UI Specialist Song

My incredibly imaginative friend wrote a song about me and my role on the SACWIS project. For this, I will always love you Mr. Frisby.

The UI Specialist’s Song

I am the very model of a modern UI Specialist,
I’ve information accessible, aesthetic, typographist,
I know the design patterns, and I quote the Web standards unbowed
From concept to delivery, my heart’s design, my head is code;
I’m very well acquainted, too, with matters prototypical,
I understand designing, both the layout and the graphical,
And for the clients’ visuals I’m using known color theory,
With all its differences between CMY and RGB.

I’m very good at use cases and tracking movements of the eye;
I know initialisms like HTML and HCI:
In short, in matters accessible, aesthetic, typographist,
I am the very model of a modern UI Specialist.

I know when it is easier for users to read serif fonts;
I’ve memorized all the hot-keys that you will find in Photoshop,
I quote Jakob Nielsen when it is time to have a little laugh,
In cases I am serious I’ll defer to adaptive path;
I can tell what it will take to build Rich Internet Applications,
I know it will sound crazy but this sort of work is lots of fun!
Then I can build some scaffolding with Ajax and some JSF,
And coding up the back-end with some EJBs is all that’s left.

Then I can write a wire-frame with CSS and JavaScript,
And tell you ev’ry point where you would need to add your own content:
In short, in matters accessible, aesthetic, typographist,
I am the very model of a modern UI Specialist.

In fact, when I get linked to from both reddit and the folks at digg,
When I can tell the world at large that Web pages aren’t WYSIWYG,
When articles that I will write get published on A List Apart,
And yet I can still find the time to practice playing the keytar,
When I have learnt the subtleties of WordPress’s PHP code,
When I know which damn fool it was who came up with Web 2.0—
In short, when my hard work pays off and hurls me from obscurity—
You’ll say a better UI Specialist has never built GUIs.

For my recent projects I’ve done SACWIS and b.glam baby,
Mem’ry Makers, and Nuts & Crumbs, and Gen X Concrete Contracting;
So see: in matters accessible, aesthetic, typographist,
I am the very model of a modern UI Specialist.