Careers In Web Design

Careers in Web DesignWorking in the Web 2.0

Sept 2009

Adrian Mendoza

UX principal

Mendoza Design & Marlin Mobile

Careers in Web Design

Iweb

Blogs

Facebook

Myspace

Wordpress

TwitterExpression Dreamweav

er

To many choices, not enough design!

Who is a web

designer?

(Tools)

Your Cat

Your Sister

Your Grand-father

YourFriends


What is design?•A unique solution

•A new perspective on an old problem

•A view based on history and context

•A cooperative process

•An understanding of color and shape

•A political or sociological point of view

Why should web design be any different?


The Design Process

As with traditional graphic, interior, industrial design, etc,

The same design process applies to web design.

Concept

Schematic Design

Final Design

Prototype Build

(Iterative Process)


Careers are connected to the process

Concept

Schematic Design

Final Design

Prototype Build

Usability

Analyst

Art Director

UI Designer

Prototyper

DeveloperInformation Architect

UX Lead

Interactive Designer

QA

Copywriter


Concept

Information

Architect

UX Lead

Using focus groups, testing sessions, and market data they learn about an existing

product and report on what is broken, missing, or potential enhancements by

interviewing users (customers).

UsabilityActing as an moderator between the client, creative, and usability; they manage these

relationships, while beginning to propose the user experience of the product/site. Sometimes UX leads are Information

architects

Focusing on business and functional requirements; they speak with the customer

to create documentation to record functionality and market data. They will also begin to create deadlines and schedules for

the project.

Using information from the analyst and the usability team; they create users personas to document current and potential users.

User personas help create a series of archetypes of customers/users.

Analyst

Requirements are gathered for the client; Non functional, Market, functional, and specification data is put together to begin to understand what will be built.


Schematic Design

Information

Architect

UX Lead

Using the clients existing brand guidelines, they begin to document the look and feel of the brand and of any current job to establish

these guidelines for the client

Art Director Taking the user personas and usability

information they work with defining an overall vision of what the users experience for the customer will be. They work with the

client in proposing the key interactions of the project.

Working with wireframes and sitemaps, they translate the user personas into visual

functional representations of the project. The focus is to show functionality, sizes,

shapes and placement of key components of the project.

Wireframes and sitemaps are put together to begin to rough out the pages ad user experience of the new site. This work will directly influence the design.

Working with the client, they begin to catalogue all of the content that the project

needs. If content, copy, and images are missing they will create, edit, and propose

these elements.

Copywriter


Final Design

Interactive Designer

UX Lead

Now focusing on using the brand guidelines to create a consist vision, they start guiding the design to retain as many unique design

elements that best represent the information design and the branding.

Art Director

Working with the creative team, their goal is to maintain the user experience of the

information design. They focus on balancing the design vision with the business

requirements of the client.

Working with the art director, they work on designing a user interface that best

balances the brand and information design. They take into account color, accessibility, fonts, content and the creative direction of

the site.

Working with the UI designer, they focus on designing any interactive frameworks, UI elements and moving components of the

site. They might work in flash, flex, or silver light to design these interactive pieces.

UI Designer

User Interfaces are created that best represent the information design and the branding. Common pages are designed to best show the different design variations in pages.


Prototype

Reviewing the prototype and design, they begin to establish the bases technologies

that will be used to create the project. They might work on the data structure or other

infrastructure pieces.

Developer

Taking the design, they will begin to create a semi-functional working version of the project. The intent is to show the user

experience to client and to the development team. Prototypes can be made in flash,

html, or even in images.

Prototyper

UX LeadAt this stage they are working with the team

to translate the design into a working prototype. Their role in this key stage is to make sure the user experience is clearly articulated and that all key UX paths are

shown.

A semi-functional version is created to best represent the designs into a working user experience. Prototypes can be quick click-through to show pages or a fancy flash interactive experience that shows interaction and animation.


Build

Now ready to start building, the developers will begin to implement the technology and

templates needed to create the project. They will build the front end (what the users sees) and the back end (the technology that

runs the site).

Developer

Working with the development team, they test and check the for bugs before it gets released. This may take a week or up to

months. They will use the users personas document from the IA to simulate the user

paths.

QA

The Final Design and the Prototype are now used to create the actual working version of the project. This might range from complex backend systems to the building the visual design into static, dynamic, or interactive pages.


So many careers, and so much design!

So What Can I Do?

Websites

Multimedia

Kiosks

PDAs

Games

Small

Device

s

Desktop Apps

Mobile

TV

Video

(And the design process is part of all of them!)


Who is Adrian?Adrian's career is highlighted by over 10 years of design and user experience in the handheld, pharmaceutical, financial, and educational sectors. His first studio, Synthesis3, worked with several Palm OS software companies in creating their brand for both a web and retail presence. In the financial and education sector, customers included Sovereign Bank, Houghton Mifflin, MIT and Harvard. Adrian has consulted in UX and Information Architect lead roles for Fidelity's E-business design group, Thomson Financial, and T.Rowe Price. Adrian earned his Bachelors from the University of Southern California and his Masters from the Harvard Graduate School of Design.

Currently he is the UX principal at Mendoza Design a Brookline MA based UX consultancy; and the mobile UX principal at Marlin Mobile a user experience, optimization, and performance company. Additionally he is senior lecturer at the School of Art and Design at Suffolk university in Boston, MA.

Questions? [email protected]@marlinmobile.com

Follow Adrian on Twitter @marlinUXOr read his mobile UX blog at http://www.marlinmobile.com/blog/

http://www.mendoza-design.com/

http://www.marlinmobile.com/

mailto:[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]

http://twitter.com/marlinUX

http://www.marlinmobile.com/blog/

