If you aren’t someone experienced in website creation, the terms are thrown around probably will all start to blur together.
You have a website that needs to be created, and you want it to be a conversion machine that will work for you 24/7.
But who do you need to hire for the projects at hand?
Is there a difference between web design vs. web development?
Should you hire one of each or both?
There are so many roads to take here, where should you start?
Great questions!
Designers and developers co-exist together to create the final product: a magnificent website experience for people everywhere to enjoy.
They both play vital roles in creating beautiful, engaging websites.
But they both play unique roles and have their different specialties.
Today we will be diving into the differences between web design vs. web development and everything you need to know to make the final decision of whom you need to turn to for your next project.
What Is The Role Of A Web Designer?
A web designer’s role is to lay out the look and feel a web page should have to match the brand image and the user experience the brand wants people to have.
Consider the designer the visionary that understands what people want when it comes to how a website should look and feel.
Web designer’s primary goal is to make websites engaging in a way that makes visitors want to stay and hang out for extended periods.
On top of that, they want to increase the chances people come back in the future.
This goes for all platforms and devices.
Think of it this way; designers are the architects.
Every line, button, menu layout, typography, and anything else that involves how you interact with a website; all comes from a web designer’s head.
Considering all of that, the web designer has to be well researched.
From the buying cycles of the audience, they are creating the website for to how to build trust with those people best.
Everything has to be positioned correctly for each particular client.
The process web designers undergo starts with understanding whom they are building the website for.
Once all the research is done, and a rough estimate of what the website will look like, the rough draft and mock-ups get created and reviewed before beginning collaboration with the development team.
Types Of Web Designers
Like any other industry, there are specialists in certain web design aspects, and they go by different names.
Sometimes you will see some overlap within the different types of web designers, but for the most part, they split the tasks evenly between who’s best at doing what.
The types of web designers out there are:
UI Designers – User interface designers are tasked to prioritize the overall usability of the website.
They’re the ones that make navigation a breeze and understand what website visitors need to have a good experience on your site.
Anything that has the potential to be used on the website, they optimize it for humans like you based on the expectations of how it should work.
If it has to do with the website’s look and feel as you interact with it, that is a UI designer’s role.
UX Designers – User experience designers are the people who do all the research to understand a brand’s customer market and what makes them excited to interact with websites.
Their job is to gather enough information to make data-driven decisions on keeping people on the longest and remember that brand well into the future.
Think of them as building the overall design structure based on their in-depth research and the UI designers as the ones that come in and polish off the design to mimic the information collected from the UX designer.
Visual Designers – Visual designers dabble in both sides of user interface and user experience.
As the name hints, they focus on all visual aspects of the website and the design process.
You will find these people participating in all aspects of the design process.
More likely than not, they have a ton of insightful knowledge on creating websites of value from many years of practice and iteration.
Final Thoughts On Web Designers
A good web designer has skills in customer journey mapping, wireframing prototyping, an overview knowledge set of HTML and CSS, and possibly a little bit of JavaScript, conversion rate optimization (CRO), and branding.
You will get the good sense that these people have a well-rounded understanding of every aspect that goes into creating a great website; the final product will show clearly.
If you are looking for a good web designer for your next project, check out the specialists we recommend based on your industry by clicking on “specialists” above.
What Is The Role Of A Web Developer?
Web developers are the ones that do the work when it comes to building the website.
They are super-knowledgeable when it comes to complex programming languages and processes required to pump websites full of life.
If web designers are the architects and the people that think the project through, then the web developers are the people that are building the project based on the plans they are given.
Think of them as the construction team.
Web developers are the main reason you can use and interact with websites instead of just looking at them.
They are the ones that bring thoughts and ideas into real life.
Pretty cool, right?
Types Of Web Developers
As we said with web designers, there are a few different types and categories of web developers.
The different types of web developers are:
Back-End Web Developers – backend web developers, are the ones that take care of the server and database of a website.
Think of them as the people that build up the foundation for the entire project.
Without them, you wouldn’t be able to see or do anything on someone’s website.
Let’s say that you were shopping online for a new mountain bike.
After searching google for the best brand to go with, you landed on treks’ website.
Except let’s say that the back end of the website went down.
All of the product categories, product pages, and checkout processes would no longer work, and you would have to wait until it was back up to continue on your search.
Essentially making the entire website useless and usable, and you will be able to navigate anything on the website.
The back end plays a massive role in a fully functional website.
Front-end web developers – Front-end developers take care of putting together all visual aspects the website needs.
This means any visual animation or creating ways to interact with a page you happen to be using.
They create web pages based on the plans that they received from the web designers.
Without front-end developers, there would be no drop-down menus, brand images, unique font styles to spice up the page, or anything else visual.
All of that to say, they are essential to the process of creating a website.
Full Stack Web Developers – Full stack developers possess the ability to take care of both sides of the equation, like visual designers for web designers.
Full-stack developers can add value to both sides of the equation and are almost seen as a universal fit for most projects.
The odds are that they have been doing this line of work for many years and have developed unique skills and perspectives along that period.
Which Is Better Between Web Design Vs. Web Development?
It’s not to say that one is better than the other; it’s that web design and web development are two sides to the whole equation.
Without one, you wouldn’t be able to have the other.
Sometimes you’ll come across developers that have design backgrounds or designers that have developer backgrounds.
However, each side picks the role they enjoy the most and sticks to their specialties.
Without designers there to play a vital role in researching and understanding the customer journey visitors experience along the way to becoming actual paying customers, the developers wouldn’t have anything to go off of and would be aiming their efforts into the dark.
And without the developers, designers wouldn’t have their awesome ideas brought into real life for people like you and me to enjoy.
If you are looking to outsource either of the efforts, start with a designer and work with a developer from there once the idea has been created and mocked up.
Most agencies have both of the services in-house, so you don’t have to go to two separate companies for the end solution.
This can make the process a lot easier and headache-free for your side of things.
If you are working with a standalone service provider, they usually know someone who can do the other half of the job, and maybe you can get a referral from them.
Just know that you should start with one side of the equation before working on the next one.
Conclusion
Developers and designers work hand-in-hand to create a masterpiece that the world can enjoy.
Designers are more focused on the equation’s creative process and use data-driven metrics from research to mock-up designs your visitors will love interacting with.
Developers use their technical knowledge to create a fully functioning version of the design team’s vision.
The question isn’t about web developers vs. web designers.
It’s what do you need to tackle first on your project at hand.
Do you need a professional to lay out revenue-generating websites for your company that has done all the research and knows what people like?
Or do you need someone to put together that idea?
Feel free to check out the specialists we recommend for your industry by clicking on the specialist tab above.
Thank you for hanging out with us today; as always, we appreciate you!
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