I’m currently working on a brand spankin’ new startup that I’m extremely excited about. My passions lie in spotlighting young success, introducing people to those that can make a difference in each others lives, and creating things that can be a catalyst for change. This new startup, YOPROCO, does all of that and more. 
I have an amazing team of 25 that includes a rockstar developer, talented creative director, and a team of ambitious copy editors and staff writers that all share the same passion for innovation and change as I do. What we’re missing is a UI designer that can help bring our creative design and back-end coding to life.
If you or someone you know is a talented UI Designer and is looking to work with a great team of young professionals on what we think is a game-changing idea, please get in touch!
I asked my developer for the technical specifics and this is what he said:
We need somebody who can convert photoshop mockups into prototype pages. Their core competencies should include solid usability principles as well as experience in writing valid HTML, CSS (with libraries like YUI CSS and BluePrint), and Javascript (with frameworks like jQuery and Dojo).
The UI designer’s responsibilities will include reviewing design mockups, making recommendations on the user workflow based on their knowledge of the technical limitations of web design, and converting the mockups into a static HTML/CSS/JS prototype.
Important to note, everyone single one of us either works full-time or goes to school full-time. We do this in our ’spare hours’ because we truly believe in this idea. I’m happy to provide more details for those that are interested. If you’re local (in the SF Bay Area) would love to grab some coffee with you and see if there’s a good fit.
I can be reached at sumaya@yoproco.com or http://www.twitter.com/sumaya.
Thanks!
5 Comments
April 19, 2009 at 3:37 pm
Wait, if the UI designer is converting the photoshop images into prototype pages, who’s doing the photoshop images?
The photoshop images should be done by a UI designer, or done by a UI designer then handed off to an artist for prettyification; The UI designer being someone who specializes in how users develop mental models of systems and how users interact with computers. The designs, ideally, should be conceived independently of “how does this work under the hood?” but with an understanding of what’s possible and what’s not.
Whoever turns the photoshop documents into functional prototypes needs engineering skills, especially if you’re going beyond standard forms, and doing dynamic controls. Typically this is not a person who specializes in computer/human behaviors (UI design), but someone with a background in engineering.
Normally it’s good practice to have the UI designer be a different person than the one implementing the UI*. This frees the designer from self-limiting his/her designs to what they’re good at programming (even subconsciously) and allows them to focus on what is best for the user.
From your job description it sounds like you’re looking for a User Interface Engineer, not a User Interface Designer. I’d expect the UI designer role to be “the person who comes up with the photoshop documents” more, or less (although UI designers typically don’t have to be good artists). As reference, I’ve been a UI designer for 15 years or so.
*Prototypes can be an exception; but I strongly recommend it be only for throw-away proof of concepts or for user testing. Quite often with HTML though, there’s a trend to want to reuse or morph prototype code into the final version. I’ve seen in real life and it’s a slippery slope; the UI designer gets pressure to make the prototype “real”, and as a result they lose focus on the User (who should be the UI designer’s #1 priority) and get caught up in technical limitations and implementations.
April 20, 2009 at 7:35 am
Hi I would be interested in taking up this project.
April 21, 2009 at 3:26 pm
@hanford – thank you for the detailed explanation between a UI Designer and an Engineer. it was extremely helpful. it’s funny, the more I feel like I’m trying to fill a hole on my team, the more I realize I have more holes
@anish – thanks for expressing interest. i’ll reach out to you soon!
April 21, 2009 at 7:33 pm
Hi Suma,
You can definitely double-up/triple-up when dealing with the right people. I’ve was UI designer/Artist/prototyper for both Netflix and ReplayTV, and there’s lots great of multi-hyphenates in the Bay Area. I wish you the best on it!
November 25, 2009 at 12:38 am
Let me know if you still need one Sumaya.
oh btw, I like the sound of the brand name “YOPROCO”
Good luck, J