Providing your website’s audience with optimal user experience is essential to meet the site’s objectives, whether it’s to increase sales, brand awareness or education. That’s why several stages of our website project process are dedicated to understanding and applying user experience principles, from requirement-gathering discovery workshops to user-centric design.
Creating user-facing functionality is the job of our expert in-house frontend development team.
We hope this article sheds light on the crucial role the frontend developer plays in a website’s creation, their responsibilities, and the skills they apply to their projects.
So, What’s a frontend developer?
As the name suggests, frontend developers are web developers, responsible for building the front-end of a site. Their job is to marry up the creative designs (aka how the website looks) with the technological requirements (a website’s core functionalities).
Frontend developers integrate a series of designs, markup languages, frameworks and client-side scripts to create everything the user touches, from dropdown menus and sliders to animation, colours and fonts. Using the client’s selected content management system (CMS), they combine structure and design into a user-facing functionality.
Creativity meets innovation
Frontend development is where technology meets web design, bringing a site’s design to life and turning the project vision into a functioning website that users can interact with. They use code (HTML, JavaScript (JS) and/or CCS code) to break up web designs into individual components before the functionality is developed by the backend team.
Building a website that provides a seamless user experience is essential to frontend development, and only functionalities that are flawless, quick and enjoyable across all browsers and platforms make the grade.
Q&A with Luke Brown, Spindogs Frontend Developer:
What happens when a website project comes to your team?
By the time a project reaches the frontend development team, the layouts have usually gone through multiple iterations with the client, based on their requirements. Once the designs have been signed off, we arrange a handover meeting with the lead designer to discuss how best to bring the designs to life, along with any specific requests from the client or project manager.
After the handover meeting, the frontend developer begins building the frontend of the website, converting the designs from static layouts to interactive web pages that can be viewed in the browser.
Can you tell us more about your role?
I’m responsible for converting website designs into interactive, responsive websites. My role includes:
- Interactive elements such as sliders and modals
- Ensuring all our websites meet accessibility standards
- Ensuring all our websites are compatible in all the latest web browsers and devices
- Building dynamic user interfaces for bespoke projects
What happens after the frontend build is complete?
Once the frontend build is complete, it gets handed back to the lead designer to quality check. Once any design amends have been actioned, the project gets handed over to the backend developer to build the CMS.
What’s included in a website quality check before it goes live?
Once the front and backend development of a website is complete, it will undergo rigorous quality checks before launch. Frontend quality checks are made up of twelve areas, including cross-browser testing (desktop, tablet and mobile), accessibility tests, SEO implementations and performance tests (e.g. optimal image sizes).
Interested in taking your website to the next level? Contact one of our experts today.