Web Consultants are professionals in the understanding of a wide variety topics consisting of Web design, web development and Web business issues. Web Consultants oversee Web sites for medium or large companies or personal businesses as the Web manager or project manager.

In this interview with Jeri A. Hastava, Web Consultant Leap of Faith Web Design we discuss the following:

* Roles and Responsibilities
* Skills Required
* Recommendations for those interested in a career as a Web Consultant

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Web Marketers provide the essential business elements of Web creation for their customers. Services provided range from creating Website messaging and branding. Web Marketers are proficient with helping customers achieve their online organizational goals by assessing the needs and wants of the clients target markets and delivering the desired satisfactions. Skills include strong business communication and business development expertise that achieve organizational goals. Web Marketer’s that focus on small business customers often times also serve as the Web Designer responsible for the over all look and feel.

In this six minute Q&A interview with Alex Von Allmen and Professionals.org member and Freelance Web Marketer & Web Designer of Folsom, CA we cover:

* Work environment
* Skills required
* Advice
* Suggested do’s and don’ts

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In this six minute qanda interview with Nick Wallace, Small Business Web Designer Professionals.org member from Illinois we cover:

* What he does as a Web designer
* Skills required
* Educational pathways
* His experience at Illinois Central College (ICC) a WebProfessionals.org Web Professional Academy
* Advice for those that aspire to be a small business Web designer

Small Business Web Designers are proficient in the visual arts and creating the images and designs that capture and keep visitors’ interest. They present aesthetically enticing designs that meet the requirements and preferences of their audience.

Small Business Web Designers wear multiple hats. For example, many Web Designers also provide Web Development and Web Business services such as programming, Web Marketing and Search Engine Optimization and Web Administration.

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Webmasters are practitioners of web communication. They are responsible for all aspects of an organization’s web presence, including web content development, technical operations, and business management. They may have specific areas of expertise, but are most valuable as generalists who can manage all aspects of web operations.

In this six minute Q&A interview with Josh Bechere, Freelance Webmaster and Professionals.org member of Vacaville, we cover:

* What his work consist of
* Skills required
* Opportunity for those seeking a career as as Webmaster
* Advice
* How he got his start in the Web profession

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Web content strategy refers to the planning, development, and management of informational content—written or in other media. The term is particularly common in web development since the late 1990s. It is recognized as a field in user experience design but also draws interest from adjacent communities such as content management, business analysis, and technical communication.

In this eleven minute Q&A interview with Kristina Halvorson, CEO BrainTraffic.com we cover:

* What is content strategy?
* Why content matters
* Have we evolved to the point where the enterprise recognizes the content specialist as a stand alone occupation role?
* What advice do you have for freelancers?
* What advice do you have for employers?

An individual who practices content strategy as a discipline is referred to as a content strategist. The perspectives that content strategists bring to content depend strongly on their professional training and education.

For instance, some specialize in content analysis, which roughly describes work with metadata, taxonomy, search engine optimization, and the ways these concepts support content.

Others outline web editorial strategies, guidelines, and tools, which may extend to organizational change management. This form of content strategy may be concerned with developing new forms of content, such as multimedia, or various “presence management” technologies like microblogging.

There is yet another stream of content strategy advancing information architecture goals. In this case, content strategy may only involve writing site copy for new website pages and adapting the content on existing ones. All content strategists are familiar with a wide range of applications and tools, and frequently are responsible for implementing and training individuals to best use them.

Kristina Halvorson is the founder and president of Brain Traffic, a content strategy consultancy. She is the author of Content Strategy for the Web; the founder of Confab, The Content Strategy Conference; and the host of Content Talks, a weekly 5×5 podcast.

Kristina is widely recognized as the industry’s leading advocate for content strategy.

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With the goal of better understanding and reporting on the roles and responsibilities and the skills required for Web developers we reached out to Jonathan Worent, WebProfessionals.org member and Front End Web Developer at Simantel for his perspective.

Web Developers are masters at optimizing web site structure and interactivity. They use database tools and custom applications to enable the site to deliver the highest quality experience to the user. Web Developers that work for small business organizations wear multiple hats. They may be responsible for a wide of variety of task that include some aspects of Web design and Web business strategies. In larger organizations Web developers may have a narrower focus with specialties that include front end or back end Web development. Front End Developers for example focuses on client side technologies including HTML, CSS and JavScript that are oriented to presentation logic of a Website. Back end Developers for example, focuses on programming the data and business logic functionality.

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In this four minute interview with Aarron Walter, UX Lead at MailChimp.com we discuss the role and responsibilities and Web professional job opportunities for UX Designers.

Supported by practicing Web professionals, the resource guide WebProfessional.jobs career guide is designed to help students interested in learning more about exciting career opportunities in the Web design, Web development and the Web business industry.

The guide includes personal stories by practicing Web professionals, a glossary of terms, salary surveys, suggested educational pathways as well as links to training and curriculum resources and schools.

About UX Design

According to Wikipedia, User Experience Design (UXD) is a broad term used to explain all aspects of a person’s experience with the system including the interface, graphics, industrial design, physical interaction, and the manual. It is also referring to the application of user-centered design practices to generate cohesive, predictive and desirable designs based on holistic consideration of users’ experience. In most cases, User experience design fully encompasses traditional Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) design and extends it by addressing all aspects of a product or service as perceived by users.

The field of User Experience Design has roots in human factors and ergonomics, a field that since the late 1940s has been focusing on the interaction between human users, machines and the contextual environments to design systems that address the user’s experience.[3] The term specifically “User Experience” came in to existence in early 90’s with the proliferation of computers at work places. It was Donald Norman, User Experience Architect, who coined and bought this term to wider knowledge.[4] The term also has a more recent connection to user-centered design, Human-Computer Interaction, and principles and also incorporates elements from similar user-centered design fields.

Elements of User Experience Design

The term user experience design was vastly proliferated after the commencement of the information age, hence many generalizations of the components are based on the building blocks of user experience design of digital systems. User experience design is majorly defined on broader topics that include talk of user’s emotions, the appeal of a UI and visual design.
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Visual Design

Visual design also commonly known as graphic design, communication design or visual communication, represents the aesthetics or “look-and-feel” of the front end of any User Interface. Graphic treatment of interface elements, such as the “look” in the term look-and-feel is often perceived as the visual design. The purpose of visual design is to use visual elements like colors, images, typography and symbols to convey a message to its audience. Fundamentals of Gestalt psychology and Visual Perception give cognitive perspective on how to create effective visual communication.[5]
[edit] Information Architecture

Information architecture is the art and science of structuring and organizing the information in products and services, supporting usability and findability. More basic concepts that are attached with information architecture are described below.
[edit] Information

In context to information architecture, Information is separate from knowledge and data, but lies indefinitely in the middle. It is information of all shapes and sizes: Websites, documents, software applications, images, and more. It is also concerned with metadata: terms used to describe and represent content objects such as documents, people, process, and organizations.

Structuring, Organization and Labeling

Structuring is reducing information to its basic building unit and then relating to each other. Organization involves grouping these units into distinctive and meaningful manner. Labelling is using appropriate wordings to support easy navigation and findability.

Finding and Managing

Findability is the most critical success factor for Information architecture. If users are not able to find required information without browsing, searching or asking then the findability of the architecture fails. Navigation needs to be a clearly conveyed to ease finding of the content.

Designers

As with the fields mentioned above, user experience design is a highly multi-disciplinary field, incorporating aspects of psychology, anthropology, sociology, computer science, graphic design, industrial design and cognitive science. Depending on the purpose of the product, UX may also involve content design disciplines such as communication design, instructional design, or game design. The subject matter of the content may also warrant collaboration with a Subject Matter Expert (SME) on planning the UX from various backgrounds in business, government, or private groups. More recently, content strategy has come to represent a sub-field of UX.

Design

User experience design incorporates most or all of the above disciplines to positively impact the overall experience a person has with a particular interactive system, and its provider. User experience design most frequently defines a sequence of interactions between a user (individual person) and a system, virtual or physical, designed to meet or support user needs and goals, primarily, while also satisfying systems requirements and organizational objectives.

Typical outputs include:

Site Audit (usability study of existing assets)
Flows and Navigation Maps
User stories or Scenarios
Persona (Fictitious users to act out the scenarios)
Site Maps and Content Inventory
Wireframes (screen blueprints or storyboards)
Prototypes (For interactive or in-the-mind simulation)
Written specifications (describing the behavior or design)
Graphic mockups (Precise visual of the expected end result)

Benefits

User experience design is integrated into software development and other forms of application development to inform feature requirements and interaction plans based upon the user’s goals. New introduction of software must keep in mind the dynamic pace of technology advancement and the need for change. The benefits associated with integration of these design principles include:

Avoiding unnecessary product features
Simplifying design documentation and customer-facing technical publications
Improving the usability of the system and therefore its acceptance by customers
Expediting design and development through detailed and properly conceived guidelines
Incorporating business and marketing goals while catering to the user

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In this five minute interview with Kyle Soucy, founding principal of Usable Interface, Kyle shares the role of a User Interface Designer, where the work and what skills are required.

A User Interface Designer focuses on the user’s experience and interaction. The goal of user interface design is to make the user’s interaction as simple and efficient as possible, in terms of accomplishing user goals—what is often called user-centered design. Good user interface design facilitates finishing the task at hand without drawing unnecessary attention to itself.

Graphic design may be utilized to support its usability. The design process must balance technical functionality and visual elements (e.g., mental model) to create a system that is not only operational but also usable and adaptable to changing user needs.

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To explore and to report on the Web professional job opportunity at Adobe MAX 2100, I sat down with Beth Renneisen, Lecturer at San Francisco State University Owner, lead designer at Renneisen Design.

In this five minute interview, Beth Renneisen, an award-winning graphic artist, illustrator and information designer with extensive experience as a visual journalist shares her perspective on the topic and her efforts at San Francisco State University to promote interdisciplinary education.

About Beth Renneisen

In 2010, Renneisen earned a Masters Degree in Visual Journalism from San Francisco State University, with an emphasis on experimental approaches to online news design, including animation, virtual worlds and short-form video. She most recently has expanded her repertoire to include creating interactive magazine apps for the iPad, and is a registered Adobe and Apple developer.

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WebProfessionals.org, the membership supported organization for Web professionals worldwide announced the launch of the WebProfessional.Jobs website.

Bill Cullifer, WebProfessionals.org Executive Director said, “We’re ecstatic to be supporting the .jobs moniker and Web professional job seekers and employers with an easy to use and affordable resource.”

WebProfessional.Jobs will focus on a variety of titles within the Web profession ranging from the creative, the technical and the business oriented Web professional. Specific example of the titles include the Web Designer, Web Developer, Webmaster, Web administrators and Search Specialist just to name a few.

The WebProfessional.Jobs website provides in depth resources for the Web professional job seeker, employer, hiring and HR managers as well as student Webmasters.

The WebProfessioanal.jobs website also provides low cost job postings for interns to encourage companies to utilize the talents of those seeking part-time work while continuing their studies.
Cullifer concluded, “I am very excited by the functionality and the ease of use of this recourse and look forward to gauging feedback from our members.”

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