Suppose you’re looking for a job in web design or web/app development. In that case, you may be wondering what the difference is between web design and web development. Both are related to creating websites, but they’re two different areas of expertise. The designers concentrate on how a website looks, while developers focus on how it functions. If you’re new to web design and development, this blog post will give you an overview of these two fields.
What’s Web Design?
Web design is the process of creating the visual look of a website. Web design aims to make a website easy to use, attractive and effective. Web designers create websites’ overall layout, color palette, and fonts.
Web designers can specialize in different areas such as branding, graphic design, coding, and photography. Many features go into designing a website. This includes the visual design, user experience, integration with other platforms such as e-commerce and CMS, SEO, and the maintenance plan. Web design varies greatly depending on the type of website one is designing.
What’s Web Development?
Web development is the process of building a website’s underlying code. It consists of programming languages, frameworks, and other technologies to make functioning and valuable websites. Web developers create the back-end of a website. All databases, servers, API integrations, and server-side programming are included.
Web development is a highly technical field that necessitates extensive programming knowledge. Front-end developers and back-end developers are the two categories of developers. Front-end developers are concerned with the appearance and functioning of a website from the user’s point of view. They use programming languages, including HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Back-end developers write the server-side code that allows a website to function. They use programming languages such as PHP, Python, and Ruby.
Key Differences Between Web Design and Web Development
Web design and web development are different processes.
- Web design is the creative process that focuses on the look and functionality of a website from a user’s perspective. Web development is the technical process that focuses on the functionality and programming of a website from a developer’s perspective.
- A designer creates a static website that doesn’t change. A developer creates dynamic code capable of changing or updating a website.
- Web design includes creating a website’s visual design, user experience, integration with other platforms such as e-commerce and CMS, SEO, and maintenance plan. Web development includes programming languages, frameworks, and other technologies to create functional and usable websites.
- A designer’s primary goal is to make a website easy to use, attractive and effective. A developer’s main goal is to create functional code that runs the website.
- Both designers and developers use similar tools and software, including a computer, laptop, tablet, or smartphone.
- Designers use software like Adobe Photoshop, InDesign, and Illustrator for visual design. Developers use software like Visual Studio, Eclipse, and Sublime for web development.
- Web design and web development are two different fields. A person can be a designer or a developer, or both.
How to Become a Web Designer?
If you want to become a web designer, your best bet is to take a course in web design and have some hands-on experience. It’s helpful to take an approach that focuses on user experience and user interface design. If you have experience in graphic design, you can use this to help you in web design.
It’s also important to understand how to use design tools like Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator. You can learn to code if you want to be an all-around designer who can also create websites from scratch. It’s challenging to get a web designer job without experience. You can create your side projects to gain experience working with clients. It’s also a good idea to volunteer to design for non-profit organizations to get your name out there.
How to Become a Web Developer?
If you want to become a web developer, you need to have a background in programming. It’s helpful to specialize in a specific programming language. It’s also beneficial to have experience in server administration. You should also have a basic understanding of how the internet works. It’s helpful to make side projects to gain hands-on experience while building your portfolio. You can also volunteer to build websites for non-profit organizations.
Web design and web development are two different areas of expertise. Web design is the process of creating the visual look of a website. Web development is the process of building a website’s underlying code. A person can be a designer or a developer, or both. To become a web designer or web developer, taking a course in the field and having some hands-on experience is helpful.
