Are Designers or even Devigner’s a requirement for XAML UI’s?
Based on some of my experimental / learning project work with Silverlight and what I have seen on line I think that there is enough in the XAML UI frameworks to offer the plain old graphically challenged business developer. Sure the designer / devigner might add huge value but I don’t see a lot of organisations simply taking that role on board because there is a new UI framework in town; no matter how powerful. Certainly my own effort to date I find a little drab but I don’t think my past Winform or ASP.Net applications were not graphical feats of brilliance either, yet I like so many others have produced many business applications that have served their user bases faithfully nonetheless. My first Silverlight application (currently underway) was indeed designed for this reason, to get as comfortable as possible with laying out a typical data driven LOB application window.
I do think that as more and more third party tools (controls) become available I will not be required to work so particularly on my graphical XAML skills and be left to concentrate on the job at hand and surely that’s what we want business developers doing.
So in essence I do think that projects where a high requirement for visual elegance or graphical complexity will benefit greatly from the inclusion of the designer / devigner role, however many projects that need classical data driven forms should be adequately handled by the simple developer who like me is stick figure bound!
