The quote and article below is another reason why I am a fan of Hype.
As a Hybrid you can accomplish quite a lot with Hype on both sides of the creative and development spectrum.
The better this application becomes the better the web content will become.
I hope that we start to see more resumés with “Hype experience” in the near future.
“Seed-stage startup looking for rockstar junior designer to sketch wireframes and design beautiful mockups. You’ll be responsible for crafting our logo and brand and writing UI copy. Must know how to run usability studies, prototype and write production-ready HTML and CSS.”
In today’s industry, a web designer is expected to have many skill sets, so to land a job with this mysterious title, the hybrids tend to raise more interest than the specialists.
I make a living as a designer / developer. The reason why you don't see so many "unicorns" is because we burn out quickly. We end up doing the work of 2-3 people and then start to wonder, "Is the modest boost in pay is worth the added stress?"
That's why I like Hype. I've seen lots of software that can help me on the design side, but it's tough to find software that truly helps on the developer side. The closest are Drupal (Great CMS, but high maintenance) and Hype.
The problem with running a website today is that it's not just about design and development... security and site administration issues creep in. As a designer / developer, I'm expected to be a miracle worker. Sure, I get higher than average pay, but people see features on websites and they want me to do the same thing. Because I'm a designer / developer, I'm expected to deliver functionality that's similar to Google Street View, Google Maps and YouTube... or whatever cool feature they happened to glance at on their browser today. These are multi-billion dollar companies. I'm just one guy.
When you tell them, "If you want feature X, you should dedicate Y resources" they say, "You're not the problem solver you used to be." When employers or clients are looking for unicorns it's because they have champaign tastes with beer budgets.
Surprisingly, I've been managing to keep up. But wow, I'm tired... and it's just getting worse because web development is getting more complicated, with flavor of the month programming languages / JavaScript libraries and joy killing technical issues - like cross-browser issues or security threats.
On the design side, responsive theming is such a chore. I have to make apps / websites look pretty on the old iPhone 4 to the rumored iPad Pro. Hype helps with that, but there are so many different screen sizes between a 3.5" diagonal and a 12.9" diagonal. It doubles, triples, quadruples the work.
I hear ya!
I too am a designer developer and am in the non-envious position of also teaching designers and large companies that hire designers how to become more efficient so they can also make more of a profit from their work or their budgets.
The toughest part of that exercise is to get a mind shift from
"Design thinking cannot be defined into steps" into a mind set of Stategic Excecution that says…
"When there is a set of Tasks that must be aligned to between client and Hybrid Professional such as…
• Design Brief
• Technical Brief
• Critical Path Schedule (CPS)
• Revision versus Correction definition and scope…
Then the project path is completely transparent and if need be can be drawn upon if a disagreement occurs during the project."
Most design professionals that I work with will respond first with …“it can’t be done on my projects, or it can’t be done with my clients” "And my budgets won’t allow for it"
But it is not true. Everything we do is a process of steps or variables.
When you outline in a clear “Non design jargon” discussion helping the client to understand that their choices and your executional approach must be in sync otherwise you will have
• Cost overrun for the client
• Delivery delays.
Then they will understand what they are getting for the money…Hopefully your valued insight and creative problem solving that they will not get for less somewhere else.
The other item to get clarity on in the beginning is The Champagne Dreams and Beer Budget concept.
If the client wants the world but only has a small budget then the options come into play. IF ( Client wants a 10,000 site) AND (Client only has 1,000 budget) THEN ( I show client what $1,000.00 will get them)
At that point I need to be creative and understand that if they want a function that would take me 10 hours to write by hand or use a jQuery library script I show them the difference between the 2 from a cost perspective AND make certain I document where my involvement and liability ends based on their choice for awarding me that 1,000.00 budget.
I do get it though I have been in hundreds of these “wish I did not take on this project” nightmares before.
But taking the time to strategically plan and communicate the execution in a WRITTEN E OR PAPER TRAIL THAT IS COMMUNICATED EARLY AND OFTEN.
Helps out greatly if things begin to get out of hand.
And Oh Yeah create and organize a great library of re-usable code and templates (HYPE works here) that can be used to build efficiencies.
A great primer on this thinking is by Larry Bossidy, and Ram Charan
"Execution, the Discipline of Getting Things Done"
