A colleague of mine used the term “devigner” in a conversation the other day and confused everyone.  We though he’d said “diviner” and had no idea how to respond.  He quickly took a few moments and defined the term for us.

Typically, product development teams employ three different kinds of people: developers, designers, and the lucky few tasked with translating between the two groups.  It’s a highly complicated system prone to communication breakdowns and flat out failures of development.  Nowadays, a new category of professional has arisen: devigners.

Half developer, half designers.  Sort of like the centaur of the product development world.  These are people who know just enough design to rough something out in a close-to-finished fashion.  At the same time, they’re familiar enough with in-depth development techniques that they can roll up their sleeves and write code or engineer a prototype.

So a devigner is the new handyman in the tech development world – someone who can stand in for full time developers and designers at a moment’s notice, while belonging to neither category at the same time.  It’s an interesting concept – I like to think of myself as a devigner – but I’m not sure what the ramifications will be.

I’m a fairly decent graphic designer, and I think I can write code of a certain consistent quality.  But I know there are better designers and better programmers in the world.  Am I a replacement for the 3-tier development system?  On a good day I’d like to think so, but I know three heads are better than one.

So in a world with a restrictive economy, hiring one person might seem beneficial.  But how sustainable is the devigner role in the long run?