From concept to completion, a UI pro should be an instrumental part of your project and will help to make your team a smashing success. Below are some of the many services UI professionals can provide. I am personally able to provide all of the following.
A UI consultant works directly with your executive management team to assemble goals and business requirements for the project. UI people use our extensive experience to assist your team in bringing together all of the necessary elements and talent to make your project a first-class production.
Before the first line of code is even written, a project’s interfaces should be laid out on large-format paper with notes on functionality, behavior and what will ultimately get posted to the backend for database persistence. In the same way that the DBA will graph the database, the UI team will professionally “graph” the layout and elements that will ultimately be present within the UI.
With approval of the wireframe documents, you UI people should be able to deliver fully functional HTML wireframes in pure xHTML, CSS2 and JavaScript which you can then “drop-in” to the backend technology of your choice.
My personal preference is to deliver a scalable N-tier architecture using an MVC, a scalable and secure PHP5 front-end that moves data to and from your Java or .NET backend via SOAP.
A top-notch UI consultant can also deliver the stunning, beautiful, and clean elegance of web-based UI. A UI professional’s graphic design talent should be capable of delivering a total site makeover from start to finish. They should also be able to “slice up” graphics from any layered Photoshop file and expertly convert them into functional xHTML and CSS without losing any of the detail and nuance that makes your design great.
Many UI pros also do their own web hosting, or at least most of us have a couple of hosting providers we work with daily. I personally own my own rack and have my own servers hosted in a datacenter facility. I like using my own hardware because I know who is on it and I can keep otherwise nefarious clients out. Many UI pros know their Linux and Windows environments pretty well and can create a hosting environment to suit nearly any simple to complex hosting.