Nicole Sullivan, Founder of Liquid Elephant, discussed user interface (UI) trends from the front end, CSS, side of the issue with theCUBE host John Furrier, live at the O’Reilly Velocity .

UI settings are able to “bring your site to a complete halt,” Sullivan said, explaining that what she usually does is work with big UIs for enterprises, “When it’s at that scale, it’s a big difference in the performance aspect.” In UI development, there are things companies are doing really well, and other that don’t work at all. Sullivan focuses on trying to make them all work really well together.

There are some new trends in UI such flat design that really great for performance. On the other hand, others make it all slower. “It’s push and pull most of the times,” Sullivan explained. Responsive design is a great development, but it can end up slowing down everything when done poorly.

Commenting on her UI development process, she said: “We always start by having the data,” as without the data, you can’t make any decisions. One can actually improve UI by measuring things.

The biggest and most frequent error according to Sullivan is “the perception that the way your views are architected is the way your UI is architected.”

“You could invest in making the UI layer code perfect from the start, but it’s OK [to choose not to],” Sullivan said.

In what UI advice concerned, Sullivan said “the biggest thing is to think in terms of components and look for your patterns.” Another thing companies should make is invest in the UI developers, as they have really great UI developers and only need to invest in having them work with a senior for a short while, to then do great work.

“Velocity is deeply nerdy,” Sullivan said.  Whether your interested in DevOps, UI, network, “the nerdiest part of it is here.”

“Ordinary UI developers are talking to me about performance, they are thinking about it and components,” Sullivan stated. “They don’t know how to measure stuff,” but they need to know in order to be able to make decisions. “We need to get people from ‘I can apply these principles’ to thinking about the future principles.”

Asked what she’s keeping an eye on at the moment, Sullivan said that she was “watching out to stay away from Google Glass guys” as she was worried about “all the revelations about where people might be sneaking a peek” and all the privacy arising from that.