狐言亂語

Friend asked me some questions regarding UX and front-end, just left some notes here.

The questions are: what is the most challenging part of being a front-end developer and an UX designer? Why did you choose to be an UX designer? If I am interested in front-end but unsure where my talent is so unsure about it, what do I do?  

不小心回了落落長一大段給朋友問我的問題所以想說整理一下：從事前端工程師(front-end)跟UX設計師的挑戰之處在哪？為什麼後來做了從事UX的選擇？對前端比較有興趣，但又不確定自己天份在哪裡要不要就這樣砸下去，怎麼辦？

以下是自己的經驗談。

Challenge of front-end developer:

I do not really have an experience as a front-end developer. As someone graduated from Computer Science I am more like a back-end person than a front-end. What happened to me is: usually there is no dedicated front-end person in the team and you cannot really expect your PM to code, then people found out this designer (aka me) can code..... voila!

"Front-end is (only) about JS/ HTML/ CSS" - that is a misunderstanding I used to have for front-end. Turning design files into codes is just the basic, for the same rendering why this code runs faster than another? Why it uses less memory? Why it looks fine on Chrome but shit on Safari? How you support multiple screen size? ...and so on. Yes they are all included in front-end.

You might want to be careful of the company that still use javascripts: it's kind of outdated. There are developers quit from the companies that still use javascipts - as someone working in tech industry, it is essential to keep up to the latest trends. You would get more insights of what the industry is looking for from checking out the job descriptions.

And, since the logic of the language for front-end and back-end is quite different. As someone coming from back-end, writing html/ css is absolutely a nightmare for its uncomprehensible logic.

前端的挑戰：

我其實不算當過前端工程師，我的背景也比較像後端而非前端，只是當團隊中沒有前端而又不可能叫PM下去寫code，又被發現我這隻設計師其實會看code時，就會被抓去寫了。

我以前也誤以為前端工程師就是JS/ HTML/ CSS而已。後來發現那實在太粗淺，把設計圖變成code只是基本。Render起來效果一樣的網頁，為什麼它load的速度比較快？為什麼它記憶體吃的比較少？為什麼在Chrome上面看起來好好的在Safari上就炸了？現在很多不同的螢幕大小，怎麼切好responsive? ......等等的，都是屬於前端的範疇。

然後還在用javascript的公司其實不太建議去，那是太老舊的技術了，聽過有工程師因為受不了公司大部分還在用javascript而離職的。畢竟身在科技業，要確保的就是自己能跟上日新月異的技術。這方面可以去看看front-end的job description，約略可以知道現在業界要的是怎麼一回事。

Front-end用的語言以及邏輯跟 Back-end的不太一樣。算是後端出身的我，對於 html/ css 只覺得邏輯狗屁不通痛恨至極......。

Challenge of UX designers:

The challenges varies as you gain more experience as an UX designer.

When still fresh in the industry, most of the time you are more like a task-taker, some industries are more complex than others. Like you might be able to imagine the nature of the compexity of a trading app for bankers is different from a food delivery app for everyone. It takes "hard skills" to tackle this kind of the issue, and hard skills can be trained can be learned, everyone can pretty much achieve the good enogh level (if you are not too lazy).

Then you may start to move to a strategic position - thinking why we need to solve this problem, figuring out a way to achieve the vision and lead it. Communication then becomes the biggest challenge at this point, you need to communicate to others - could be your stakeholders in the company, or your users, or your clients. Somehow designer is more like a sales person - that you need to sell your idea sell your skills. Communicating your ideas, getting buy in of your ideas, and convincing an organisation to do something all requires different communication strategies.

It's not saying that being a developer can be free from the communication - developers need to collaborate with back-ends with designers or so to communicate what is feasible what is not. The difference of the communication required from designer and developers is: the profession of the developers are respected more than designers - people may not tell developers how to code, but everyone loves to tell designers how to design.

UX的挑戰：

UX困難的地方感覺隨著工作經驗的累積而有所不同。

還是菜雞時大部分就是接任務辦事，有的領域會比較複雜有的很簡單。例如銀行交易員使用的軟體跟誰都可以用的叫外賣軟體有根本上複雜性的不同。處理這種問題的叫所謂的hard skill，hard skill磨久了大家差不了多少，除非你在擺爛。

Hard skill磨到差不多，進到構思任務甚至領導任務/ 產品方向時，困難變成了溝通。你會開始需要去跟別人溝通，could be your stakeholder in the company, or to your user, or your "client"。Designer其實比較像sales person，你要去賣你的idea賣你的skill。傳達你的idea是一回事，說服別人buy in 你的idea是另一回事，說服一個團隊一個組織去做一件事情又是另一回事(design lead)。

但並不是說工程師就完全不用理人，前端也是要跟後端跟設計師溝通什麼可行什麼不可行。只不過跟設計師的差別是：通常路人們不會對工程師下指導棋，叫工程師應該要怎麼寫code怎麼取變數的名稱。但設計師就不一樣了，人人都認為自己是設計師人人都有意見（就是設計的專業不像工程的那麼被尊重），只差沒抓著你的手用滑鼠而已，於是設計師的溝通要多花一層心力在那部分。

Choose talent or interest:

I would say choose what you are interested. For something you are interested you are driven internally to polish it. For something you are "talent" for but not interested in, I am not sure what would keep you doing that day by day.

Personally, I think "unsure where my talent is so cannot make a decision" is a false dilemma. Regardless of having talent or not, people could achieve a good enough level through hardworking. Talent is more about whether you can go further from good enough to excellent, or you can achieve certain level in a shorter timeframe. But most of the time people are not even willing to make an effort for being good enough, then they use talent as an excuse to giveup. 

興趣跟天份之間的選擇：

我覺得就選有興趣的事情做就好，有興趣自然就會去鑽研去做得好。「有天份」但沒興趣，那我不知道你是有什麼動力會每天去做那件事。

個人覺得天份是假議題。我的想法是，不管有沒有天份，都可以透過努力把一件事做到好，天份只是在於能不能從做到好提高到做到登峰造極那一步，或者可以在比較短的時間內達到做到好的那個標準，但大部分的人其實是連做到好的努力都不願去付出就用天份來當藉口而放棄。

Lastly, at the moment the front-end developers are in higher demand than UX designers, the salary is higher as well - something that could be taken into consideration.

最後，現階段市場看來前端比UX搶手，薪水也比較高。也是一種選擇的factor。

Cheers.