Front-End

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Published Mar 11, 2022Updated May 15, 2024
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The front-end of a website includes elements that the end user interacts with directly. A lot goes into front-end development, including:

  • Styling for the overall look of the website such as buttons, layouts, inputs, text, and images.
  • Accessibility features like text-to-speech, voice recognition, simple user flows, and more make websites easier to use and provide a better user experience.
  • Improvements to performance and speed for a better user experience.

Common Tasks

Front-end web development can involve a variety of tasks, including:

  • Creating and updating webpages.
  • Building HTML emails for email campaigns.
  • Making sure webpages are responsive and work well on phones or tablets.
  • Improving website performance by cleaning and splitting code.
  • Adding and improving accessibility features.

Front-End Technologies

The following are the three core technologies used in front-end development:

  • HTML, the “skeleton” of a webpage, is used to structure the content’s layout and general behavior on the browser.
  • CSS, the “skin and clothes” of the webpage, gives browsers more specific information on styling content, like the size and color of text or the look and layout of a group of elements.
  • JavaScript is executed on both the client-side and server-side to bring interactivity to elements such as maps and animated graphics.

Front-End Developers also use other tools, ranging from content management systems (CMSs) like WordPress and Drupal to libraries and frameworks like React, Angular, and Vue. Libraries and frameworks allow you to use a blueprint to create web elements like buttons rather than creating a new one every time.

Careers in Front-End

While there are various roles and titles in the world of front-end development, the two primary roles are front-end design and front-end engineering.

Front-End Designers

Sometimes to known as a Front-End Interface Developer, this role usually takes static media such as drawings or images and translates them into webpages. This is important, since all webpages for the same site should have matching designs and be responsive to various screen sizes.

Front-End Engineers

This role is more focused on a webpage’s functionality and scalability. Some Front-End Engineers also work on design if their workplace uses the two roles interchangeably.

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