ABOUT THIS EPISODE
Today Lisa speaks with two individuals in the web development industry. Stephen Fahlsing, founder and managing director of Bonfire, is the senior guest talking about how vastly the web development field has changed. Our junior level guest, Zavier Lowe, on the other hand, is a freelance UX engineer talking about the importance of design. The duo open up the conversation by comparing their work to that of an architect; both careers build products and spaces to best suit the user. And like architecture, web development is an ever changing industry, Given that, since the advent of the internet in the 20th century, the internet has become more complex, widely accessible, user friendly, and prominent in our daily lives.
Because the internet is so widely used, we need people like Zavier, or UX designers to help improve the user experience on a particular website. He notes that this rather new career path helps to bridge the gap between design and development. Both Stephen and Zavier go on to talk about the future of the industry and the creation of newer, more efficient web tools. In a world in which humans use such tools to build and kill, web developers need to be extremely conscious about how they can use these tools for good in the future.
Episode Highlights:
- How web developers are like architects
- The evolution of the internet
- What is UX?
- Tools bridging the gap between design and development
- “Mobile first”
- The future of the internet
- The rise of virtual reality
Quotes:
“Engineering as a concept is planning, right? It's almost like the scientific method where you have your hypothesis, and you test and execute”
“The web has overtaken the Yellow Pages, right? So if you exist in the world, especially in the business world, and the business world is a large encompassing thing of everything from your local plumber to a large media network, to entertainment, to any number of different facets. So like, it's become this incredible repository of information.”
“The user experience engineer, or UX engineer… you're understanding the customer journey, and being able to map that out.”
“It's a business, and everybody needs to have a presence. And I mean, quite frankly, there's less and less brick and mortar.”
“Building a website is not just about code. And the process has certainly changed over the years, because– the way we operate and the way we exist in this world has changed.”
“It's scary, because things like this can be used for evil. And anytime you have tools in the hands of humans, humans use them the same way they've used tools since the inception - to build and to kill. And you want more building and less killing.”
Links:
Pulsar Advertising website
Bonfire LA: https://bonfirela.com/
Zavier’s Website: https://zavierlowe.com/
