Front-End Development

#frontend #webdev #beginners #ux

User experience, front-end developer, design thinking, UI/UX designer … few buzzwords moving around the tech industry, let’s break it down!

What is …..

Front-end web development involves creating the user interface of a website, which is the portion that a user sees and interacts with. The aim of a Front-end developer is to make the website experience enjoyable, intuitive, and easy for the user. To achieve this, the developer must understand the needs of the client and collaborate with the Back-end developers to determine what data should be accessed from the database and how it should be presented on the website. Ultimately, the Front-end developer is responsible for ensuring that website visitors can interact with the pages effectively.

Why …..

Front-end development focus on the user-facing side so important? Your website is the face of your company; ensure you have a well-designed front end for a positive user experience. Making the technology intuitive and easy to use is key. To provide a good UX, developers must put themselves in their client’s shoes and think from their perspective.

How does Front-End Dev work?

Developers build the interface with HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and associated technologies and frameworks to create the look, functions, and features that the user needs.

a. Design - Designing a website involves mapping the idea into an effective and visually appealing experience. It covers elements such as information organization and navigation, user interaction, and responsive layout. It can be divided into Interaction Design (making sure users are able to use the website efficiently) and Visual Design (creating visual appeal).

b. Development - Front-end development centers around creating the part of the application that is visible to the user, such as interfaces, components, and the structure they will interact with. Once the design has been completed, front-end developers will then use HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and other related frameworks to bring the design to life, ensuring the user's needs are met with regard to visuals, features, and functions. Whereas the back-end developers will work on the 'invisible' side, involving data management and other processes. APIs connect the bridge between Front-end and Back-end.

Websites are usually developed using these HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.

HTML provides the structure and content for web pages. It is a static representation of the content that is presented to the user of your website and gives structure and meaning to web content, using headings, paragraphs, lists, images, etc.
CSS is used to change the visual look and style of HTML elements. For example, you can lay out elements on a page and style typography.
JavaScript is used to add interactive elements to a webpage. Examples of these interactive elements include but are not limited to dropdown navigation menus, data validation, and animations.

Modern front-end engineering frameworks such as Angular, Vue, Ember, etc. are increasingly replacing older technologies. React JS is the most popular programming language amongst developers, but it is a JavaScript library, not a framework like the others.

c. Architecture - When building the architecture of a website, it's important to take into account the necessary website functionalities and choose the appropriate tools and services to support them. Hosting should be set up, as well as how to deploy the code, which links together the different parts like the front-end, back-end, and API services. One can either manage the entire architecture or outsource certain aspects of it, an effective way to do this being through cloud services.

d. Version Control - Merge codes submitted by different developers without causing any code rewrites. The most famous version controller is git. This ensures collaboration and visibility of code. This also enables developers to roll back to a particular version in any scenario.

UI/UX

UI (User Interface) and UX (User experience) buzzwords in Front end development space for the past few years, what is it? UI refers to visual elements such as screens, buttons, icons, etc that you interact with when using a website, or an app. UX refers to the entire interaction you have with the website, including how you feel about the interaction. This element takes a website from average to amazing!!

What’s the result of combining UI and UX? Empathy, Collaboration, Design Thinking, Prototyping, and many more…

Final thoughts

Front-end development is gaining importance day by day, why? you ask, well Do you like Instagram or Facebook better, Do you find any difference in user experience between them? To me, a Quality product combined with a seamless experience is a hit. In this digital world, we have great ideas transformed into products let’s combine that with the right client experience through the power of technology. So, farewell and keep learning more to build amazing front-end projects!

Upcoming blog on How to get started as a Frontend Developer..

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