The hybrid or designer-developer combo is the white unicorn of the internet world. Many believe they exist, some know someone who hired one, few claim they saw one in the past, always in strange circumstances. Developers who can design and designers who can code are one-stop shops and hot commodities, especially in the startup world. Being a jack of all trades allows you to quickly and effectively take products from concept to shipment — something that young companies in particular are eager to do.

~ Katherine Martinez

Designers who are just as fluent in their own language as they are fluent in code are rare. But even rarer are the hybrids who can write. Content is still king and users rely heavily on copy to interact with apps and other products. Words are important. When designers don’t know how to write they end up relying too heavily on the interface and the User Experience suffers. Writing copy from a multitude of imagined and anticipated user scenarios is a core skill of the interaction designer. You can have a beautiful UI but once loaded, all the viewer cares about is what’s inside. Every moment words are moving us to action, changing our minds and shaping our perspective on reality. So I believe that the rarest unicorn of all is a gifted designer + developer + writer.