Why Every Developer Should Design
Recently, I wrote a blog Why Every Developer Should Write and here is one more. In this blog, I will talk about designing your applications. I am sure you have heard a very popular phrase; first impression is the last impression.
Well, the design of an application is the first impression your clients or users get about your work. No matter how good an application functionality is, no matter how optimized and fast the code underneath is, if your user interface is crappy, your users are not going to be excited about it. First thing you want to think about is how to get your users excited. You could get your users excited by designing clean, user-friendly, stunning, wow-factored-jaw-dropping user interfaces.
I remember the days when looks of an application wasn't that important but those days are long gone. You can guess by the popularity of HTML 5, IE 9, Adobe Flash, WPF and Silverlight, the crisp, clean, and stunning user interfaces are taking over the Web development world.
Today, if you look at any website, you will see social elements such as user feedback, videos, photos, and interactive chats are vital parts of these websites. While ASP.NET, AJAX, JavaScript, and JQuery provide good scripting options, they do not do a justice when it comes to interactivity. This is where Flash, Adobe Air, Silverlight, and Expression Blend jumps in. These tools are so powerful that you can even build full-featured social websites without writing a single line of code.
But being a developer, you don't have to rely 100% on these tools but just knowing their power, you must realize how much time and effort you can save.
Recently, I have been focusing on two Microsoft products besides Visual Studio 2010. These two products are SharePoint 2010 and Expression Blend 4/Silverlight 4. I have been blown away by the power and features these products come with. It's just amazing.
If you have not looked at these products, I seriously recommend you to take a look at them.
Pay attention to the minor details. I have seen many good programmers write very good code and really fast. But sometimes they miss minor details like formatting a table or font on the page does not match and so on.