What comes to your mind when you read these terms? Both of them relate to the two critical factors of creating a website. But they aren’t the same. There are so many important distinguishing factors between the two. This guide will teach us about the differences between web design vs web development today. Also, we will look at how both terms depend on each other for efficient website creation. So, let’s start!
What Do We Mean By “Website Design?”
As is very clear from the second term, ‘design, ‘ “designing a website” revolves around curating the design portion. Its main priority is the site’s usability and aesthetics. Web designers focus on the layout, color scheme, and overall visual appeal. In simple terms, site design creates the base of how the site will appear to the viewers. Also, it plays an essential role in user experience. An efficient site design with attractive and visually appealing layouts will increase customer satisfaction.
Key Aspects of Designing a Website
To sum up, we can say that the website designing part includes the following key points:
Layout
First of all, a web designer creates the whole structure of the site’s content in an organized manner. Yes, we can say that a designer sets the foundation of a brand’s website.
Color Scheme
Playing with colors is one of the distinguishing features of designers. They know well how to use color schemes to make the site appealing. It’s important to choose colors that align with the brand and provide a visually pleasing experience every time your customer visits.
User Experience (UX)
The website design is also responsible for making the site user-friendly. It ensures that the site is easy to use and navigate, uplifting the user experience.
User Interface (UI)
Yes, a web designer makes the whole UI (user interface) of a site. It involves designing elements like buttons, icons, and menus that users interact with.
Generally, there are many tools available online for web designers. For example: Adobe Creative Suite including Adobe Photoshop (PS). They can create mockups from there and deliver assets including storyboards, logo designs, and color palettes.
What Does “Web Development” Stand For?
While designing focuses on the aesthetic and appeal part of a site, development refers to its technical side. People generally connect development to coding. Yes, they are correct! The whole development part of a website revolves around ‘coding.’ There are many coding languages available today such as JavaScript, HTML, CSS, C#, C, C++, etc. Choosing a particular coding language depends on the developer. But the purpose remains the same regardless of the language chosen. In simple terms, the web developers make the design (by the web designer) functional. It’s the step from where a site comes into action.
Two types of web developers help in making a website functional. These are front-end developers and back-end developers. The front-end development implements the visual aspects of the website as designed by the web designer. This includes coding the layout, styling, and interactivity. Whereas the back-end development focuses on the server-side aspects of the site. It includes databases and server logic. The main purpose of the back end is to ensure that the front end functions properly.
What Factors Differentiate Website Design vs Web Development?
There are many aspects involved in the creation of a site. The site design and development are two of them. Let’s understand below what are the distinguishing features between the two:
The creation of Visual Assets Goes To Designers
The visual elements that we see on a website are the work of a web designer, not a developer. Indeed, a developer uses coding to bring those visual assets to life on the site. In brief, we can understand the designers as the creative minds behind the aesthetic parts of a website. They focus on the look and feel to make sure that the site goes hand-in-hand with the brand’s identity. Their work is very crucial in making a website not only attractive but also user-friendly and engaging. On the other hand, the developers are the technical brains.
Developers Hold The ‘Coding’ Responsibility
The second major factor that differentiates both a designer and a developer is the ‘coding.’ A designer isn’t accountable to do coding. Although exceptions are there, the main coding part goes to the web developers. They also add to the overall user experience by making sure that the site works well. They transform all the design elements into code using varied coding languages. So, the creation of a visual hierarchy is the work of a designer while a developer focuses only on the coding part to run the website on search engines.
Development Is Costly Than Design
As per the present trends, you can hire a web designer at lower quotations than a developer. Although there are anomalies, generally, technical support requires training and asks for more. It’s simply because of the nature of the work involved. In the case of designing a site, there are tools and templates available that can help streamline the process. As a result, the designers are more accessible and affordable. On the other side, the developers are proficient in various programming languages and frameworks. And, they are responsible for building a functional and secure website. The nature of development tasks is complex compared to designing. The expert has to write a ‘code’ from the very basics to bring every visual element to life. In addition to this, the developers ensure cross-browser compatibility and integrate third-party services. Ultimately, the development contributes to the higher costs.
Designing and Development Goes Hand-In-Hand For A Smoothly Working Website
You might have scrolled over many websites that are both aesthetically pleasing and work smoothly. Have you ever put your thinking on the ‘how’ part? Here, both the design and the development factors come into play. And, the interesting part is the dependency of both on each other. Yes, design is idle without coding. Also, what will coding alone do if there’s no design to be coded? It’s as simple as that. As discussed above as well, both of them work together to create a site’s user experience better and efficiently. In brief, we can say that if both work together, a website can have an exceptional web experience. It will easily be able to cater to any problems.
The Intersection of Creativity and Logic
When the two factors of creativity and logic come together, they build a cohesive and functional website. Let’s understand the procedure of how:
The Collaboration Is Essential
As you know now, both design and development experts work together to make a site out of the league. This is what we call a ‘collab’ between the two. And it’s a very basic yet prominent part of a website. Let’s say, a designer makes a dynamic animation to engage users on the site. But who will bring that vision to life? The developer. Hence, there needs to be constant communication and a shared understanding of both design aesthetics and technical feasibility. Both need to work cohesively to provide the best to their users.
The Creative Process Lays The Groundwork
The creative process of a site’s design starts with understanding the brand and the message it wants to convey. Based on that, the designers layout mood boards, gather inspiration and then sketch out the final ideas. Many important factors are important here like
- Color Psychology
- Typography
- Emotional Response, etc.
In simple terms, this phase is highly creative and experimental. The site designs that we meet through are not made in a go. They may have gone through many tests and trials. And in the end, the final version that we see is the outcome of a long way process.
Prototyping and Feedback
After making the initial designs, prototyping also begins. There are many tools like Figma and Adobe XD where designers can create interactive prototypes and see how the final website will work. Any required changes in the design can be corrected at this point. This is a critical stage where both designers and developers need to collaborate closely. Here, the developers provide feedback on what’s possible within the timeline and technical constraints of the project. This is to ensure that the final design becomes both innovative and practical.
The Technical Involvement
As we get the final design, it’s time for coding by the developers. First of all, front-end experts come into play and write HTML, CSS, and JavaScript-like languages to recreate the design in a web browser.
The back end is the Backbone
Yeah, the back-end is literally the backbone of a running website. After the work of front-end development, the back-end handles databases, server configurations, and the logic that powers the site’s functionality.
Conclusion
Overall, web design vs web development are the two pillars of a website. They work hand-in-hand to run the website smoothly and aesthetically. But the minor yet crucial differences between them are also essential to understand. When you step into the world of designing websites, a clear understanding of the similarities and the distinguishing aspects streamlines the vision and leads to realistic expectations.If you are planning to get a website that’s both appealing and user-friendly with strong back support, you can get in touch with Digital Care Agency. We hold expertise in web development and web design services in Bakersfield, Los Angeles, Edmonton, Miami, San Diego, and Orange County. We are available to discuss your website-building vision and assist you with any queries.
