While both the web designer and web developer have the same goal in mind — to create a great website or application, both these functions are quite different from each other.
From the kind of work they do to the processes they adopt to reach their end goal, there are a lot of differences. Let’s check them out.
What is web design and web development?
Web design is what is known as the overall look and feel of the website. It involves creating visual elements, pages, navigation of a website, and deciding on the color, typography, and visual assets such as images, videos, and logos that would go on the screen. Web designers also need to work on responsive design — how the design works on different devices such as desktops, mobile, and tablets.
The most popular web design disciplines are UX (User Experience) design, UI (User Interface) design, Product Design, and DesignOps.
Web development is the process of writing CSS, HTML, and JavaScript to bring web design into reality. It is also responsible for the things that users don’t see but are essential to the functioning of a website such as web servers, security, databases, and so on.
The various web development disciplines are front-end developer, back-end developer, and full-stack (both front-end and back-end) developer.
To learn more about web development, check out this web developer course.
What do web designers and web developers work on?
Here’s what the process of web design and development looks like:
- The marketing team gives the designers and developers a brief of their new project — a new website or a product
- The designers start by conducting market, user, and competitor research and understand core problems with the help of user journey maps.
- The design team then brainstorms and starts working on ideas either using online tools or sketches and paper prototypes.
- After this stage, they start creating wireframes of the website or the application. These wireframes are used as a guide to testing navigation and design information architecture
- Once the wireframes are ready, mockups and high-fidelity prototype replicas of the application or website are created to conduct a round of usability testing with the relevant stakeholders
- When the testing is done and feedback is collected, mockups and prototypes are prepared for the design handoff — the process when designs are handed over from the designers to the developers
- Here’s where the developers’ real work starts. Making use of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, the reference designs are used to build the website or application. A front-end framework may be used at this stage to develop the product faster.
- APIs, Packages, and other development tools are used by front-end and back-end developers to enhance the application or website's functionality and connect it to other products.
- When the development phase comes to an end, the design team conducts a quality assurance process to check whether everything is working properly or not.
Web design and web development both are great fields to step into. They are both equally essential to building great products. Now that you know the difference between the two, which do you think is the right fit for you?
