Developer + Designer = Devigner?

As we’ve completed more projects and gotten more experience working in the "Rich Internet Applications" space, we’re consistently hearing something over and over again from our clients:

"What we really need is someone who’s in-between a ‘designer’ and a ‘developer’…"

…and it turns out that these design/Developer hybrids (in addition to being in desperate need of a good moniker) are really rather hard to find.

What I find interesting is that, while they’re fairly scarce at present, I’m willing to bet that these "Devigners" are poised to be the most precious (read: valuable  (read: highly paid)) resource in the current wave of RIA application development.

A little searching reveals that the folks over at Schematic actually posted a rather good description of the Devigner role a few months back (and here I thought I’d invented a new word – oh well)…but I’d like to explore *why* this particular role is becoming so important (in the larger context).

Bear with me as I (again) ride the Way Back Machine to the late 90’s – when the ‘most valuable hard problem’ was figuring out how to connect the Data Layer –> Application Layer, so that you could build flexible business logic into high-performance systems.  Must of the real heavily lifting of the B2C & B2B solutions back then took place between these two layers – and was done by ‘Architects’.  Architects held the keys to the kingdom, and commanded $400+/hr for the magic stitchery.

These days, however, the Data –> Application Layer problem has been largely solved (see: RoR, etc.), and the ‘most valuable hard problem’ has become the link between the Application –> User.  And the people who do the ‘magic stitchery’ between these layers are these "Devigners".  It’s a good thing Portland has a lot of them…