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Getting 1 programmer to do backend, and another to do User Interface?

by MarketingVet09
13 replies
Hey guys...

I was looking into getting a programmer to make a program, but he seems openly not too confident in his user interface capabilities.. He has great reviews, and is good technically..

Basically, what I am saying, is does it even make sense to have 1 programmer do the back end, and another slap a nice UI on it? If the program has lots of features, would it be hard to imagine the UI designer being directly in line with everything the first programmer did, and having good ability to put buttons / menu items in place to control the functions? (they will not be communicating with each other).


Or, would you suggest not even dealing with someone who cannot create a decent user interface? (nothing crazy fancy, just a presentable looking program. A sample program he should me, shows Access database rows.. Showing the raw rows, instead of having a nice sleek windows look over them). Should his lack of skills here, make me squeezy to his technical capabilities?


Please advise.

Thanks!
#backend #interface #programmer #user
  • Profile picture of the author Nochek
    I find it funny that you can find 12 responses to every thread about "Review my site!" but not one here. Anyway, Code and Design are two very different concepts. I would give your programmer extra props for telling you straight up that his UI skills leave room to improve (and he probably doesn't care to improve them). Everyone makes their own art in their own ways.

    What that means is either finding a designer to create your UI or doing it yourself. As long as your programmer is making something well documented/commented, and you have the design plans fairly well laid out then it shouldn't be difficult for an experienced designer to take over the finishing polish.
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  • Profile picture of the author ussher
    I agree with Nochek. backend and front end are totally different.

    I too don't build pretty front end stuff. The way I would do it is to get all the functionality out there from the back end then let the front end guy format the layout etc.

    So from your back end programmer what you should expect is that the all the front end FUNCTIONALITY be in place, form submissions, any ajax calls etc, but no layout or design.

    Its a good idea to get them done separately.
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  • Profile picture of the author MarketingVet09
    Hey guys... Thanks for your responses.

    I have rather a silly question... The "designer" of the front end, do they also have to have some type of programming knowledge? What type of skills do they need? Because I know an expert in photo shop cant just slap a PSD on the program.. So I'm trying to figure out what type of skills the designer should have.

    Thanks for the help
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  • Profile picture of the author LoganCoolBike
    First, I'll agree with the other posts above. It's pretty common to have both a designer and a developer.

    A designer should be fairly comfortable with code, and how it works and what it's limitations are. They need to know what can be and what cannot be done, so they don't go off designing pieces for the website that just aren't going to work. Also, there needs to be communication between the designer and developer, and they need to find some common ground to speak on. Meaning, the designer needs to know a little about development, and the developer needs to know a little about design. Not a lot, not enough to do the whole job, just enough to talk intelligently about it.

    I also agree with some of the other comments. If the developer is honest enough about his design skills, he's probably a good option. So many developers don't value the design work and figure they can handle it on their own. After all, they know what looks good, right? And who cares, as long as the site works? Finding a developer who understands the need for a good designer is a good first step.
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    • Profile picture of the author MarketingVet09
      Originally Posted by LoganCoolBike View Post

      First, I'll agree with the other posts above. It's pretty common to have both a designer and a developer.

      A designer should be fairly comfortable with code, and how it works and what it's limitations are. They need to know what can be and what cannot be done, so they don't go off designing pieces for the website that just aren't going to work. Also, there needs to be communication between the designer and developer, and they need to find some common ground to speak on. Meaning, the designer needs to know a little about development, and the developer needs to know a little about design. Not a lot, not enough to do the whole job, just enough to talk intelligently about it.

      I also agree with some of the other comments. If the developer is honest enough about his design skills, he's probably a good option. So many developers don't value the design work and figure they can handle it on their own. After all, they know what looks good, right? And who cares, as long as the site works? Finding a developer who understands the need for a good designer is a good first step.

      Thanks for your opinion. But just so we're clear, this is a windows software program, not a website. (might be some difference there I would think)
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      • Profile picture of the author LoganCoolBike
        Oh really? Well, I was off on that point, sorry. I did think we were talking websites, but that's what I mostly deal in. But anyway, I think was I said was good advice either way. The designer and developer need to be to communicate, and you don't want a developer who thinks he's a designer. That being said, I've found that windows apps are more flexible than websites or webapps, so the designer having a bit of technical knowledge isn't as important. But yeah, I'll still stand by what I said, more or less. Good luck with the app!
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  • Profile picture of the author ussher
    concept still valid i think.

    You could always do it the other way around. Work with a graphic designer to create screenshots of what the finished product will look like, then give these to the programmer and say "make it work".

    I like this style of work. You can see what needs to be built and just have to connect up the backend.
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    • Profile picture of the author MarketingVet09
      Originally Posted by ussher View Post

      concept still valid i think.

      You could always do it the other way around. Work with a graphic designer to create screenshots of what the finished product will look like, then give these to the programmer and say "make it work".

      I like this style of work. You can see what needs to be built and just have to connect up the backend.

      Im still confused on 1 thing, and I hope you can inform me...


      Lets say I do get a design from a graphic designer.. I give him detailed program description, he draws something up... I give drawing to programmer...

      Can the program simply cut and paste the image over his code (ok, not simply, but, could he do that)? So, the program will look EXACTLY like the drawing? I know when creating a wordpress mini site persay, you can just convert PSD to CSS and the exact image is now the website template...


      Does it work this way with programs? Or how exactly does it work?

      It's just peaking my curiosity...

      And I agree.. I think I'd rather go; Designer first, then programmer 2nd...


      I don't want to compromise the programmer in anyway (i care more about clean code than a pretty face).. So I'd let him work around the graphics, I think would be best.
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  • Profile picture of the author ussher
    In the case of windows software I cant say for certain because I don't build it. For websites absolutely you can expect to get it EXACTLY the same, (with the normal caveat of different browsers display things differently )

    There are exceptions though, depending on the tools the programmer prefers. For example if you are using a pre-set package of tools like (e.g. jquery ui ) that already has a way it wants to do the buttons, then your designer designs buttons that dont look like the presets. The programmer then would have to ask you what you wanted to do.

    programmer: "I want to use the jquery ui to help speed up developement, but the buttons look different to the ones in your designed screenshots. what should i do? use the UI to speed up development or take some extra time and make it look EXACTLY like you want it to look?"

    you: "I understand it will take more time, which means it will cost more, but make it exactly like i want it." (OR "use the UI to speed up development.")
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  • Profile picture of the author Nochek
    For designing Windows Apps, no, it is nothing like cutting up a PSD and slapping it on.

    The .NET framework is fairly simple to design with (get a copy of Visual Studio for free and start using their toolbox, its like using Paint for designing Apps) but the design has to be done through the framework. You can cut up pictures and use them (as buttons for instance) but depending on how large of scope your program is and how many threads its running, you may not want 100 pictures being loaded up and altered on the fly 300 times a second.

    It would be better to have it built from code by a designer (when you said your programmer could do the back end fine and sucked at the front end, I had no doubt you were talking about the .NET framework. Took me years before I could make a decent enough UI to work with, and I'm still learning how to actually make things pretty).

    Working from front-to-back or back-to-front only sucks for the second guy that has to integrate it, and that's only if the first guy sucks at describing/commenting what he did. If you have a layout already created (PSD like) of what you want, make sure both your programmer and your designer get the same copy. Then they will both know what the final product should look like, and they can both aim towards that goal.
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    • Profile picture of the author MarketingVet09
      Originally Posted by Nochek View Post

      For designing Windows Apps, no, it is nothing like cutting up a PSD and slapping it on.

      The .NET framework is fairly simple to design with (get a copy of Visual Studio for free and start using their toolbox, its like using Paint for designing Apps) but the design has to be done through the framework. You can cut up pictures and use them (as buttons for instance) but depending on how large of scope your program is and how many threads its running, you may not want 100 pictures being loaded up and altered on the fly 300 times a second.

      It would be better to have it built from code by a designer (when you said your programmer could do the back end fine and sucked at the front end, I had no doubt you were talking about the .NET framework. Took me years before I could make a decent enough UI to work with, and I'm still learning how to actually make things pretty).

      Working from front-to-back or back-to-front only sucks for the second guy that has to integrate it, and that's only if the first guy sucks at describing/commenting what he did. If you have a layout already created (PSD like) of what you want, make sure both your programmer and your designer get the same copy. Then they will both know what the final product should look like, and they can both aim towards that goal.

      So it sounds like, in this instance; you let the programmer do his job first and create the program (no way I'd make it harder on him).. While he's working, tell him to make detailed notes, perhaps notes side by side to my original description (so for every feature I had in my description I gave him, he makes detailed notes on where he put things in the code).

      While he's doing this, I'll give the UI designer the exact same description I gave him.

      Once programmer is done, UI designer, is already familiar with description, will then take program code and detailed notes from programmer, and impliment UI.

      I would of course be a buffer the whole time, making sure I understand as much about the source code / deliverables as possible, so I can make it easier on the UI designer.

      And if UI designer ultimately need any help or confused with something, I'll maybe do a 3way skype chat with him and the programmer, or 3 ring email exchanging with me CC'd.


      In this case, the UI designer would have to be hella qualified, cus I don't want to run into a situation where I have mercedes benz guts but a wrecked exterior because UI guy doesn't know what he's doing. He'll have to be even more of an expert than programmer at his craft.
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      • Profile picture of the author Nochek
        While that looks like a decent workflow for your project, remember also that functionality is more important than looks. I don't know what type of program you are working on in particular, but if you make sure your programmer includes an update callback then you can always improve the UI later.

        One thing I have found in my programming is that only the User can decide what they want in the User Interface. Anything you think is absolutely necessary is something they will find confusing and probably won't use. The things you think don't need to be included will be the first question from your customer as to how soon it can be added.

        If you are creating a one-off, a program that can be sold a couple hundred times and then ignored for eternity, then you won't have to worry about that (and as a man who has had to de-compile and hack updates into more than 20 programs that were abandoned but still needed, screw you! :p).

        But if you are genuinely attached to your Mercedes, then I would personally allow the programmer to do his thing, even make his own functional UI, and release it for beta testing to 10-15 people in your field of sales. Offer them a half-off price for feedback on how they would like it designed, where they would like the buttons, how they want the tables laid out, if they need more tabs or a larger interface, etc etc.

        Then, consolidate their notes, re-design the interface yourself using their ideas added on, and give everything to the designer (original design idea, original UI, notes from testers, your redesign idea) and then have them take it from there.

        That way they can understand not only the Where and How to design something, but the Why as well, which can come in handy when they are trying to figure out why you need a custom built pop-out window that has 3 different About pages on it when they could have just added all the info to the standard windows About window.
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  • Profile picture of the author webpeon
    its common to find programmers that arent that great at design aspects, puts hand up.

    the good news is this isnt that hard to achieve, vis studio (the development software you will use to build the application) is already setup to handle things like this.

    theres lots of ways you could do this but the best way for you to be involved in the project and learn along the way is to do the following...

    grab a stack of paper and a pen and start drafting out where abouts you'd like all the controls to be displayed, controls are things like buttons, textboxes, dropdownlists, labels etc etc. my guess is you'll already have an idea of where you want all these controls to go in your application. use a different paper for each form that you are going to need. once you have a draft on paper of what you want the application layout to look like, get ready to have some fun

    grab a copy of visual studio and find a tutorial that will teach you how to open a new project, place some controls and change each controls properties.. then take that knowledge and start putting all the controls you have on your paper draft into a form inside visual studio, desktop apps are alot easier to setup, you dont have to worry about floats and positioning, where you place the control is where its going to be, you can resize, rename, all sorts of stuff just using drag and drop and the properties window.

    from here you should already have the basics of the application you want to build, then its just a matter of sharing that same form between your designer and programmer, you say to your programmer, i need this button here to do blah blah blah so he writes the code to make that happen, you then say to your designer i need this to look like blah blah blah and they'll give you the background images to make this look pretty or advise on fonts, layouts etc whatever they need at the time.

    good luck with the project, sounds like fun
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