Web Design vs. Web Development: Know Which You Need for Your Business

Knowing whether you need a web designer or web developer for your business can be confusing, especially since both help create your website. Here we take a closer look at what web design and web development are and let you know which professionals you might need for the job.

What Is Web Design?

Web design relates to the visual aspects of a website or app and how its aesthetics plays into the site’s ease of use. To create an appealing and practical layout, web designers consider current design trends, plus industry standards and best practices. This framework helps guide them into making pages that are not only beautiful but elements that help visitors stay on the site for longer.

Besides the overall layout, web designers also ensure that the design elements work well on multiple platforms and devices. Their role can also include various other tasks, like creating web design style guides to maintain visual consistency on all pages and platforms.

There are three types of web designers:

• User Interface (UI) designers optimize a website’s design to increase conversion rates.
• User Experience (UX) designers use data to optimize a website’s design to be more intuitive and engaging for visitors.
• Visual designers create the website’s layout and visual aspects in a way that is both appealing and user-friendly.

What Is Web Development?

Web development refers to the work of building and maintaining a website’s structure through coding or programming. Web developers take what web designers provide them with and use it to create an actual, live site where users can visit and complete tasks. They’ll also do front- and back-end work to set up the needed servers and databases and create the website elements required for functionality.

To make sure the website works and continues to work, as expected, web developers also debug websites and providing ongoing help for hosting and server problems.

There are three types of web developers:

• Back-end developers code the website’s databases, servers, and other components to allow the site to exist.
• Front-end developers code and program the parts of the website that users will see and recognize as a website.
• Full-stack developers code both the back and front end of a website.

Web Development vs. Web Design: How Are They Different?

Web Development

• Relates to a website’s structure and functionality
• Uses complex coding and programming
• Deals with non-design aspects of a site
• Uses tools like CMSs, coding libraries,  and FTP clients

Web Design

• Relates to a website’s visual aspects and ease of use
• Only basic coding needed
• Deals with a site’s appearance, attractiveness, and visual cohesiveness
• Focuses on how users engage with a site

The most significant difference between web design and web development is their purpose. At its core, web design builds a website’s visual appearance, while web development brings that website into existence and makes it functional.

Web design also focuses on creating a site’s overall layout, visual elements, and flow for the user, but it doesn’t use complex coding language to bring the design vision to life. That’s a role reserved for web development, a technical job that doesn’t create a design plan.

Web designers also tend to stick with software like Photoshop, InVision Studio, and Adobe Dreamweaver. Web developers use platforms like Python, Ruby On Rails, and GitHub.

Web Designer vs. Web Developer: Which One Should You Hire?

If you’re not sure whether you need a web designer or developer for the job, here are some tasks you might need to complete on your site and who you should hire.

Hire a web designer if you need to:

• Order and arrange the visual layout of your site’s landing page
• Design the appearance of your brand’s mobile platforms
• Create an eye-catching and responsive website layout
• Increase your website’s user-friendliness or conversion rates
• Revise your site’s design for better search engine optimization.

Hire a web developer if you need to:

• Build a custom website
• Code your website for functionality
• Add custom inquiry forms or live chat functions to your site
• Add animations, videos, or content sliders to your site
• Increase your website’s speed and traffic capacity

Web Design and Web Development Aren’t So Far Apart

Web designers and developers often work together to create a finished website. But it’s not uncommon for freelancers in those industries to have a wide range of skills that encompasses parts of the other. Some web designers, for instance, can do front-end web development, while some web developers know how to incorporate design principles when creating functional websites. Whether you need a web designer, a web developer, or someone who does both, you can find them on Fiverr.

‍