Spicy Web Designer Interview with Lynn Cummings from DivaDev

Lynn Cummings is a web designer and developer and project manager from Hot Springs, South Dakota in the United States. She is the owner of Diva Dev, a web development company. She also runs her own personal blog, Lynnterpretation that she designed and muses about her life in general. Lynn started designing websites back in 1997 and 4 years later she quit her job to become a full-time web developer. She currently codes websites using wide blend of technologies and languages including BaseCamp, Flash, jQuery, PHP, mySQL and Dreamweaver, just to name a few.

1. How did you get started in web design?

Like most others in the business, I’m self-taught. I’ve been in the graphic design profession for decades, so the web seemed like the natural next step.

2. When did you start designing websites?

In 1997 I built a site for a friend, and was addicted after that. Four years later, I quit my job with a newspaper and went full-time as a web developer.

3. What are the biggest challenges that you face in web design currently?

IE is probably the most frustrating and time-consuming challenge. I could finish most projects about a week sooner if not for that demon.

Another challenge is that of keeping current with the frequent changes in techniques, best practices, and tools of the trade. But that’s a positive challenge, and part of what makes this fun.

4. Do you ever refer to yourself as a Front-end developer or a web designer? Do you code any of the web sites that you design currently? If so, what language(s) do you code in?

Currently in my tool belt: XHTML, CSS, jQuery, Flash, AJAX, PHP, and MySQL.

I’m pretty much an “everything-girl”. I get involved in all aspects of a project: design, branding, front-end and back-end coding, SEO and marketing strategy. However, I don’t consider myself an expert back- end coder, and will sometimes team up with a short list of trusted specialists when there’s a lot of heavy lifting to be done.

5. Where did you go to school and has it helped you become a better web design professional?

I majored in Psychology but didn’t finish college. Those Psych studies come in handy in this profession. Is anyone really teaching a well- rounded, relevant course of study in web development though? I frequently talk to design students who aren’t learning this in school, and they should be. I’m seriously thinking of teaching.

6. Since you first started how has the web design industry changed? Has it changed for the better? If so, how? If not, please explain?

The Good:

a) Over the past 12 years, I’ve watched the web transform from primitive, read-only status to a highly interactive social machine.

b) As developers we’ve moved from tables-based layouts to CSS, which ought to have been the case all along. Search engines are more sophisticated and have fine-tuned their “spidering” algorithms to value actual text content above all else.

c) Windows users are (finally) starting to realize that IE6 is a scourge on humanity and are downloading Firefox.

The Bad:

a) I see a lot of sites today that I term “trend-dated”. They don’t follow marketing logic or adhere to basic rules of sound design, and I don’t think they’ll stand the test of time. Trends are fleeting, and following them too closely ensures that your site will look pretty much like everyone else’s site. When a trend takes over, originality takes a hit and the web becomes boring to look at.

7. What are your favorite tools to use when designing a web project? Why are they your favorite tools?

My toolbox includes: Photoshop, Illustrator, Dreamweaver, BBEdit (for coding), TextSoap (for cleaning up those nasty Word docs every client sends), VooDooPad (a wiki app I use to keep track of each project’s odds & ends), BaseCamp (project management), and iTunes (who could design anything of value without good music?).