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My company is doing a fair bit of WPF and Silverlight development recently and we are discovering that while we are darn good at slinging code, our UI design skills lack some "pizazz".

Where does one find a "devigner", as Microsoft calls them? Are there user groups (especially in the Dallas area) with these types of artists/usability experts?

I've had experience with web developers with these skill sets, but not so many with WPF/Silverlight experience and looking on the Internet for these people hasn't turned up much.

Edit: Made this a wiki so I can get a little more feedback without people thinking I'm fishing for points. So far the comments have been helpful.

Joel Coehoorn
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Anderson Imes
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    -1 for bringing the word "devigner" to my attention. I'm going to have to spend several hours in bed tonight with my dictionary to reaffirm to myself which words are real and which ones aren't. I'm probably going to have portmanteau-based nightmares for several days. Thanks a lot, Anderson Imes. You jerk. – Welbog Sep 15 '09 at 18:07
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    I was sickened by the word myself. Also... the scrolling effect your have on your website is the most badass thing I've seen in a while. – Anderson Imes Sep 15 '09 at 18:19
  • Ah, where were you 4 years ago? I feel that my design and UI skills are decent for a programmer. And I'm in the Dallas area. regexhero.net has been my passion as of late but you can see some of my other sites in my profile. Unfortunately I already have a couple jobs of sorts and I'm just too busy to take on anything else right now. But feel free to hold onto my contact information (and I'll hang onto yours), if you think you might need anyone like myself in the future. ;) – Steve Wortham Sep 15 '09 at 18:20
  • Wait, does Microsoft really say Devigner? That's ugly. – Pierre-Alain Vigeant Sep 15 '09 at 18:37
  • The origin comes from Flash developers, actually, but Microsoft seems to use it to refer to these types of people as well (I believe I've specifically heard Scott Hanselman use it). – Anderson Imes Sep 15 '09 at 18:43
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    What you guys never heard of a Flashammer (flash programmer), SQLINER (SQL designer) or Assdev (assembler developer)? – Alex Sep 15 '09 at 18:59
  • Devigner almost seems sacrilegious ... like it takes a divine person to do this type of thing. – cplotts Sep 15 '09 at 19:09
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    It's an awful word. We agree. – Anderson Imes Sep 15 '09 at 19:37

3 Answers3

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In my experience, it's pretty tough to find these guys. Posting on job boards that are known to attract exceptional talent (such as 37signals and StackOverflow) is probably your best bet. You will probably end up finding someone who is a developer first and has a hobby-level passion for graphics design. These guys might not do the best work, but they will at least have both of the (mostly mutually exclusive) skills you are looking for.

A second option could be to hire a run-of-the-mill graphics designer and assign one of your developers to work with him and make all of the graphics stuff work in your application. This, of course, requires two people working on a project when you originally planned on having one but I think it's still a viable option.

EDIT: graphic design job postings/information

http://www.youthedesigner.com/graphic-design-jobs/
http://www.allgraphicdesign.com/jobs.html
http://www.coroflot.com/public/jobs_browse.asp

Robert Greiner
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    I regularly work with Graphic Designers. They may not know a lot about programming, but team them together with your developers and you will end up with a very good product. – Corey Sunwold Sep 15 '09 at 18:12
  • Where is a good place to find graphic designers looking for work? – Rik Heywood Sep 15 '09 at 18:17
  • I agree. +1 for the second paragraph ... that is why you got my upvote ... as it alludes to how you can cultivate these guys. See my answer. – cplotts Sep 15 '09 at 19:00
  • Actually, I take it back. The first paragraph is pretty good, too. Another +1 for that (if I could.) – Beska Sep 15 '09 at 19:02
  • I definitely fall into the first category. I'm a developer with no real graphic design training, but I feel like I'm good enough with user interfaces to make it all work and look pretty good. Of course, I've also worked with some very talented graphic designers that simply make me say, "wow." At times contracting a dedicated graphic designer can be just what you need. – Steve Wortham Sep 15 '09 at 19:03
  • @csunworld agreed, and you also get the benefit of improving the teamwork skills of everyone on your team. – Robert Greiner Sep 15 '09 at 19:09
  • @Steve Wortham yeah, I think I fall into the same boat as you. I'm fairly capable with graphics, but not a pro by any means. Sometimes it's nice to be able to do both, but I'm a programmer first. – Robert Greiner Sep 15 '09 at 19:10
  • While training our devs to be more designery and our designers to be more developery, searching for existing people with these skills is more what we are looking for. We'll consider posting on these sites. – Anderson Imes Sep 21 '09 at 16:26
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Even though it is getting easier to find these guys, it is still fairly hard as the skill sets are kind of mutually exclusive (as already noted) ... and because there is a training gap (most designers know only the Adobe suite of products (this is the part that is getting better).

I personally think you will find that you have to cultivate this blend of skills and that it may not be found in just one person.

One thing I would encourage you to watch is part 2 of the Hiking Mt. Avalon workshop. This part covers collaboration between the developer and the designer ... and also describes the developer/designer/integrator workflow ... which is a workflow that allows you to cultivate these types of people ... and to just deal with this difficult situation.

I personally think that it is easier to bring a developer closer to the designer world (in order to perform as your integrator/devigner ... because one of the main roles of this person is to understand the platform (i.e. WPF/Silverlight) and how to leverage it to make the designs into real live software ... without harming the design/artistic integrity.

In fact, I am an example of a developer with designer tendencies and often perform the role of integrator. I find myself spending a lot of time with our graphics artists/designers, trying to instill knowledge of the platform into them slowly but surely.

For example, showing them the slider isn't just a static graphic but a living, dynamic thing that can be restyled, retemplated, and have behavior. This is an example of trying to cultivate a designer so that he or she can perform more and more as an integrator/devigner ... and lessening the work the actual integrator has to do ... to the point where the role of the integrator may not even be needed anymore ... or looking at it another way ... having just cultivated a new integrator/devigner.

For the record, I can't stand the term 'devigner' either. I think integrator is a much better description of what the person finds themselves doing (i.e. crossing the chasm between development and design).

See these posts (1, 2, 3) for more info.

Hope that helps! You're not alone in your desire to find these types of people!

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cplotts
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  • Nice! Thanks! We've been considering training for existing devs and this reinforces this idea. – Anderson Imes Sep 15 '09 at 18:35
  • I think training can help a great deal ... but make sure you find a developer who has a passon for this thing. A lot of my fellow developers could care less about this stuff ... and it reflects in how much effort they expend ... in order to not harm the artistic/design integrity. – cplotts Sep 15 '09 at 19:04
  • +1 I think you hit it dead on. Cultivating an employee's skills also leads to a low turnover rate because your top-performers feel challenged. – Robert Greiner Sep 15 '09 at 19:11
  • Our preconceived notion of this would be someone wearing designer clothing and holding a latte would come in and open Expression Blend and make our UIs look snazzy and write the occasional line of code to make that happen, but perhaps we have it backward. – Anderson Imes Sep 15 '09 at 19:50
  • I think you are close to the mark, one of the main tools of the integrator is Blend, in my opinion. If you have a developer who doesn't like to use Blend, they're probably not your integrator. The only other thing I would say is that sometimes it is necessary to drop down to code or at least to understand how it should be done in code (for another developer to work on ... e.g. seeing where a custom control would fit into the picture and how to build that custom control to enable a designer). – cplotts Sep 15 '09 at 20:01
  • I wouldn't take this too rigidly ... but one way to define the roles of the developer, designer, and integrator ... is by the artifact that they own ... where the developer owns the code, the designer owns the design, and the integrator owns the xaml. Again, this points to Blend being the tool of choice for the integrator. – cplotts Sep 15 '09 at 20:05
  • +1 For the idea that it's easier to make a designer out of a developer than the other way 'round. Pure UI designers are helpful when you need top-notch concept work, but they are unlikely to be able to build a complete, templated, extensible system. Pure devs tend not to have the design chops. So- have your artists do the art, and your developers know enough to derive functional UI/UX from the concepts. – Dave Swersky Sep 18 '09 at 17:07
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Why don't you ask on the MSDN WPF forum?

http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/wpf/threads/

Bryan S.
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  • No clue why I was downvoted, I still think asking other WPF programmers where they get their design work is a very valid answer. Oh well, I'll live. :-) – Bryan S. Sep 15 '09 at 20:10
  • yeah, me neither, I thought it was a perfect valid recommendation (I was the one that upvoted you to 0) – Robert Greiner Sep 16 '09 at 19:44