Difference between Website Designing and Website Development

I quite remember in my early stages of learning about Website Development….. That I found myself confused multiple times about the difference between design and development. What are the important roles of a Website Designer?

The answer would definitely be no. The role of each is completely different from the other.

Let’s have a look into the different roles and methods of both Web Designer and Web Developer.

Website Designing

Think about the Website Designers who transform an idea, or a story into a visually appealing design, and use their layout to build the visitor experience throughout the whole website. They design the website look and feel. As an architect would create a plan of your house prior to starting building it, Website Designer would model the layout of your website before a website developer can start developing it.

Web Designers have a very difficult role which is often underrated. In their designs, they need to integrate the best visitor experience and create a welcoming environment for the user. They have to change an idea from writing into a usable design and interface that catches the user’s attention.

A Web cannot be described as great if a proper design strategy wasn’t applied into the early stages of the project. Nowadays, Website Designers are rated at the same level of Website Developers without a great user experience and design, the development cannot be truly appreciated by the user.

Website Designers have built a whole library of strategic techniques for themselves. You don’t just create a perfect website immediately after reading or thinking about the specifications or the features required.

You start with a scope - the focus point & the purpose that the website will offer. You would firstly roughly envision the designs in your head and start with a sketch of the design. From sketching, website designers move to wireframes and to the final design. Professional Website Designers build the whole website in design components with a pixel perfect layout of all the web pages, icons, typography and other features.

These are some of the main roles of the website designer: -

1. Using Software Tools such as Photoshop, Framer, or Sketch to build the final layout design of the website.
2. Have Good Skills in Graphic Designers and Logo Designers.
3. Have a Good Feel For Visitor Experience to identify the simplest approach possible to attain the desired function. This includes the layout, buttons, images, and general format of the website.
4. Website Designers need to keep themselves up-to-date with the latest design trends. It’s also important to keep design consistency i.e. made popular from other website giant companies such as Google and Facebook. This makes the website environment and interface easier to navigate and it is already familiar to the users eyes.
5. Website Designers have to also keep in mind the branding of the website, colour palettes to be used and readability of the website.

Website Development

Think about Website Developers who turn the designs into a live website. Website Developers uses Website Languages and Software Tools to develop the design and functionality of a website. Notice, Website Developers are further split into two sub categories; Front-End Developers and Back-End Developers. I see Front-End Developers as the connection between both Website Designers and Back-End Developers would allow a Front-End Developer to build a Fully Working Website. A Front-End Developer is the one who builds the interface and provides the layout as the interaction between the back-end of the website and the user.

Front-End Developers use three main languages: - Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and JavaScript (JS). With languages, a developer is able to create a full-fledged website. From main design layout to inserted images, applying different types of typography and font families, implementing animations, the flow of different pages and many more.

Back-End Developers are those who control the server data and requests. Usually a web requires back-end services if it contains dynamic data. Users submitting a form with personal data or saving an article for your blog page. Generally, if the website requires data to be saved, and making it accessible, it means that it would also need a database connection. Database connections are made possible by a direct connection from the server itself. That’s why, a backend developer uses server languages such as PHP or ASP.NET and writes queries about databases by using the languages such as SQL or MySQL.

Main Roles of a Website Developer: -

1. Constructing the actual interface through which a user interacts with the website. This interface is constructed by front-end developers using HTML, CSS and JS Languages.
2. Front-End Developers can use styling javascript libraries and frameworks to fasten the process of development.
3. Front-End Developers provide Markup Design to back-end developers, so they can implement a dynamic website and submit the required data on the server and databases.
4. Back-end Developers creates the backbone of the website using the languages like PHP and MySQL.
5. Website Developers may use versioning tools to keep a history of the previous builds. This will help them to move back to a previous “unbroken” version if required to do so.