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Dayalis
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Waterbury, Connecticut
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What is a basic day as a user interface developer?
#software #technology #software-engineering
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4 answers
Anjana Paulose
Software Engineer
2
Answers
Bengaluru, Karnataka, India
Updated
Anjana’s Answer
I have been a UI developer for 15 years, currently working in the role of UI Architect.
A day in the job of any developer be it UI or backend is hugely decided by the role they perform. For eg: A developer with 2 years of experience and an architect may do different things.
If you consider a UI developer's day-to-day activities, it will largely be consisting of the following,
1. Understand the requirements/flow that is to be developed in UI. It helps a lot during development and testing if you understand the bigger
picture
What are the UI flows/scenarios
Where are they used
Why are they required
Who are going to use them - which persona/type of user is going to use that.
2. Understand and map the requirement to UX design
Try to understand how the requirement/UI workflows are defined by the UX mocks. You dont have to be a UX expert to do this.
As your experience increases, you are also expected to assess the technical feasibility of the design.
For eg: Can the UX suggested is achievable by the framework used in the project? Are there open source/paid libraries that can be used? Can it
be completed in the given time to release etc.
3. UI is one area where new frameworks/libraries are released very frequently. Investigating on good libraries/UI components than can be
reused in your project will greatly reduce the development time of your project, and this is one activity that is commonly done in the design
phase.
4. Design and develop
UI development is not only related to how it looks at the end. Good programming practices and design patterns need to be applied here as well.
And these are important for the performance and maintainability of the UI as more and more pages get added. So a good grasp of design
patterns and programming skills are required here as well. Sometimes, POCs(Proof Of Concept) are done to understand and identify design
gaps and complexities. Along with these UI developer needs to have below skills.
a. HTML and CSS knowledge
b. Having a keen eye on figuring out style issues like alignment, placement of elements , color etc are added advantages , but these are also
something you can develop over time through experience.
c. Knowledge on Accessibility specs and implementing them in UI.
d. Knowledge on Browser capabilities and tools
4. Test and Automation
Testing and automation is one of the most important aspects of UI development. A UI developer is expected to
a. Unit test independent code blocks, and automate them.
b. Testing of UI workflows/scenarios and automate them.
5. Bug fixes
Fix the issues that are found during testing.
5. Continuous learning
UI/UX field changes more frequently than other related areas, in terms of new framework, new additions to browser capabilities, new
addition to javascript language. It is very important to keep yourself updated on the changes that are coming up. Its not necessary that you
learn and try out everything that comes in your way. But be aware of the new options/frameworks and its usages so that you can utilize them
when needed. This is applicable to all experience levels to keep ourselves updated and relevant in the industry.
6. As your experience increases, you will be expected to take part in architectural designs, UX workflow discussions and more.
So if you see above , its no different than other programming areas. It has similar challenges as in other areas. What makes it unique is that, UI is the face of the product, the first thing and most times the only thing the customer sees. Good UIs are a result of good UX, efficient code to implement the design and a stable backend that supports that design. So a UI developer is often required to collaborate with various teams to make this happen.
Start with w3schools. It has good tutorials on HTML, CSS, javascript. Having an in depth knowledge of javascript is necessary to become a good UI developer.
Checkout new/trending UI frameowrks like Angular, React, Vue. Pick one and do a hands-on project to understand how modern UI projects are developed using these.
Knowledge of browser technologies and tools. These comes in very handy during UI development. Learning about new browser capabilities, differences between browsers, tools like developer tool bar in browsers etc are must have knowledge for a UI developer.
You are not expected to learn UX design, but if interested, its good to learn the basics, which can also be gained with experience.
Its always beneficial to understand the backend code/design when we develop UI. Having a good knowledge on one such language like java, php is a big advantage, though not necessary.
A day in the job of any developer be it UI or backend is hugely decided by the role they perform. For eg: A developer with 2 years of experience and an architect may do different things.
If you consider a UI developer's day-to-day activities, it will largely be consisting of the following,
1. Understand the requirements/flow that is to be developed in UI. It helps a lot during development and testing if you understand the bigger
picture
What are the UI flows/scenarios
Where are they used
Why are they required
Who are going to use them - which persona/type of user is going to use that.
2. Understand and map the requirement to UX design
Try to understand how the requirement/UI workflows are defined by the UX mocks. You dont have to be a UX expert to do this.
As your experience increases, you are also expected to assess the technical feasibility of the design.
For eg: Can the UX suggested is achievable by the framework used in the project? Are there open source/paid libraries that can be used? Can it
be completed in the given time to release etc.
3. UI is one area where new frameworks/libraries are released very frequently. Investigating on good libraries/UI components than can be
reused in your project will greatly reduce the development time of your project, and this is one activity that is commonly done in the design
phase.
4. Design and develop
UI development is not only related to how it looks at the end. Good programming practices and design patterns need to be applied here as well.
And these are important for the performance and maintainability of the UI as more and more pages get added. So a good grasp of design
patterns and programming skills are required here as well. Sometimes, POCs(Proof Of Concept) are done to understand and identify design
gaps and complexities. Along with these UI developer needs to have below skills.
a. HTML and CSS knowledge
b. Having a keen eye on figuring out style issues like alignment, placement of elements , color etc are added advantages , but these are also
something you can develop over time through experience.
c. Knowledge on Accessibility specs and implementing them in UI.
d. Knowledge on Browser capabilities and tools
4. Test and Automation
Testing and automation is one of the most important aspects of UI development. A UI developer is expected to
a. Unit test independent code blocks, and automate them.
b. Testing of UI workflows/scenarios and automate them.
5. Bug fixes
Fix the issues that are found during testing.
5. Continuous learning
UI/UX field changes more frequently than other related areas, in terms of new framework, new additions to browser capabilities, new
addition to javascript language. It is very important to keep yourself updated on the changes that are coming up. Its not necessary that you
learn and try out everything that comes in your way. But be aware of the new options/frameworks and its usages so that you can utilize them
when needed. This is applicable to all experience levels to keep ourselves updated and relevant in the industry.
6. As your experience increases, you will be expected to take part in architectural designs, UX workflow discussions and more.
So if you see above , its no different than other programming areas. It has similar challenges as in other areas. What makes it unique is that, UI is the face of the product, the first thing and most times the only thing the customer sees. Good UIs are a result of good UX, efficient code to implement the design and a stable backend that supports that design. So a UI developer is often required to collaborate with various teams to make this happen.
Anjana recommends the following next steps:
Amit Enand
Software Engineer
5
Answers
Raleigh, North Carolina
Updated
Amit’s Answer
A user-interface developer is normally responsible for working with a UX team to craft a design then will work to build that design. Whether it be an app or website or something else they will work closely with the UX designers to ensure the design is what was envisioned. They then will go through testing to make sure the built design works and is truly accessible. A tool for design is figma.com, a tool for tracking issues is trello.com, and some technologies used are HTML/CSS/JavaScript.
Amit recommends the following next steps:
Jenny Wang
Software Engineer
4
Answers
San Jose, California
Updated
Jenny’s Answer
I've been a frontend (or UI) developer for 3 years. I would say the most difficult part of my job is that I need to have both people skills and technical skills. If someone wants me to build a brand new feature based on a UX team's design, I need to have enough knowledge of HTML/CSS/Javascript to build it. Not only do I build it, but I have to test it, check back with the UX team to see if it looks good as intended, and also talk to the backend developers to see that everything is working end-to-end. The backend team is responsible for making everything work behind the shiny interface, so if anything on their end isn't working, I would be the first to know. A lot of my job involves communicating with lots of different people and being a mediator. Sometimes the UX team will design something that the backend team says is impossible, and because I have insider information on both teams, I would be the one to talk to both teams to see if we can compromise on something else.
From a day-to-day standpoint, I spend most of my time coding and building or testing new features. That might sound dull but it requires a lot of creativity and thinking outside the box every day, which keeps things interesting. I spend a lot of my time thinking about how to make something better, faster, cleaner, look nicer. It's one of those jobs where I feel as though I'm learning something new every day.
Those conversations where I would act as a go-between for the backend team and the UX team don't happen all the time, but they happen enough that it's a skill I needed to develop or else I would fall behind.
I'm not sure where you are with your interests in UI, but I would start with learning some design basics for websites, and picking up some coding classes so you know the basics of how to write in Javascript. Do some research into the latest tools and libraries that UI developers use to build their interfaces. After that, I would do some hands-on personal projects. Try designing your own personal website using your own HTML/CSS/Javascript code. You don't really know what it's like until you try!
Learn some design fundamentals (how to wireframe, what kind of designs work best)
Take a programming class
Research how UI developers build their interfaces (libraries, frameworks, tools they use)
Try designing and building a website from scratch
From a day-to-day standpoint, I spend most of my time coding and building or testing new features. That might sound dull but it requires a lot of creativity and thinking outside the box every day, which keeps things interesting. I spend a lot of my time thinking about how to make something better, faster, cleaner, look nicer. It's one of those jobs where I feel as though I'm learning something new every day.
Those conversations where I would act as a go-between for the backend team and the UX team don't happen all the time, but they happen enough that it's a skill I needed to develop or else I would fall behind.
I'm not sure where you are with your interests in UI, but I would start with learning some design basics for websites, and picking up some coding classes so you know the basics of how to write in Javascript. Do some research into the latest tools and libraries that UI developers use to build their interfaces. After that, I would do some hands-on personal projects. Try designing your own personal website using your own HTML/CSS/Javascript code. You don't really know what it's like until you try!
Jenny recommends the following next steps:
shibani hegde
Software Engineer
3
Answers
Bengaluru, Karnataka, India
Updated
shibani’s Answer
Heres an amazing article about a typical day in a web developers life: https://careerfoundry.com/en/blog/web-development/what-is-a-typical-day-in-the-life-of-a-web-developer/