In agencies and marketing departments, so-called “creatives” are individuals whose work primarily involves creative work. The creative label is often assigned to copywriters, graphic designers, photographers, web designers, UX designers, musicians, and advertising directors, among others. Generally speaking, most people would not apply the label to search engine optimizers, data analysts, or web developers.
This distinction is rather unfortunate. Let’s consider what the opposite of “creative” is. Words like “sterile”, “unoriginal”, and “unimaginative” would come to mind. This makes the creative label quite unfair to many other types of jobs that require a good bit of creativity and imagination — including web development.
This mindset may even influence the types of people that get hired for web development positions. The fact is, hiring managers and business owners are not always intimately familiar with the real job requirements of the positions they hire for. If they don’t recognize creativity as something important for their web development team, they will unable to screen for good developers.
Below are some of the reasons why you want to hire creative web developers for your website:
1) Creative Web Devs are More Sensitive to UX
If a website has a bad user experience (UX), chances are that part of it can be blamed on subpar web development. Web developers who only understand how to code but don’t have a grasp of the major design problems that coding is meant to solve will have a difficult time delivering websites that feature good UX.
Even if a less-creative web developer works with great web and UX designers, a fundamental lack of imagination could result in a lot of back and forth and delays, which often ends with a mediocre website being launched. This, in turn, may impair the site’s ability to create value for the business.
2) They are More Adaptable
While it may seem very routine to outsiders, web development is a dynamic field that requires a high level of adaptability. Adaptability is especially important since web developers may be tasked to implement new features to existing websites or build new custom websites that integrate the latest web technologies.
New methods and technologies are constantly being introduced to various areas of web development and it takes creative individuals to understand and apply them. Developers who don’t use their imaginations are thus, less able to adapt to changes in the industry, consequently leading to difficulty building and maintaining competitive websites.
3) They Can Work Closely with Web Designers, and Other Professionals
Whether a web developer works in an agency or a business’s development team, they will have to closely collaborate with other professionals who are tasked with other things that are important for building modern websites. In particular, they will need to work closely with web and UX designers, SEOs, as well as with content creators to build and maintain websites that attract, engage, and convert visitors.
Creative web developers will have an advantage when it comes to understanding what exactly it is that their colleagues need to be implemented. Thus, they are more likely to code better solutions to produce the needed outcomes. This can help reduce the time needed to develop websites that match the business’s requirements.
4) Web Development is Fundamentally Creative
Contrary to popular belief, web developers don’t just spend their entire day copying code from Stack Overflow. One interesting thing about web development is that it often features problems that may not have been solved before. Every website build or maintenance project has unique constraints and the “rules” related to solving the problem can vary on a case-to-case basis. Additionally, there are often unique human elements to consider that may impact how a project is done.
Even the actual coding is creative, as well. Making a website that closely follows a unique set of requirements with just a handful of computer languages that may only have a few dozen words or tags each takes a lot of creativity. While coding does not offer as much freedom of expression as music or painting, there are still infinite possibilities within the constraints created by various programming languages.
5) Creative Developers Can Solve a Wider Range of Problems
Coming off the previous point, web development can be viewed as a series of puzzles where developers have to produce specific outcomes with a limited number of tools. Solving these problems day in and day out requires a great deal of imagination.
Imagination is not only necessary during initial development, where the main focus is getting code to work but also in the site’s maintenance and code optimization. Code optimization is key for having the best possible site speeds, UX, and search engine visibility and it absolutely requires web developers to be at their most creative.
Final Thoughts
There are several good arguments to be made for calling web developers creative workers. Creativity is an essential trait for all web developers and employers should be aware of this when they hire for development positions. By choosing imaginative developers, businesses have a better chance of improving website UX, increasing search visibility, ramping up conversions, and avoiding painful website development cycles.
If you want a team of experienced and creative web developers to work on your website, contact the team at SearchWorks.PH.
