Difference between Web Design and Web Development

Web design and web development is two different features in the 21st century. It is sometimes difficult to understand the difference between one and the other, mostly because both tend to be complementary. Read below the comparison of web design vs web development.

Web design: The graphic design of a website

Web design is the design of a web interface: the interactional architecture, organization of the pages, tree structure and navigation in the site. It is an essential phase of web creation.

Web design therefore requires a variety of skills:  programming, ergonomics and interactivity, as well as a good knowledge of the technical constraints related to this field: diversity of web terminals and their displays, accessibility, specificities of different languages and processes, portability , respect of W3C recommendations.

The design of a site is in the form of a functional model and technical specifications. These are then transformed, with the graphic model, in lines of code and images in order to be displayed in a web browser.

In order to understand the job of the web designer, it is necessary to evoke the tools that he will generally use. It is essentially graphics software, the best known to the general public are the 3 Adobe programs: Photoshop, In Design and Illustrator. Very often, the web designer will work with a graphic tablet that allows him to draw by hand, not on paper, but directly on the computer.

In the top brand companies, under the responsibility of the project manager or the artistic director, the web designer defines the specifications of the product: ergonomics, navigation mode, tree structure, scripting, visual and sound identity, graphic charter … He also deals with the design of the interfaces dedicated to e-commerce and e-marketing.

Web development: the encoding of a website

Web development is based on the use of languages (HTML / CSS, JavaScript, PHP …) to write programs that are then executed by computers. The instructions are put in place on the Internet and are carried out on servers. Depending on the needs of site owners or web pages, these can consist of text and graphic elements that look like a document or be interactive by displaying information that changes (eg shopping cart).

Web development builds the basics of the site. From a blank page, it happens that the site is functional, that it offers a good browsing experience for the user and that it incorporates specific functions and useful for the site.

The web developer will mainly use a simple open source editor like Notepad ++ or others. He will write lines of code in a specific computer language. There are several.

For simplicity, the web developer deals with the skeleton of the website, that is to say, its internal aspect.

How to create an attractive and functional website

Web design refers to both the aesthetic portion of the website and its usability. Web design uses various design programs such as Adobe Photoshop to create the layout and other visual elements of the website. Web Development on the other hand, take a website design and actually make a functioning website from it. Web developers use HTML, CSS, Javascript, PHP and other programming languages to bring to life the design files.

If these two professions do not necessarily interact on the same aspects of the site, they both have the same end goal: to ensure that the site attracts a maximum of Internet users through its design and ergonomics.

In order to achieve such a result, it is essential to work together. Most often, it is the web developer who will integrate into the site code the design elements created by the web designer.

Nothing prevents a person from being both a web designer and a web developer. Once she has acquired the techniques of each of the two professions, the person can offer this versatility. Web development requires a certain logic and knowledge of different computer languages, when web design requires creativity and knowledge of creative software.

The demarcation between designers and developers has become increasingly blurred since designers are learning to code and developers are taking a close interest in design (this is one of the reasons why design and development articles and tutorials are so popular). We are all starting to realize that the future of this field includes the job of Designer / Web Developer.