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Should UX designers learn to code? An ex-developer’s perspective
Let’s reframe this question to actually turn it into something useful and actionable.
Disclaimer: I’m an ex web developer who spent the last 10 years creating advanced solutions and websites for clients. I worked most of that time as a freelancer, but I also did some work as a on-site contractor and for a short period of time as an actual employee. For most of my career I used WordPress as my base for my projects, and what comes with WP — PHP, HTML, CSS and JavaScript. I also learned Swift and started developing iOS apps. There I finally discovered my real passion for design and decided to move to UX. Oh, and I also worked at IKEA’s Customer Service for 1.5 years!
Any developer who hears about UX designers learning to code will probably have two answers pop up immediately:
Yes, they definitely should if they are able.
And:
Let’s see how long it took me to learn everything I know. A couple of years? A decade? How do they possibly want to learn all this?
Yeah. There isn’t a simple road to actually learning to code in a short timeframe. Especially when someone can’t allocate most of their time to learn coding because they have their primary job and a life…