Dr. Kieth Robinson, on his blog (which he calls asterisk), wonders about job titles for those of us who work on the web. It’s something that I’ve thought about before, too. In most industries there are very clear-cut titles. If someone tells you they are an Art Director, an Illustrator, an Account Executive, an Administrative Assistant, or a Flight Attendant, you end up with a very clear idea of just what is is they do. However, with web workers, there are any number of titles out there, but the meaning behind them (as to skill set and job duties) is not always so clear. Here’s a handful of titles I’ve heard of:
Etc, etc, etc. The list goes on and on. While some of these are clear-cut, many of them are ambigious. Which of these titles signifies that you do XHTML and other mark-up work? CSS and other layout? Flash and other embedded media? PHP and other backend technolgies? Graphic design and art direction? Branding and identity? It’s all a blur.
It’d be nice if there was a set of titles that had very clear-cut meanings. I guess that’s all. :)
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001 // David // 11.19.2003 // 1:22 PM
I’d say ‘Web Designer’ for the layout/colours, and ‘Website content producer’ if you solely produce content, or ‘Web developer’ as a term for someone that does both.
002 // Paul G // 11.19.2003 // 2:09 PM
I think the ambiguity stems more from the fact that working on the web pretty much requires at least some knowledge in all of these areas at some point or another. I never set out to be a PHP programmer or to learn how to use an RDBMS, but the very fact that I am involved in creating websites has made me quite proficient at both. This goes for just about every area touching on web development. Now, out of necessity, I have at least a working knowledge of several different fields: structural XHTML, CSS, accesibility, validation, javascript and the DOM, XML, XSLT, RSS, PHP, MySQL, MSSQL, Photoshop, principles of design, typography, .NET, etc., etc., etc.
That is not to say that you have to be an expert at photoshop or have a design degree, but the broader your understanding, the easier the overall job gets. You can’t very well create a valid XHTML site if the guy coding your backend CMS doesn’t know at least the basics of valid, structural XHTML. Likewise, if you don’t know how to use photoshop (or similar) to edit and compress your graphics, you’re going to have a bandwidth hog with ugly graphics on your hands.
To make a project successful, we are required to have a working knowledge in all of these areas and understand the impact that a decision made in one phase will affect the outcome in another. If your site is bigger than a few pages, it’s a tremendous amount of work and organization to deal with.
I think that the advent of web standards and the idea of separating form and function is a small step towards being able to properly differentiate the many different jobs involved in creating a successful website. For now, we’ll have to continue to hone our skills in all areas of web development if we want to have a prayer of getting a quality result.