen on Monster.com:

"Web Developer Job Responsibilities:

The role is responsible for designing, coding and modifying websites, from layout to function and according to a client's specifications. Strive to create visually appealing sites that feature user-friendly design and clear navigation."

Here's one from a local Jamaican company:

"Responsibilities:

³³* Artistic ability to create top-tier web designs from initial concept

³³* Efficiency with managing multiple design projects while meeting deadlines

³³* Work closely with project managers and design/development team

Skill requirements:

³³* Proficiency in Adobe Creative Suite, experience/knowledge of Dreamweaver, CSS, HTML is a plus

* A bachelor's degree in graphic/web design or equivalent "real-world" experience

* 2+ years of web design experience

* A great portfolio of past work is critical."

These job requirement posts make me cringe! The fine print is actually saying: "We want ONE person to do TWO jobs, but we are only going to pay you one salary."

Now, for small start-ups, some will say: "What do you expect? The funds are limited, payroll is tight, and the investors are only giving us so much money, so one person MUST deliver on both ends." While this may be somewhat understandable for a small start-up business, the sad thing is that this same mindset, like a cancerous contagion trickles up to larger companies and corporations. Institutions with the budget to support separate roles between design and engineering/coding refuse to do so.

Serious misunderstanding

This shows that there is a serious misunderstanding of the interaction of design and development or design and engineering -- even though we all benefit from the harmonious separation of design and engineering powers as experienced in our daily commute to work through the modern marvels of automotive design and engineering. If we can appreciate this separation of duties within the automotive industry, why not extend the same courtesy to the web production or digital experience creation sector?

In order to get the most from a website coder/engineer let her code full-time. In order to get the most from a website designer, let him design full-time. I agree that there are people gifted to understand and operate in both worlds; however, mastery finds its true voice in relentless focus.

Yes, it is very important for a designer to understand the basic underpinnings of how his website design will be made or implemented. It is also crucial for a coder/engineer to have a strong appreciation for aesthetics, human factors, and how the decisions she makes will affect a user's experience while using the website, but for either area of a digital experience deliverable to be properly served, both designer and engineer need to be allowed to evolve to their highest possible level of expression within their unique discipline.

The degree of difficulty increases exponentially for a single hire to handle both the design and engineering areas at their very best. If we explore the current state of affairs we will realise that the necessity for someone that HAS to do both designing and coding/engineering is quickly fading.

Let's look at this from two fronts -- software versus human-driven solutions. The global availability of freelancers and talent that can be outsourced has drastically reduced the pressure to have a full-time designer or coder on staff. Either role, or even both can be acquired on an as-needed basis without putting a company's payroll in a vice grip.

On the software front, numerous solutions have been in development for quite some time now that allow a designer to do one of two things. For example: Designing from within Wordpress (a wildly popular Content Management System) using a highly customizable template OR designing a layout in Adobe Photoshop and then using software to generate clean, W3C compliant, HTML and CSS code. For smaller companies, solutions like Wix (an online web-based website site designer) are very good alternatives to design, develop and maintain a website.

Unicorns

Now many of my coder colleagues will be up in arms as they read this article, arguing that some of these solutions do no create the best code or solutions for specific situations. Unfortunately, what many in the web and app development sector fail to realise is that web development and even design itself is rapidly becoming less of a service and more of a commodity. Our days are numbered.

When the commoditisation wave hits a sector the best thing to do is to specialise one's skill-set or talents and target under-served niches. The same applies to designers too. Rethink how you deliver your service to your clientele.

The competition is not only coming from "cheap" coders in India but also Fiverrr and other online services that offer way below-rate deliverables at costs many of our smaller companies are gobbling up at an exponential rate.

With shifting global, societal and market trends it is hard enough to keep up as a competent designer.

As far as it goes for coders, their skill-sets are also constantly shifting. Although there are foundational coding languages, new innovations in the field happen almost in real-time. Requiring one person to have these "powers" is no less than requiring this super-designer/coder to complete the 10 labours of Hercules almost on a daily basis. In

the web development industry these individuals

are sometimes called "Designer/Developer Unicorns".

Having one hire switching hats may seem like the fiscally responsible thing to do, but too many technology options and design techniques are available today -- which one multiskilled hire may not be able to keep up with in order to ensure that your web product remains at a world-class level. Even if you find a Designer/Developer Unicorn, the stress levels you will put them through will create an unsustainable staff turnover rate.

In comparison to the automobile industry, the field of digital experience creation is still very young. Websites as we now know them did not exist 20 years ago. There was no such thing as an app store. Virtual reality existed only on Star Trek, and the only car that could drive itself was KITT from Knight Rider.

Let's take a leaf, no, a couple chapters from the auto industry. If we want to have the best possible digital experiences whether for a website, a mobile app or virtual reality, for design and engineering let us have specialised teams (for larger companies) or two specific roles for our smaller start-ups. Design separate from engineering/coding. This approach is guaranteed to produce the best possible deliverables especially given the tighter and tighter deadlines we now love to work with. It allows either stream of production to more rapidly improve along its own path because of the ability to focus.

I agree it will be a while before everyone agrees with this modus operandi, but time will prove that the best digital experiences come from companies that have wisely put in place...a separation of powers.

YorkAli Walters is a graphic designer and photographer with over 15 years in the design industry. He's also a vice-president of the Jamaica Design Association (JDA). Contact the JDA at info@jamaicadesign.org

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