Are you thinking about getting a website ready? Great! A website is a highly effective tool to communicate with your audience and every business needs to have an attractive one that represents their brand identity. But you are mostly likely stuck on a thought – who to approach to get it done – a website development company or website design company. This blog helps you uncover the difference between web design and web development and make an informed choice for your needs.
What is Web Design?
Web design involves creating the visual elements and user experience of a website. In other words, whatever you see on the screen when you open a website such as the layout, color schemes, typography, images, and overall style are the contributions of a website designer. They use a variety of tools to create mockups to show how your website is going to look like.
For instance, Adobe Photoshop, Sketch, or Figma. Three types of designers are involved in the process:
User Experience (UX) Designer:
The User Experience designer focuses on the usability and accessibility aspects of a website’s design which is key to improving the overall user satisfaction.
User interface (UI) designer:
The UI designer’s contribution realm is the website’s interfaces. They make sure that the interface aligns with the brand and is easy to guide users.
Visual designer:
The visual designer focuses on the color, typography, logos, graphics, and various other visual aesthetics that influence the website’s visual appeal.
What Tasks Does a Web Designer’s Job Consist of?
To understand the difference between web designer and web developer in detail, let’s see what the former’s job involves. A web designer is one who conceptualizes a website by creating its layouts, designs, user interfaces, etc. Additionally, they ensure its maximum functionality, optimize performance and contribute to the user experience side.
What is Web Development?
Web development is the technical process of building a website. The designer has designed the visuals. Now these designs need to be brought to life. Through proper coding and programming, a website development company does it. To create a functional website, website developers will work with various programming languages, for instance, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, or PHP among others. Depending on their areas of specialization, a website developer can be:
Front-end developer
A front-end developer works on the designs created by a website designer, bringing the latter’s vision to life.
Back-end developer:
A back-end developer primarily deals with the server-side aspects of the website, for instance, how it should interact with the server, handle data flow, etc.
Full-stack developer:
A full-stack developer knows both areas of website development – front-end and back-end.
What Are the Tasks of a Web Developer?
The key responsibility of a web developer entails creating and maintaining a website. Their job demands a high level of technical skills and expertise in coding languages. They implement the designs the designers conceptualized and bring the usability features to life. Even after the website’s launch, they continue their role by testing, fixing bugs, and providing ongoing support to keep websites updated and user-friendly.
What is the Difference between Web Design and Web Development?
To help you better understand the ‘web design vs web development’ differences, here is a detailed table explaining each role’s key focus areas, scope, skill requirements, and tools being used.
| Web Designers | Web Developers | |
|---|---|---|
| Collection of skills required | Website designers are expected to have proven skills in UI/UX designing, typography, and graphics designing. They must also possess a thorough understanding of basic design principles. | Website developers would do a better job with their sold command of programming languages and thorough technical proficiency. |
| General Outlook | Website designing is more of a creative work. It demands a thorough understanding of how customers or people enjoy their visit to a website. They have to use their aesthetic sense to create great user experience. | Rather than creativity, the role requires intensive coding expertise and logical sense. The designs need an entity to exist and the developer builds that. |
| Focus | Design professionals are the first people to start working on a website. The customer shares their vision or expectations. The designer idealizes them through mockups and prototypes. | The development team consisting of front-end and backend developers see through the feasibility of converting the designs into existence. They also enlighten the user about the developmental and operational costs of building the intended website. |
| Resources/tools being utilized | The main tools/resources web designers utilize in their day-to-day tasks include Figma, Webflow, Coolors, Design Gradients, and Adobe XD. | Depending on the ecosystem in which the website is developed, a developer might use tools like HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Visual Studio Code, GitHub, Sublime Text, Node.js, etc. |
How Superior Quality Website Design and Development Services Benefit Businesses?
For every business, a strong online presence is mandatory today. A superior quality web design and web development service can significantly enhance it. Here are the key benefits of investing in these services:
Improved User Experience:
Through professional web design and development, businesses can ensure that their website’s user interfaces are user-friendly, navigation is smooth and performance is top-notch. All these improve people’s browsing experience.
High responsiveness:
There are more chances that people will use different devices to visit your website. In that case, good website development ensures that your website operates flawlessly on any device or platform regardless of screen size.
Optimization for SEO:
Professional website design and development services consider applying the best SEO techniques on the websites. This in turn supports the ranking position of the website on all search engines and attracts natural visitors to your business.
Ongoing Support and Maintenance:
Keeping your website functional after the launch is essential. Professional services are ready to offer continuous updates to your website as well as technical support in case anything goes wrong.
Why Website Developers Aren’t Suited for Website Design Tasks?
As we have seen, web designing is a creative process. Website developers often lack the creative skills needed for making user-friendly and high aesthetic value website designs. Here are a few reasons that make them unfit for the design tasks.
Different Skill Sets:
While developers prove their value through expertise in coding, designers do it by adding value to the aesthetics and user experience.
Creative Vision:
It is very likely that a website developer will struggle to come up with a visually appealing design unless they have a profound design background.
Design Principles:
Designers have an amazing level of understanding about typography, basic color schemes and theories, and layout. A developer may overlook these aspects.
Specialization Relevance:
Both website designer and website developer requires distinct expertise. When a developer tries to design, it can dilute the effectiveness of the design.
What Prevents a Web Designer from Acting as a Web Developer?
We saw how much importance a web designer’s responsibility has in the making of a website. Now, let’s understand why a web designer cannot replace a web developer.
Technical Expertise:
Website developers are people with advanced coding skills. When designers work with creativity, the developers work with logic and technical expertise.
Programming Languages:
Web developers are expected to be fluent or well-versed in coding languages. For instance, JavaScript and PHP. A designer may not have any idea about it.
Functionality First Approach:
Unlike designers who contribute to the look and feel of a website, a developer’s focus area is its functionality.
Problem-Solving Skills:
Developers will have to step in to address any technical issues that may pop up even after a website’s launch is complete. So their responsibility continues.
Conclusion
Website designing and website development are two basic tasks that one must get done before launching a website.
We hope this blog helped you get more clarity on the difference between web design and web development. If you think this blog helped you, feel free to share it with your friends or business associates as well.
Do you have any further questions regarding web design vs web development? We would love to hear from you. Share all your opinions
FAQ
Which is better - web design or web development?
Both web design and web development are crucial steps in the making of a high-quality and highly functional website. So, there is no point in declaring one as better than the other.
Is having both designers and developers necessary for business websites?
Yes. Aesthetics and functionality are key ingredients for business websites. So, it is essential that you have both designers and developers to work on your corporate website.
Is it possible for one person to be both a web developer and a web designer?
Technically speaking, if a person has a background in both website designing and development, they can act as both a web designer and web developer. However, since both domains demand distinct expertise when the same person does both work, the effectiveness of both areas can be compromised.
How does web design benefit a business?
A website is one of the primary touchpoints for the audience to interact with a business or brand. If the website has great design, the audience is likely to be impressed in the brand and convert into loyal customers.
Who costs more to hire: a web designer or a web developer?
Web development is a technical process and demands more time and technical expertise in coding and programming. So, generically speaking, it will be more expensive to hire a web developer than a web designer. If you are looking for more cost-effective options, our WordPress website designers and developers can make high-quality, responsive websites that meet your business needs within budget.
