What Is the Difference between Design and Development of a Website?

Tom Canterino • July 15, 2021

What Is the Difference between Design and Development of a Website?

The Difference between Web Design and Web Development Is Often Misunderstood

There are still many people who believe that the two jobs are not entirely separate. In fact, according to the experts in this field, they have developed a professional hierarchy at some point due to their high specialization.

Truly, Designers like UX / UI Designer with HTML/CSS knowledge support the work of Web Developers (Java, PHP, ASP.NET).

In fact, the development of a website takes place from several different points of view related to its content. In other words, in terms of "content", the professional hierarchy is as follows:

The definition of these three categories is also supported by web professionals who recommend that the contribution and interaction of all three components are necessary to create a successful website.

Modern Website Designers: UX, UI designers (visual designer, graphic designer) 

Website Developers: Web developers, PHP developers, ASP.NET web developers, etc.

Website Publishers: Content editors, project managers can add content/update content on the website using CMS (Content Management System), Blogs, Ecommerce, etc.

Therefore, the main difference between web design and web development lies in the ability to take into account a wide range of aspects through analysis and construction: user-centered design, graphics, and usability issues among others. That is why UX / UI designers are sometimes considered more "technically talented" than web developers.

Web Designer

  • A web designer is a visual individual who must have excellent creative skills that allow them to create attractive graphics and design, as well as researching the necessary information in order to produce an effective website. They are also involved in developing sites for search engines such as Google and Bing by using HTML tags.

  • As mentioned above, web designers, who are increasingly found in large numbers on the internet, must have good knowledge of HTML and CSS (coding languages) so that they can create a website without the help of web developers.

Website Developer

  • A website developer is an individual who needs to know much about programming code syntax and grammar related to HTML / CSS as well as JavaScript, MySQL, PHP, ASP .NET, and JAVA. Simply put, the website developer is the programmer (coders/programmers) who needs to create a website used by users using HTML tags or other programming languages alone.

  • They are highly skilled at creating interactive websites that automatically make changes according to external factors such as input from visitors (clicking on buttons, filling out forms, and so on).

Website Publisher

  • A website publisher is an individual who can add content to a given website and who has the ability to maintain it when necessary. They are responsible for creating websites that fulfill the needs of their target audience using programming skills as well as knowledge about CSS codes, HTML tags, etc.

For many years, the terms real designers and developers have been used because they are two very different jobs. However, when it comes to creating web applications, such as websites that are built on content management systems (CMS), the website developer is considered to be both a web designer and a web developer. In other words, you can call them "Web Designers" and "Web Developers".

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