So, building on the first installment of this series, lets take a look at what, in my opinion, is the largest difference in the two fields. Execution, or the way in which the objective is achieved.

Execution: Designer

When a designer comes on the scene, it is her job to take the wants, desires and vision of the client/customer and visually realize them. To make ideas a reality. While this is incredibly thrilling and satisfying, it is also fraught with peril. Your customer feels a certain ownership over the visual aspects of the project, as well they should, and they usually begin to "suggest" additions or subtractions to the design you are working on.

This isn't a problem until the moment that a suggestion doesn't jive with what you as the expert knows to be right. Then begins the great dance, wherein you attempt to convince them of the error of their ways, and they ignore you and continue asking for a picture of their cat be added to the logo.

To make matters worse this usually moves beyond the bounds of the customer, to the customers friends and family. Quickly your well crafted masterpiece can become a myspace website. And since the customer is ultimately paying the bill, you will lose in the end.

Now, lets say this up front. The picture I have painted for you is by no means the only way things can go down. I am sure there are a number of you designy types that are given complete and total freedom when executing on the vision the client/customer has. My experience and that of a great many designers I know, is this is not the case.

Execution: Developer

In contrast to the frustration that I just laid out for you, the land of the developer is filled with rainbows, ponies and unicorns. In most cases the customer will never see the code that is written to achieve the objective, and even if you wanted to show them the awesomeness they would politely decline.

They just don't care.

All the customer/client cares is that the code you write achieves the desired effect. They don't care if it is object oriented or procedural. They don't care if you used a framework or if you rolled your own system. Hell they don't care what language it is in usually. They just want it to work.

All this adds up to bliss. The only person I have to care about pleasing with my code is me, if I love it and it achieves the stated goal the world is a big ol' bucket full of win. End of story.

It was very eye-opening, and liberating, the first time I sat with a customer/client and began showing them the code and explaining what was going on, looking for feedback, and the customer stopped me. They had no idea what I was talking about, and didn't care to. They just wanted to know if when they hit enter did the widget change.

It did, I win and I am the big hero. It was like a new day had dawned. From that moment on I decided to, with very few exceptions, only design for myself from there on out. The frustration just wasn't worth it to me anymore.

Alright, I think I have pontificated enough on this subject for one day. As always comments are open, and twitter replies are being pulled in. Happy discussing.