Navigating the space between FRONTEND and UX DESIGN

El Cosmonauta navigating the space. Line drawing of a cosmonaut on a spacewalk
Hi, my name is Jorge Granados and I'm both a Frontend Developer and a UX Designer. Yes! a FE developer that designs or a UX designer that codes.
How good is that?
Wow, sounds awesome!
But... what is it?
It's a huge added value on any product or development team.
Wanna know more?

What is UX?

UX stands for User Experience. It’s all about users’ feelings and emotions when interacting with a company, its services and its products.

UX design is a User Centric approach to building products that generate positive feelings, and positive emotions. As they reliably deliver the functionality that users expect from them in a pleasant and convenient way.

What is FRONTEND development?

UI stands for User Interface. It's all about the user interaction experience of a website or application.

Frontend development consists of implementing the UI. We are responsible for translating the designs and functionality provided by the UX and UI designers into working code.

Our goal is making things: visually appealing, user-friendly, performant and fun to use.

How can I help?

I have been developing and designing software since back in the 80's. Yes, more than 30 years! That's a huge amount of experience, isn’t it? I've seen things you people wouldn't believe... but that’s another story...

Video games, websites, e-commerce, mobile apps, web apps, SaaS products… I've helped multiple companies, from startups to corporations release many successful digital products. I've even founded a few companies myself.

Over the years I've done this both as a full-time employee, and as an independent consultant. Usually engaging relationships that last for several years.

Frontend development and UX design are deeply related, and heavily dependent on one another. Being able to fully understand the possibilities and constraints of both disciplines is a great advantage that I bring to any development team.

Laptop, desktop & mobile setup. IDE on one screen, browser on the others.

As a FRONTEND Dev...

  • I'm highly skilled in modern Javascript, HTML5 and CSS3.
  • I've specialised in React and its ecosystem, being hands-on since 2017.
  • I easily integrate into product teams that use Agile methodologies, Git workflows and CI/CD processes.
  • I deliver clean and reliable code with high coverage of unit and integration tests using multiple testing tools, including: Jest, React Testing Library and Cypress.
  • I create optimised and reusable components, meaning the code is both easy to maintain, and easy to update.
  • I can take designs from the UX, Solution, and Architecture teams. Then translate them into pixel-perfect performant user interfaces.
Multi-screen desktop setup. Protoyping tool on one screen, design tool on the other

As UX Designer...

  • I collaborate with all stakeholders until we all can fully understand both the users' needs and the technical needs (or product constraints).
  • I'm highly skilled in prototyping tools like Figma
  • I master design tools like Adobe Illustrator, or Photoshop for vector and raster graphics.
  • I generate both low fidelity, and high fidelity interactive prototypes enabling discussion, and improvements. This causes the best solution to be the one that gets developed.
  • I generate all kinds of responsive and optimised graphic assets.
  • I provide fully documented designs, with clear instructions so they can be easily and quickly implemented during the development phase.

I am a native Spanish, but I have been working in international teams where the main language is English since 2016. I'm fully proficient in that language, both spoken and written.

I'm experienced in fully remote work integrated in distributed teams since 2014. I'm an independent and commited worker that can take ownership of the things I work on.

Take a look at some of the projects I've helped with

Let's talk!

I'm based in Madrid. I'm open to on-site, hybrid or remote work.

I love designing and implementing intuitive and performant digital products based on data-informed decisions.

Do you need a UX designer that speaks your dev team’s language?
Do you need a Senior Frontend who seamlessly communicates with your designers?
Do you need both a design system in Figma, and a library of reusable components in React?

Let's talk!

Contact me
email
jorge@elcosmonauta.com
github
jorgranados
linkedin
jorgranados
twitter
@jorgranados
mastodon
@Jorgranados@mastodon.social