All Things Open 2014 - Day 1 Wednesday, October 22nd, 2014 Natalie Kozlowski Front-End Web Developer for CodeGuard Front Dev How To Interact With Your Front End Developer

1. How To Interact With
Your Front-end
Developer

2. My Background
● Professional Writing BA
● Specialized in Digital
and Technical Writing

4. What is “front-end”
development?

6. What is a Front-end developer?

7. “To enjoy Front End Engineering you must
have some interest into Visual Design (and
be kind of a masochist).”

17. CSS? ERB? WTF?
What does a front-end developer do?
● Write <div> and <p> tags all day?
● Write controller methods?
● Debug IE all day?
● Test how one button looks on 50 different mobile
devices?
● Create Photoshop mockups? Wireframes?

21. Tip #1

22. Get involved with the
design process

37. “Front-end Developers establish a
visual language between Designers
and Engineers.”

38. ● Care about usability! Care about the users end
experience!
● Ask to see wireframes during the design phase
● Have your own opinions about design and voice them
● Ask us questions about our designs
Get involved with design

39. Tip #2

40. Walk your front-end
developer through
your code

48. Have mid-project check-ins

50. Walk your front-end developer through
your code
● Hold short 3-5 minute in-person meetings to explain
your code
● Give me a check-list of things I may need
● Make yourself available for mid-project check-ins
● Be patient!

51. Tip #3

52. Provide detailed
testing feedback

78. Stop!

79. There are 18,796 distinct
Android devices.

82. “Hey Natalie, I noticed
something weird in firefox
earlier on the checkout
page. You should take a
look at it later..”

83. “Hey Natalie, I noticed
something weird in firefox
earlier on the checkout
page. You should take a
look at it later..”

90. ● Be aware of browser testing when you test too
● Send me screenshots of when things look weird
● Let me know the browser version, OS version, etc. of
the bug I need to fix when you see it
● Write down the steps it takes to reproduce the bug
Provide detailed testing feedback

91. Conclusion
● Being a front-end developer can mean many things
● Get involved with the design process
● Walk us through your code
● Make yourself available to us
● Provide testing feedback in a way that is useful to us

92. Thanks for listening!
@NRKozlowski