Update: @itiekey translated this article to Japanese. Thank you.

A frontend developer might now think “Oh my god, there is so much more to frontend development than plain visuals”. Indeed, but please bear with me here while we get into the very details.

On the flip side, there is nothing to worry about for visual designers either. You won’t be asked to tackle code for the frontend, i.e. JavaScript, neither build tools like Gulp or Grunt. You can safely stay within you beloved tool (mostly Sketch in regard to the topic at hand) to design great components, visuals hierarchies and thought-through details and edge cases.

“development” as in becoming more advanced

I use the term “development” here in its literal meaning: “the process in which someone or something grows or changes and becomes more advanced” (see the full explanation at Cambridge Dictionary). For the title I could have chosen to use the term “Designers” and not “Developers”. Though, the term would hardly describe the upcoming fundamental changes in the software design space. It would also reduce the designers’ role to some frontend, visual and potentially static task. As we all know, visual design is not just “aesthetics” nor is frontend development typing “some descriptive code”.

from visual design to design development

In the today’s market, there are visual designers and frontend developers besides a myriad of other roles. A small fraction of those with technical frontend skills also posses a good eye. This skill set is rare, a great addition to any team and therefore in popular demand. I think that this part of the software design process is currently undergoing a fundamental change whereby development is pulled much closer towards design.

There are two aspects in play here:

Design systems thinking

The design development mindset

Let’s go through each.