UI Developers are responsible for the look, feel and presentation of web pages and applications while also ensuring their functionality. UI Developers can be found within almost any industry that has a website and/or an application to build or maintain.
UI Developers provide UI solutions that best enhance the user’s experience. Their major goal is to create a suitable interface that meets the user’s needs, which they do by first understanding user behavior patterns to make sure an interface functions the way it’s supposed to. A UI Developer’s overall aim should be to produce a polished and quality interface output.
What does a UI Developer do, typically?
A skilled UI Developer will have a strong knowledge of how to work with graphic design programs such as Adobe Illustrator and will also have coding and HTML skills. Their responsibilities include:
Customer analysis
To create a great interface that works for users, UI Developers need to dive deep into their motivations and behaviors. Answering important questions about user goals is essential to making educated decisions about interface development and design.
UI design research
The ability to stay up-to-date with current design trends, UI best practices, monitoring competitors in the field and looking up examples of the best modern user interfaces for ideas.
UI prototyping
Working with real users and stakeholders to collect feedback after creating mockups and testing simple solutions that assess whether the user interface is both meeting customer needs and aligning with business goals.
Coding and design
Creating conceptual diagrams, following established standards for coding, accessibility and cross-browser functionality. This requires having skills in HTML, CSS, Javascript, Jason, AJAX and JQuery as well as graphic development skills, most often in Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop.
UI Developers are not:
Web Developers
Web Developers require the skills to build an entire full-stack web solution, whereas UI Developers are much more targeted in the skills of their role, which is only to focus on the user interface. See our post on web developer roles here<<link>>
User Experience (UX) Designers
UX design often gets confused with UI development. While both may work closely together, UX design places much more emphasis on the psychology aspect of usability and is more concerned with the overall feel of a product. UI Developers are more visual and tend to follow the path a UX designer lays out.
