In recent years, most brick-and-mortar businesses have tried to access and build an online presence or website to increase their clientele and reach. However, making your website stand out isn’t easy among thousands of websites.
Your website must be both technically sound and attractively designed to gain success. Besides, it should be visually appealing, simple to use, and straightforward to navigate. Therefore, it is crucial to understand the similarities and differences between web development vs web design, and this article will show you how.
What Is Web Design?
Web design is the process of creating and designing the visual appearance of websites.
This process fundamentally entails focusing on every aspect of a website that consumers interact with to make it user-friendly, effective, and aesthetically beautiful.
Web designing involves creating the layout, graphics, typography, and overall style of the website and determining the user interface and user experience (UI/UX) design.
A good web design can bring considerable benefits to your website performance and your business:
- A lasting impression: Your website serves as the face of your company, and by concentrating on web design, you may provide a solid and engaging first impression.
- Higher search engine rankings: A wide range of components used in web design, such as readability, mobile friendliness, and navigation, can provide your website with higher Google rankings. These components give your audience and search engines more visibility of your site.
- Brand consistency: Your logo, color scheme, and fonts, among other essential components, can help your audience remember your company and distinguish it from thousands of others. A good web designer can integrate all your business’s distinctive characteristics into your website to strengthen the legitimacy of your brand and convey coherence.
- Reduced bounce rates: Visitors are more likely to dig deeper and check out more of your website when it is engaging and immersive. As a result, you also can increase your site’s credibility and ranking.
What Is Web Development?
Web development refers to all the programming that keeps a website running. You can divide it into two groups: front-end and back-end.
The front end or client-facing side is the code that translates website design and visual ideals. They include mockups, typography, and color schemes. Front-end developers will do the task of bringing those mockups to reality by using code. In other words, it is a super connection between design and technology.
On the back end of a program, back-end developers are in charge of managing the business logic and data. They create the routing and APIs needed for data to move between an application’s front and back ends. Besides, they also take care of creating and maintaining website security.
To choose the best technology to achieve the desired look, feel, and experience, the developer must have some UI/UX design knowledge and a grasp of the designer’s intentions.
3 Similarities Of Web Design and Web Development
Web design and web development share some similarities as follows:
Create And Maintain A Positive Online Presence
A positive online presence can help companies reach out to more customers. To achieve that, your website needs to be visually appealing and well-functional. It means that designers and developers must cooperate closely to create a unified plan for the website.
A website would appear impersonal if it lacked a good design. On the other hand, an online presence would only function correctly with web development. An outstanding web experience is the outcome of design and development working together.
Create An Engaging User Experience
The user experience should be your primary concern if you want your website’s visitors to return often. The user experience ensures that customers associate well with the website and product. They will choose another supplier if your site’s user experience cannot satisfy them.
How can web design and development work together? Web design ensures users can easily browse your site, while web development ensures the website functions as planned. They are indispensable parts and support each other to create a robust website. Customers will only value a website if it performs effectively, regardless of how appealing it is.
Require Programming Knowledge
Both web designers and developers must have some programming knowledge to design and develop websites.
Web designers should know HTML, CSS, and JavaScript to propose ideas to the team or improve the UI/UX. You also work frequently with content management services like WordPress or website builders like Joomla!, which enable you to build websites using themes and widgets without writing a single line of code.
Web developers frequently use coding frameworks and libraries, code versioning and issue-tracking software like GitHub and Jira, hosting control panels and FTP clients, and content management systems (CMSs).
Five Main Differences Between Web Design and Web Development
Web design and web development are frequently used interchangeably due to some mentioned similarities. However, each has a distinct meaning, serves a different purpose, and calls for unique technical abilities when applied to a website.
- While web development frequently concentrates on structural design and writing code that makes the website work, web design typically involves more visual design elements, such as graphics and logos.
- Web development is typically handled by programmers proficient in writing original code, while web design is generally carried out by skilled designers familiar with Photoshop and other visual tools.
- Due to the requirement for more intricate visual designs and the need for developers to create code compatible with various devices, web design typically takes longer than web development to complete.
- Businesses that want a new or improved website typically employ web design, whereas those that want a unique application or system created from the start usually hire web development.
- Web design is less prevalent than web development, but it’s becoming more popular because it gives designers more artistic freedom and clients more flexibility.
Frequent Asked Questions
Which is easier, web designing or development?
It depends on your industry and working skills, but web design seems easier than web development for a beginner.
Web developers need to have a strong foundation in technical expertise. It involves being able to comprehend sophisticated programming languages and frameworks. A web designer’s job is more about a website’s aesthetics and creativity than the technical aspects. Therefore, it is easier for a beginner to learn and execute all the tasks.
How to decide between being a web designer or a developer?
Both web designer and web developer jobs are demanding and exciting to step in. However, you should choose the one that fits your skill and feel of interest. If you are interested in practical and technical sites of projects, a web developer is a sensible career choice. On the other hand, if color theory, branding, and creative aspects of creating websites are your interests, a web designer is a more practical career option.
Working for a company providing website management services should be a good option for you to start to do both tasks and study your preferences.
What should marketers know about web design vs. web development?
A marketer should keep some factors regarding web design and development in mind. The first one is the importance of communication with the coder and designer. As you narrow down your quest, you will increase your satisfaction with the outcome. Making a clear sitemap is a fantastic way to ensure that the results meet your expectations.
Additionally, marketers must also keep in mind the importance of mobile device interactions. According to Exploding Topics, 60.67% of all website traffic came from mobile devices in March 2023. Therefore, working with a developer and designer to build a mobile-optimized site will help you guarantee complete client satisfaction across all devices.
In conclusion, web development vs. web design: which one is more important to your business? Both of them are essential steps in the process of developing and sustaining a solid online presence. Despite having the same primary goal, each type has different requirements and degrees of challenge.
As a business owner, you should balance these two kinds to get the most out of the website for user and business benefits. If you are unable to complete these tasks on your own, our website development services with highly qualified experts can help you create a highly effective website at reasonable costs.
Co-Founder & General Manager @ ROI Digitally
3 Common Customer Behaviors & 4 Key Customer Personas