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Does computer science require designing skills (or just coding languages)?
#computer-science
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Dhairya’s Answer
Hi Yuyan,
When you say computer science, I assume you mean the profession of software engineering and by design you mean UI / UX design. Computer science proper as an academic field doesn't usually involve design (as in UI and front-end). There is the subfield of human computer interaction (HCI), which does explore design philosophy quite in depth. HCI focuses on how humans interact with computer systems (websites, applications on your phone, robots, AI etc) and tries to understand the optimal ways to design experiences that help humans get the most out of these interactions. That is how do you build websites that help kids learn or intuitive applications that are easy to use and don't leave the user frustrated or design conversational flows for chatbots that are useful. HCI covers this and more from an interdisciplinary lens spanning computer science, behavioral science, cognitive science and media studies.
In terms of software engineering, it depends on the job. If you are doing front end development or full stack development, having design skills can quite valuable. For some front-end positions it may also be a requirement. Most customers today expect beautiful and responsive applications and you can't get away with poor UI design and shoddy HTML pages. You don't need to be an artist but you should feel comfortable using CSS and doing basic design in modern tools like Figma. That being said, it's not required but you can stand out from the crowd if you do it well. If you do backend development (e.g. servers, databases, and infrastructures etc) you'll likely never need to do UI design.
When you say computer science, I assume you mean the profession of software engineering and by design you mean UI / UX design. Computer science proper as an academic field doesn't usually involve design (as in UI and front-end). There is the subfield of human computer interaction (HCI), which does explore design philosophy quite in depth. HCI focuses on how humans interact with computer systems (websites, applications on your phone, robots, AI etc) and tries to understand the optimal ways to design experiences that help humans get the most out of these interactions. That is how do you build websites that help kids learn or intuitive applications that are easy to use and don't leave the user frustrated or design conversational flows for chatbots that are useful. HCI covers this and more from an interdisciplinary lens spanning computer science, behavioral science, cognitive science and media studies.
In terms of software engineering, it depends on the job. If you are doing front end development or full stack development, having design skills can quite valuable. For some front-end positions it may also be a requirement. Most customers today expect beautiful and responsive applications and you can't get away with poor UI design and shoddy HTML pages. You don't need to be an artist but you should feel comfortable using CSS and doing basic design in modern tools like Figma. That being said, it's not required but you can stand out from the crowd if you do it well. If you do backend development (e.g. servers, databases, and infrastructures etc) you'll likely never need to do UI design.
Updated
Pedro’s Answer
Hello!
You usually don´t need desing skills, but consider it to be a differentiator in your resume. Nowadays, UX (user experience) is just as important.
My advice to you is to take an online course on this at the same time.
I wish you luck in all future endeavours.
You usually don´t need desing skills, but consider it to be a differentiator in your resume. Nowadays, UX (user experience) is just as important.
My advice to you is to take an online course on this at the same time.
I wish you luck in all future endeavours.
Updated
Trajon’s Answer
Computer science is a really wide umbrella. In a school setting, this refers to the study of computers and computational systems. UI/UX design is not necessary in this field, however diagrams of systems will be given of different architectures and systems to give you a better understanding of how things are put together. From a fundamentalist point of view, pseudo code exists in a way to be able to give a high level explanation of a piece of code so that anyone can understand it in plain English, which is the same for different designs as well. So no, you don't need to have high design skills, however it can help when you are trying to explain high level concepts to someone career wise and in school.
Design skills can come in really handy however when you are building front end websites. In my opinion having some basic fundamental understanding of design can really help you to be able to build out websites that you may want to design as a part of a portfolio or basic projects to wow potential jobs.
Design skills can come in really handy however when you are building front end websites. In my opinion having some basic fundamental understanding of design can really help you to be able to build out websites that you may want to design as a part of a portfolio or basic projects to wow potential jobs.