People often get confused between web design and development services as same. However, they are different in many ways. Unlike web design, which is more concerned with building architecture, web development is concerned with coding and making it usable.
Let’s understand the difference between web design and web development from the following discussion.
What is web design?
Web design is a part of the process of building a website. How your website looks depends on web design. That includes the layout, user interface, navigation, color, image, font, button styles, and many more aspects of a website.
For example, you’ll need to decide the design and color of a ‘Buy now’ button. You will understand the concept clearly by looking at the following aspects of web design.
Website designer skills
A web designer will know how to design a website to be user-friendly. As a designer, you must have these skills:
- Graphic Designing
- Understands design principles
- Arranging text and visuals to grab website visitors’ attention
- Knows color theory
- Know how user interfaces (UI) and user experiences (UX) relate and differ from each other
- SEO knowledge
Web designer goals
The process of web design involves many strategic factors. The process is fairly complicated. But if we simply the goals, there mainly could be 3 goals of a website designer, as follows–
- Design a website the way your client wants it
- Design a website that is mobile friendly
- Design a website that Google likes
Web designer responsibilities
As a web designer, your main responsibility is to create attractive landing pages. Also, the pages need to be responsive.
Besides these, you will be an expert in optimizing a website so it loads faster. Also, you will have a role in website testing. And you will need to cooperate with coders to confirm the website and app are integrated properly.
In addition, you may need to work with the marketing department to add elements that promote your brand.
Web designer strategy
In terms of web designing, you will follow specific strategies. For instance: you must establish what you want to achieve with a design. That depends on a client’s needs.
Next, you need to know your target audience. That includes factors like– age, profession, technical literacy, etc.
You need to design a website considering the brand image. You aren’t supposed to design a website that’s not right for a brand. For example, white and black is the main color for your client’s brand. So, you must integrate those colors first.
A web designer will have a goal for every design. Let’s say your clients want people to sign up for their app. So, you need to use large images showing screenshots of the app, a sign-up button, and so on.
Web designer classification
Web designers’ skills will differ depending on the type of website layout. And identify the skills of a web designer by checking what kind of website layout they specialize in.
Regarding that, there are 6 kinds of layouts for a website, such as–
- Static page layout where you don’t update any content daily
- Dynamic website layout where you design based on your client’s customers’ needs
- The fixed design layout is when the elements on a website fall on screen upon minimizing the screen of a browser
- Responsive design layout where you design the interface size considering various screen size
- Liquid/ Fluid design layout when a website width of a website adjusts with different browser dimension
- and Single-page design layout when the website is just one page
Looks like these all are web developers’ tasks. Of course, but without a design, a web developer can start making a layout.
Apps used by web designers
To design a website, web designers use different kinds of applications. But mostly, they depend on photo editing apps, such as Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Dreamweaver, etc.
Now, let’s see how web development differs from web design.
What is web development?
Once the design of a website is ready, another group of people will start to build the website. In other words, it’s the job of a coder who makes the design of a website happen.
It’s the side of the website that you don’t see. You only see a nicely made ‘Add to cart button or let’s say, an amazing home page. These don’t work just by design. Web development will put life into the design, confirming a website functions right.
Web developer goals
The goals of a web developer lie in the objectives of making a website. Considering that there’re standard goals while creating a website—
- Make a website for brand awareness
- Bringing website traffic
- Integrate keywords
Web Developer Tasks
You’ve already learned that a web developer codes. They don’t just write code for a website; they also review it. There are many other tasks that web developers would do as a part of the job.
The following list outlines the basic responsibilities of a web developer.
- Write and review codes for websites
- Upload content on a website
- Test websites and apps to ensure the proper functioning
- Troubleshooting a website
- Create design frameworks
- Wireframing
- Make a website responsive
- Upload a website to a server
Web developer skills
To be a web developer, you are expected to have a set of skills. Some are major, and some are essential for the major skills.
However, a web developer must have the following skills:
- Tech-savvy
- Mathematical skill
- Programming skills
- Explain technical matters precisely
- SEO knowledge
Web developer classification
You will find different development roles, such as one will make the interface. Making the interface is the task of a web designer. Now, you see how web designing is part of creating a website.
Keeping that aside, there are mainly two different kinds of web developers:
- Back-end web developer who writes the codes
- Full-stack web developer who oversees the development of the entire website
Programs and tools used by web developers
A web developer must know programming or how to code. That includes various programming languages, such as HTML, CSS, CSS frameworks, and JavaScript.
Alongside these, web developers need to use several tools to complete programming. Examples: jQuery, CodePen, Figma, Angular, Postman, etc.
So, long story short…
In web designing, you just make a design for a website. And in web development, you make the design functions okay.
You must have noticed that in terms of skills, a few are the same for web design and development. That’s because web design and development are connected and come under the same discipline.
Nevertheless, both aspects are exclusive at their core and act as two principal parts of making a website.
