An Interview With Web Developer/Designer Jacob Gube

Jacob Gube is the founder of Six Revisions, a blog covering various topics in web design and development. I invited Jacob to participated in an interview and answer a few questions.

Here are his responses:

Thanks for taking the time to share your knowledge with us today Jacob. For those readers who don’t know who you are, could you give us an idea of who you are and what you do?

Hello, I’m Jacob Gube, a 26 year old web developer/designer. I also run a site called Six Revisions where I play multiple roles including Editor and Writer. At work, I specialize in distance-learning/online training websites and web applications, as well as web accessibility.

How did you get started in your field? Did you study something in particular or are you self-taught?

I started in my field professionally at the age of 21, though I’ve been interested in development and design since I was in my teens. I think I learned HTML 2 (or is it 3? I can’t remember any more) when I was 13 or 14 years old. I also created command line games as a hobby. Then when I was in college, I was a freelance graphic designer helping small and medium-sized businesses and start-ups develop their brand. That’s where the “designer” part of me comes from, from my experience in that field.

Who, in the online world, would you say has had the biggest influence on you?

There are many, many individuals that I take inspiration from, and naming just one wouldn’t be sufficient. If I had to choose, my biggest influence is Vitaly Friedman, a friend of mine, and the Co-Founder and Chief Editor of Smashing Magazine. He’s taught me a lot in terms of how to improve my writing, as well as how to become a great publisher and how to best work with authors contributing to Six Revisions.

What would you say is the single most important aspect of creating a website, aesthetics or function?

Without a doubt, function is more important. A website is a tool – it doesn’t have to be pretty to get the job done.

Let’s use Google as an example to illustrate this idea. Google’s front page is very plain and compared to a competitor like Yahoo!, their front page is pretty bare bones. Yet, Google has managed to outdo its competition in terms of site usage and traffic: and it’s not about its aesthetics that pulls people in, it’s that it excels in its core function: web search.

On the Six Revisions blog you are constantly answering people’s questions. Aside from that you have loads of other projects going on. Why do you dedicate your time to these things?

I do have a lot of things going on: I run the site, work a full time job, I’m writing two books, and guest posting on other sites but, I make the time to answer everyone’s questions myself: on the site or via email. If people take the time to send me a question or leave a comment on Six Revisions, it’s only fair that I provide them with my time to try and answer it.

I know a lot of site owners don’t answer their readers’ emails and comments as an attempt to seem special and celebrity-like – that’s not my style. I think people appreciate the fact that I make the time for them even when they know I have a lot of things going on.

To me, the site was started to share information and to educate developers and designers – that includes personally answering people’s questions. With that said, it can be days sometimes before I can answer emails (but I will personally answer all of them and not pawn it off to an assistant or something) and its best to leave a comment on the site so that other readers may answer your questions.

What are your 5 favorite sites online? Do you have any favorite websites for interacting with others in the development community?

Five favorite sites in no particular order: Digg, Smashing Magazine, Delicious, Flickr, and Dzone. For interacting with other developers, there’s really no one good place to visit, but Dzone has that potential – people just have to participate in the comments more.

You seem like the kinda guy who knows pretty much everything about the web, but if there were one computer language that you could learn right now, what would it be and why?

I know every single computer language so this question is inapplicable. No, I’m just kidding – a programming language is pretty easy to learn as long as you know one already. I learned PHP over a weekend’s worth of reading and experimenting, now I develop web applications only with PHP. But it did help that I knew C and C++ prior to that, and we all know that PHP is a C-style language (or sort of, at least). If I were to learn something right now – ActionScript 3.0 and Flex syntax. I know AS 2.0, but never had the chance to “upgrade” my knowledge.

There are undoubtedly thousands of people who “look up to you” in regards to web development/design, is there anyone YOU look up to?

I look up to many people. If I were to name just one guy, I’d go with Eric Meyer. He’s more like a front-end developer, but he has inspired me in learning about web standards and “the right way” of doing things.

What does your typical day look like?

I wake up around 5:30 AM and brew a cup of coffee. I start working on Six Revisions at 6:00AM to about 8:30AM. I head in to work. From the time I get home to about 10-11:00PM, I continue working on Six Revisions. Rinse and repeat 5 days a week.

Do you remember the first site you ever built? Was it anything like your current works?

One of the first major sites I built is for a window-tinting company called Eclipse Window Tinting. The site’s still up, you can check it out: http://www.justtintit.com/index.html

I designed it, set up the server, created their brand identity: the logo on the site included, designed and developed the database and the web forms, everything. If I were to do this site now, I would use a CMS like Drupal or WordPress, it would save me a lot of time and would provide the client more options for maintaining their own site.

You do some great tutorials on Six Revisions, but have you ever considered teaching web design professionally?

I do like teaching, but I don’t think I want to do it as a career. I like the part where I talk about web design and web development – but not the part where I have to deal with the politics involved in the education system (at least in universities). I want to teach, but only people who really like the subject enough to go to websites that share the information that they want to learn. In a classroom environment, you’ll meet students with different agendas – maybe they thought it was an easy A, or that it was a core requirement to get their degree.

How do you typically start a new project?

I start a project with solid requirements gathering. This saves a lot of time later on and it makes sure you’ve got documentation of the specs that you’ve agreed to doing. It reduces scope creep and gives you a good direction to finishing that project.

What do you feel are the most important skills for a designer to have/develop?

A skill that designers need is communication skills: the ability to talk to clients, bosses, and colleagues effectively. You have to be able to convey your ideas well; being a designer a lot of times means you also have to be a good sales person.

Did you ever have an “ah ha” moment when you realized that you were in fact known around the globe by thousands of people? Tell us how that came about?

Well, the best was an email from a teacher from New Zealand who said he prescribed the articles I wrote as homework for the kids. That’s when I was like: “Wow, people actually read the stuff I write!” and that’s when I also knew I had the responsibility to keep publishing good and reliable information – because what is said on the site can be read by hundreds of thousands of individuals.

What obstacles did you have to overcome, or still working to overcome, to get your projects off the ground and moving forward?

Time is always an issue: I tend to cut things close to deadline. A big part of it is I work well (or better) under pressure. When you have a deadline to meet, crazy and creative things happen. Of course, this backfires quite a lot and I’m left with a missed deadline.

If I am correct, you have a brother who recently started out in web design and development. What type of influence have you had on him picking up those skills?

My brother’s more of a graphic designer, but he’s learning about HTML and CSS. He’s, what I would say, the creative one. He does wonderful photography as well, and we have the same camera, but his work is – for a lack of a better term – amazing and professional-level, work worthy enough to put on a Smashing Magazine photography roundup. As for him picking it up, I think the biggest influence I’ve given him was just believing in his skills – because he has so much talent, but if he doesn’t apply it to something, then it goes wasted. That, and the guarantee that I will be there to help him learn and pursue his passion professionally.

Can you remember what it was that originally got you more than just “interested” in the web industry?

Well, when your first site goes live and gets used by people – I mean people aside from your friends and family – people living across the world who find value your website, that’s when you start realizing how cool this whole “making websites” business is. That’s when you start really perfecting your craft and wanting to learn what other cool stuff you can do.

What do you think you did that made your name recognizable to web designers worldwide?

I don’t think I have a recognizable name, are you talking to the right guy? But if I were to answer what I think I’m known for, it’d have to be my writing on Six Revisions and on other sites like Smashing Magazine and Web Designer Depot. I think I’m also known for having design and development abilities – the tutorials I write involve both of them typically: Photoshop all the way down to the jQuery code – truly from scratch to production.

If you could give one tip to aspiring web designers – what would it be?

Think outside of the box, but make sure it’s not so crazy that it makes your design confusing. It’s great to innovate but keep in mind that there are standards for a reason.

What do you want Six Revisions to be like in 10 years time?

I really don’t know if the site’s going to be around for that long, but if it is, I hope that it’s a network of sites that follow the same succinct, informative, easy-to-consume writing style. A friendly place where you can drop a comment and the site owners respond to you personally. I think I’ll be a little candid for a moment and say that a lot of sites that have a comparable readership size can’t offer the same type of personal interaction that you can find on Six Revisions – people always seem surprised that I actually read and respond to their comments – but to those still wondering: no, the site, unlike many other sites of the same size, isn’t run by robots. And I hope you all appreciate that sort of personal touch.

Can you name two “undiscovered” talents for us to interview?

I can name plenty of people who I think are undiscovered/underappreciated talents, this is such a tough question! Definitely one is Jan Cavan from Dawghouse Design Studio who writes Photoshop tutorials on Six Revisions. She’s a freelance web/graphic designer, and she’s got crazy skills. Another that I feel should be a top name in the industry, because he’s so creative and very talented is Francisco Inchauste from Finch, a talented guy whom I’d put alongside names like Jason Santa Maria and Andy Clarke.