Web Designing and Web Development – Two Sides of The Same Coin

‘A website will promote you 24/7: No employee will do that’- Paul Cookson

It will be no overstatement if we say that a website is the face of your business. Moreover, in today’s hyper-competitive business market, it is inevitable for businesses to design and develop a competent website.

Now a question may arise in your mind, what does a robust yet aesthetic website consist of? The answer to this is that a beautiful and powerful website is a culmination of synchronized web design and development. Web design and web development are two separate works and professions, but people new to this often use them interchangeably.

It was easier to find the difference between web designers and web developers in the earlier days. The bifurcation was simple; web designers design, web developers code. But now in the modern era, there are little more nuances added to the overall difference. There are a lot of web developers these days that have knowledge of storyboard. In the same way, there are web developers with an understanding of CSS and HTML.

Thus, in this article, we will discuss the difference in roles and responsibilities of a web designer and a web developer. In addition, we will have a closer look on the fundamental concepts of web design and web development.

Web Design - A closer look

Let’s understand the core of web design, the role of web designers and the type of skilled design experts required.

Fundamental of web design

Web design directly refers to the usability and the aesthetic portion of the website. The web design process must begin only after considering all the objectives the client wants to achieve through their website. After this, they should move to the Information Architecture (IA) that will set the entire information hierarchy of the website.

In addition to this, there are several design principles that the designers can use for better user experience and eye-soothing layouts.

Maintaining a balanced layout

It is a prerequisite while design a website that it has to have a balanced layout. There are both heavy and light elements on the website. Heavy elements mean the dark and large colors, while light elements mean the smaller and lighter colors. So, the web designer has to use the correct proportion of all these elements in order to achieve a well-balanced website design.

Being consistent throughout

Consistency is a significant part of the website design and development process. It is also known as repetition or rhythm, which is very critical for an effective website design. Consistent navigation will render a better user experience to the visitors, and you will have a better chance to convert them into your customers.

Proper color coordination

How you represent your website design with the color combination is vital in enhancing the overall beauty of the website. Thus, the web designer must understand the color theory and place contrasting colors wherever possible.

Along with contrasting colors, the designers can also look into contrasting textures, shapes and sizes and make the website more aesthetically pleasing.

Highlighting the important things

In the modern era, where the users have a plethora of options in everything, it is necessary to catch their attention at the earliest. Thus, one should emphasize the bestsellers and intentionally ‘highlight’ the essential areas to their business.

Moreover, make sure that you don’t overdo the highlighted part on the website. Be selective so that the actual thing stands out and your website gets more attention from the users.

Also Read: Five designing tips for your mobile business app

What is the role of web designers?

There are some niche responsibilities of a web designer that are vital for the entire website development process. For your convenience, we have listed them below.

• They should have good skills and understanding related to logo design and graphic design
• Web designers must always keep the overall branding of the website in mind while designing their layout. The entire typography, readability, etc. of the website must be according to its branding only
• They must keep themselves up-to-date with all the latest development trends in the web design realm. Since the horizon of web design and development is expanding at rate of knots, the web designers must always be on their toes to keep the design consistent and learn newer things.
• They should also have the knack of identifying the most straightforward approach when designing the desired function. This could include anything from a general format to buttons, layout, images, etc.

Specialist positions in web design

A web designer does it all to make the website look good. Along with the usage of codes and other technical nuances, the realm of web design also has specialism. We will now dive deep and understand the specialist position in web design clearly.

UI Designer

The main focus of the UI designer is to improve the user interaction with the interface or the web components. The improvement is done by translating the values and the complex ideas into a website that is easy to navigate. Since the website becomes enjoyable for the user to use, it will positively impact the overall user retention rate.

A question might arise in your mind: how does a UI designer differ from a UX? The answer to this is that UI majorly focuses on the aesthetics of the website. While on the other hand, UI involves the research that goes into developing a solid website.

UX Designer

In a nutshell, the main job of the UX web designer is to keep the visitors hooked to the website. They have the responsibility of crafting a user-specific website. They carry out this process by doing thorough research and analysis of the needs and wants of the users and their demographics.

The UX designers are the backbone of the web design and development company as their skills render credibility to the company.

Visual Designer

A visual web designer is a proper amalgamation of a UI and UX designer. Their job responsibility includes solving the design issues and also improving the user journey through creative coding skills. Moreover, they play a pivotal role in inculcating the brand and tone of the company on the website.

So, it will not be an overstatement if we say that a visual designer is the master of all the web design trades. Thus, their specific role can vary according to the needs and requirements of the company.

Also Read: UX Design strategies and tips to transform the mobile app

Web Development - A closer look

Let’s understand the core of web development, the role of web developers and the type of skilled development experts required.

Fundamentals of Web Development

Web developers are the ones who take the design of a fully functioning website and break it into its components. Then they use a dynamic approach and incorporate high-end programming languages such as PHP and develop the website pages.

Moreover, the website developers in the quest of streamlining the entire development process utilize advanced content management systems like Joomla or WordPress. It will allow the client to maintain the website and also update it as per requirement. Web developers also use content sliders and images to convert static into a dynamic website.

Also Read: How to design a mobile responsive website

What is the role of a web developer?

• Front-end developers should know the usage of styling processors, frameworks and JavaScript libraries. Knowledge of these is essential to fasten the overall web development process.
• The primary responsibility of the front-end developers is to build interfaces through which the user can interact with the website. Thus, the front-end must have a thorough knowledge of CSS, HTML and JS languages.
• The front-end developers, along with the back-end developers, can use the Integrated Development Environment (IDE). These development environments are the place where the web developers build and code the structure of the website.

Specialist position in web development

To create a smooth-running website, the web developers use specific software such as JQuery and JavaScript. Thus, like web designers, web developers also have specialized positions. Let us understand them.

Front-end developer

The process of front-end development is also known as client-side development. The responsibility of a front-end developer deals in using JavaScript, CSS and HTML to create consistent and easy to navigate websites.

Thus, to understand it, the front-end developers have the coding skills and they build the frameworks that the users interact with.

Back-end developer

The back-end is the place where the core and platform of the website are designed. The back-end developers have a stronghold in using complex software languages like SQL, C# and Java programming.

The work of the back-end developers is not visible directly to the users as it involves coding on the databases and the web servers.

The back-end developers are responsible for creating functional and logical websites to perform various programs. Moreover, they also invest a lot of time in fixing the bugs as well.

Full-stack developer

A full-stack developer includes all the skills and knowledge of front-end and back-end development. They work across different stacks or layers included in both front–end and back-end. So, we can say that they are the ‘full package for website development as they are the expert in all areas.

What is the cost to hire a web designer and a web developer?

The freelance web designers either charge a flat fee or by hourly rate depending on the requirement of the project and you will require to be the point of contact for the hired designers and developers.

Moreover, when you opt for a leading web design and development company, you will get a complete web design and development package.

A freelance web designer will cost you anything in the range of $20-$60 per hour. In the same way, a freelance web developer will charge $25-$70 per hour, depending on the requirement of the project.

Moreover, if you are opting for a renowned web design and development company, you’ll be looking at a grand total of around $5500-$6500 for both website design and development.

The difference is clear

Understanding the difference between the web designers and the web developers is essential for a business organization. Although there are a lot of people who do both web design and development, but it is always beneficial to hire dedicated designers and developers from a company to build a wonderful website.

Web designers play a pivotal role in creating a layout of the website and then the design files are handed over to the web developer to add code make the design functional based on the requirements. Thus, the proper amalgamation of web designer and web developers will lay a strong foundation of website development and can reap rich results.