What Do You Call People Who "Do HTML"?

gilgongo writes "It's more than 10 years since people started making a living writing web page markup, yet the job title (and role) has yet to settle down. Not only that, but there are different types of people who write markup: those that approach the craft as essentially an integration task, and those that see it as part of UI design overall. The situation is further complicated by the existence of other roles in the workplace such as graphic designer and information architect. This is making recruitment for this role a real headache. So, how do you describe people who 'do HTML' (and CSS and maybe a bit of JavaScript and graphics manipulation)? Some job titles I've seen include: Design Technologist, Web Developer, Front-end Developer, HTML/CSS Developer, Client-side Developer and UI Engineer. Do you have any favourite job titles for this role?"

Comments

I just call them Web Designers

[revlayle]

nt

Re:I just call them Web Designers

[Knara]

Oh god, not the "if you don't pass the PE test you can't call yourself an engineer" nonsense again.

Re:I just call them Web Designers

[CastrTroy]

In many places, It's a protected word. Like Doctor. You don't want people who aren't doctors around calling themselves a doctor, prescribing drugs and doing surgery, and you don't want people who aren't civil engineers designing bridges. I think the same should be true for the software field.

Re:I just call them Web Designers

[Fierlo]

Just to further elaborate... Microsoft was taken to court in Quebec over this exact issue. They lost. Holders of MCSE are not allowed to refer to themselves as engineers in Quebec. They can use the acronym, and only the acronym.

http://www.microsoft.com/canada/learning/QuebecMCSE/default.mspx

I call them..

[onion2k]

Rude names. :)

Web Monkey?

[bcmm]

Web Monkey?

Unemployed?

[eldavojohn]

Propaganda as Nebulous as Apple's or Microsoft's

Unemployed? Seriously, expand your skill set and learn the backend and basic services so you can start to call yourself a full fledged "web developer."

House wives with spare time between cooking and putting the kids to bed make geocities pages with HTML. My advice is to not rely on something like that for your livelihood.

Do you want us to be creative with this?

[east coast]

Is this going to end up in a Sniglets book or something?

Who cares what you call them, just about any job has a number of titles that are commonly associated with it. I call them web developers but if this is a popularity contest you should have done a Slashdot Poll instead.

'Expendable'

[GauteL]

The time where 'doing HTML' (and CSS) was enough to give you a decent career is over imo.

Re:'Expendable'

[Samschnooks]

The time where 'doing HTML' (and CSS) was enough to give you a decent career is over imo.

Aside from very specialized work or defense contracting, I think that's becoming true of all coding. More and more of it, especially the business development is going overseas or is being replaced by newer types of technology - see BPEL. Who needs a programmer when the accounting department can just draw their process and have something implement it.

And as far as those tools are concerned, you have the very rare CS person design those things and then have the overseas guys code that thing. Even then, all those CS folks that the developing countries are paying to be trained out of the tax dollars, will be able to design and develop their own systems cutting out us in the developed World. India is constantly weeding out the "dumb" folks and sending the smart ones to IIT or over here to study. Which means those of us who are average will be SOL.

There's no more room for average or above average folks anymore in the Globalized World. You are either exceptional or you're working at Walmart. I think the skilled trades are going to have a renaissance in popularity in a few years - that will be one of the few places where a young person will have a future. No wonder parents today are so concerned about their kids and hover around them!

Yes, I am extremely pessimistic about our futures.

Nephew?

[Infernal Device]

As in, "Why am I paying you to do this? My newphew can do that!"

Unemployed?

[SatanicPuppy]

What's this, a set up for a joke about unemployment?

In my more recent experience, html people are liberal arty types who pick up some web design to complement their other skills. Photographers, animators, graphical artists. Webapp designers usually have some html, but often you have a coder and a design person and they have different responsibilities.

HTML by itself just isn't a marketable skillset anymore. Hell, it's hard enough being a graphic artist, or a flash designer, or something like that, who also does html.

Screwed?

[wawannem]

I mean, it's great to have someone available to handle that sort of thing, but can you really sustain a job with this as your only skill?

Re:Screwed?

[telchine]

A webmaster is someone who controls the content of a web site. It doesn't necessarily mean they "do HTML". they might just write a document in Word format and hand it to the web monkey to do up in HTML, or they might enter data into an HTML.

Whilst I refer to people who "do HTML" as web monkeys, I think Front End Developer might be what I'd put in a job ad. Strictly speaking, I think a Front End Developer should only apply to someone who knows Javascript too, but most web monkeys know a bit of that too.

Re:Screwed?

[mweather]

HTML Developer? Code is developed. Markup is written. Unless you think a secretary is a OOXML developer.

Re:Screwed?

[SalaSSin]

No, a secretary is a " personal CEO satisfaction manager"

Re:Screwed?

[piripiri]

Nope. That would be a system administrator. A webmaster is more the guy who maintain the website, ie. uploading the html/php files updates and so on.

Re:Screwed?

[Crudely_Indecent]

A webmaster is someone who controls the content of a website.

Adding some ammunition to your statement above, I had a boss that was the "Webmaster" but couldn't have been a dumber blonde. She couldn't write a lick of code, didn't know PHP from HTML from Javascript, yet she was the "Webmaster". She once managed to turn a simple address input into a 9 page form (separate page for first name, last name, address line 1, address line 2, etc). I convinced her bosses that I could do it in 1 page and they agreed.

I'm not sure if she was promoted to a position where she could do less damage, but the website she was responsible for (a California TV station) is now nothing but Google ads. Shortly after I quit I was accused of hacking their website. It turned out that her new developer didn't understand an SQL query and told her I was using it to hack in.

I don't call myself a webmaster, because I think the term is used way too often by people below my level of expertise. I don't want to be associated with those guys. When selling a website project, I call myself a "Web Application Developer", partly because it's more descriptive of what I do and because the lesser beings wouldn't dare use it for fear that they might actually be asked to develop a web application.

Re:Screwed?

[rinoid]

For us in the profession "webmaster" is less a content role anymore. A CMS provides the means for content owners to manage content.

As for what role a "webmaster" takes on ... in my org it has moved into more of a technical position since the ground has shifted under the old meaning.

The "web developer" tends to be one who writes code at the backend, writing bridges between data systems, or libraries for front end web folk to do their work.

In my role I need control over the following:
- define the data (structure the content into fields, and define the metadata that binds it altogether)
- manipulate the data (with some type of template system typically, query the data, add/delete/modify -- although this last step is frequently a content owner)
- present the data (this encompasses front end XHTML/CSS/JS, often the visual and behavior layers, and, it means we need to dynamically query the data on various pages to recombine it)

I am a "Web Strategist and Designer". We also have a "Content Producer" on the team who shares tasks.

It all breaks down according to how big a shop you are... Webmaster still works as a catch all but when you have a real CMS strategy, and a team, that traditional role breaks down. You want to start having someone think with foresight about the visual design, UX and UI of the site, the tools that people work with, and the content strategy. You want team members who either are implementing this strategy, or, using the strategy in day to day work...

It's a tricky space. What does this role perform?
Are you recruiting for a catch all?

Will this person lead the development of the overall Design strategy? Note the big D there... it's more than a photoshop template as you know. It's the XHTML/CSS structure that is forward thinking, the behavior layer that builds upon the user experience, that interacts with a content layout or information architecture...

Will this person only code back-end to middleware solutions?

Re:Screwed?

[Rip Dick]

Funny you should say that, seeing how "efficiently" you've designed your homepage...

Re:Screwed?

[Whiternoise]

I would just say Web Designer. There are three main categories, design, coding and administration.

HTML and CSS is just markup - lets make this clear, being able to write HTML does not make you a programmer. I would expect a web designer to be able to design the graphics and type the HTML to display it. They don't even need javascript necessarily. Their sole role is to design a web page.

A Web Developer on the other hand takes the design and adds bit into it to make it interactive properly - so this might include flash content, javascript image galleries, etc. They are also the people that do the server side scripting in PHP and Ajax. They are the programmers.

There are people who do a little of both but i think in most companies there are people who do almost solely one or the other. Crossover experience is useful because if you're a designer you need to know what is within the limits of the coder and if you're coding you need to be in constant contact with the designer to make sure that your code not only works, but looks pretty when in action. Again, with coding, you might want to knock up a piece of code that displays a certain thing depending on the situation - and of course your thing will be rendered in HTML so clearly coders need to know HTML, but it's not their job to make the images or design the colour scheme.

A webmaster doesn't need to do either of these things but sometimes does both. The webmaster, to my mind, controls the hard drive space and/or server. It's his job to check that everything works ok, that people can't access files that they can't and to liaise with clients to see what they want. Again it's handy to have design and coding experience, but the webmaster is basically an administration role.

Finally you have the people who test things, i.e. testers.

That's my take on it. In an ideal world an applicant to a job would need a mixture of experience with all three, but needs to specialise in one. This description makes web designers look a bit wimpy compared to developers who need to know basically everything, but good coding is NOTHING without a good front end to back it up with.

Underqualified?

[drolli]

Qualified would be

a) does HTML, is a graphics designer, can write decent text and hase some education in UI design

b) does HTML, programs any server-side-language (according to the current fashion) and knows Javascript very well, and knows UI (and can talk to class a))

c) does HTML, does databases and knows how to efficiently xslt the xml response of the database by heart and can talk to class b)

Seriously, the original job description given would have been appropriate in 1997.

Simple

[MBCook]

• Coder - One who codes a document with some markup (HTML)
• Programmer - One who writes computer language to generate a document (HTML or other things)
• Designer - One who produces HTML using a program (i.e. Dreamweaver)

Those would be my definitions as they relate to the production of HTML. Betty, the lady who types things up, puts them into some simple HTML, and makes a few things italic or bold or adds images is a coder. Bob, who uses PHP to make dynamic pages, is a programmer. Jerry, who uses Dreamweaver to do both, is a designer.

Web Producer

[Anonymusing]

My title is Web Producer. I didn't pick it, and I sometimes introduce the title with a joke about shooting spider webs from my wrists, or making prosthetic webbed feet for ducks who have lost their paddlers in tragic accidents. It's meant to be "web producer" as a role, like "movie producer" or "music producer", but it sounds stupid. Mainly it means I "do HTML" plus a lot of other digital/interactive design stuff (including programming and database work), and I manage other people who do this stuff.

IMO, there is a difference between a "web designer" and a "web developer" -- the former is closer to a graphic designer and focuses on making stuff pretty, while the latter is closer to a programmer and focuses on making stuff work. In big web studios, there are fleets of "web designers" who create interfaces in heavily-layered Photoshop files, and turn them over to "web developers" who convert them into working web interfaces. It lets people focus on a specific aspect of the process. However, I think something is lost in the process... if possible, a web designer ought to understand the power and limitations of HTML/CSS/etc. Maybe I spent too much time in art school, but I liken it to advanced painters who learn how to make their own paint from pigments/oil/etc., or ceramists who can make their own clay from the raw powders. In a similar vein, I think a web designer should know how to mix their raw materials too: pixels, code, etc.

That's my ideal, anyway.

Re:Screwed? (errata)

[telchine]

Errata:

"or they might enter data into an HTML."

Should be:

"or they might enter data into a CMS."

Categories

[ianare]

There are two main groups that fall into this category: artists and engineers.

Artists (or graphic designers) will know HTML, CSS, maybe a little JS. But it will be to complement their 'real' skill set, which is photoshop, illustrator, maybe Flash, and the like. They will focus on making the page attractive to users, and if they are worth their salt, easy to navigate as well.

Engineers (or web application developers) will know HTML, JS, hopefully CSS (!), along with PHP, SQL, maybe Java or Ruby. Their natural environment is the backend, but they will know enough about page creation to get by, like for making proof of concept demos. Quite often their idea of an elegant and easy to use web interface is a bunch of text links and a button.

Of course, in real life, you find yourself doing a combination of these things.

Oh, and to answer the original question : what do you call someone that does HTML, CSS, JS and nothing else ?
A: an intern.

Re:Funny or an idiot?

[lwsimon]

Amen. Lots of people can "do HTML" - in Dreamweaver.

Give me someone who can create clean, syntactically correct, semantic markup. That's a rare gem, indeed.

Re:Funny or an idiot?

[TheRaven64]

The issue isn't that good HTML is not useful, it's that producing good HTML is no longer enough of a skill. Competent designers are now producing HTML and CSS themselves, where a decade ago they were producing mockups in Photoshop and passing them off to an HTML jockey to turn into real layouts. From the other end, a lot of HTML is automatically generated from templating systems, so the back-end developers will be given a design by the interaction and design team and will create the HTML. Unless you can do either the human-computer interaction and / or creative design part, or the back-end processing you don't have the skills to develop for the modern web. Even these skills are starting to amalgamate. I know a few web developers who started at one end (either as graphic artists or as programmers) and are now doing the whole stack, from conception to implementation.

Not an easy job...

[gravyface]

Depending on how you're developing your site and/or Web application, having a guy or gal that can take the designer's design mockup (usually still in .PSD format) and properly interpret it into clean HTML and CSS wireframes is a godsend for the Web Developers.

There's a lot of finesse involved in doing this right: you need to make sure it works in all browsers, that the page size isn't too large, and that it stretches and scrolls and wraps in all the right places. And no, Dreamweaver still doesn't cut it, so it takes quite a bit of skill and experience to do it right.

With experience, most of the good ones move either up or down the stack, depending on their interest/strengths, but we wouldn't have been able to complete several large client projects without our "HTML/CSS/JS/UI/stuck-between-a-rock-and-a-hard-place guy".

Re:Does anyone still write html?

[Rhaban]

Using a CMS never stopped anyone from writing HTML.
In a production environnement, you can't just use the CMS default template or download one from some website. You must design your own template, unique for each website you develop.
It usually starts with a client who want something between impossible and just plain stupid (My site must be round. There a too many rectangle sites out there already), followed by a salesman who want his 3% (no problem sir, everything in your site will be round), then a designer who makes a .psd without thinking or knowing about what can or can't be done with html (I think this round site would look better with a lot of shadows and fake-3d effects), and then a developper spends hours to write HTML/CSS that will make the site look like what the client asked for, only to be told "it does not look very good on my internet explorer 4.0".

Then the developper commits suicide.

Definitions

[ThrowAwaySociety]

The term you're looking for is "Web Designer" - Someone with an understanding of visual design as well as the knowledge of HTML and CSS required to implement said designs. May not have any programming ability. Probably spends his/her time in Dreamweaver, with forays into Notepad++ or BBEdit.

Design Technologist - Nebulous. Anyone who can use software to create visual designs. May be a print graphic artist, web designer, Flash developer. Need not require programming ability, or even any knowledge HTML or CSS. Probably a big fan of Fireworks and Flash, but could also be a big Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign or Quark user.

Web Developer - Someone who can use a dynamic web technology (PHP, ASP.net, J2EE, ColdFusion, Google Web Toolkit) to create interactive web pages or web applications. Also requires a kowledge of HTML, CSS and possibly JavaScript, as well as at least some programming ability. May spend a lot of time in Eclipse, Visual Studio, or another IDE.

Front-end Developer - Someone who can implement a user interface for a computer system. Would include people who, for example, create GUI interfaces to command line tools. Requires programming ability, but does not necessarily require any knowledge of HTML at all. Spends most of the day in Visual Studio or Eclipse.

HTML/CSS Developer - A Web Designer with pretentions of technical skill. Probably used FrontPage. Once.

Client-side Developer - A Front-end Developer (see above) who exclusively works with client-server architecture. Again, does not necessarily require any knowledge of HTML at all. Spends most of his/her time in an IDE.

UI Engineer - Someone who has at least some background in both CHI and software development; may focus on one or the other extreme. Requires some programming skill. Does not necessarily require any knowledge of HTML. Probably uses several UI modeling tools you've never heard of, and spends a lot of time drawing on whiteboards before settling down into an IDE.

Let's put the question into perspective.

[neo]

Long gone is the singular Webmaster. His/her job has been broken into these pieces:

System Administrator:
Installs and maintains web servers and associated technology back-end infrastructures like PHP upgrades.

Network Administrator:
Installs and maintains networking infrastructure including firewalls, proxies, network caches.

Information Architect:
Creates informational structures to help put data into understandable and manageable segments. Often creates wireframes for page layout.

Web Designer (Artist):
Creative talent that produces graphical content that fit wireframes or other criteria for use on websites.

Web Editor (Writer):
Creative talent that produces textual content that fits structured segments or other crieria for use on a website.

Usability Expert:
Examines and adjusts wireframes and content to fit best practices for user experience.

Back-End Web Developer:
Programmer responsible for creating functionality that assists the display of content on a website. Often responsible for CMS and/or Database integration through to the site.

Front-End Web Developer: This is what you wanted, hence longer description.
Takes graphic content, usability widgets, back-end functionality, textual content and creates layouts using (X|D)HTML, Javascript, back-end code snippets, CSS, CMS template scripts. These layouts fit into certain strict parameters regarding SEO, size optimization (both image and code), speed of loading, cross browser compatibility, limitations of layout markup and specifications of back-end delivery of data. Lacking any of the above positions (and the one below), this person is often tasked with doing whatever is missing from the classic "Webmaster" position.

Quality Assurance:
Jerks.

Where I used to work ...

[PPH]

... they used to call them, 'The people in the basement that we'd rather not deal with'.

Now, they call them 'Indian contractors'.

Re:Screwed? (errata)

[neokushan]

Was that just a clever way for you to get twice the carma?

Re:Screwed? (errata)

[neokushan]

Errata:

"Carma"

Should be:

"Karma"

Re:Screwed? (errata)

[Anonymous Coward]

Erratum:

"Errata:"

Should be:

"Erratum:"