With companies continuously stressing the importance of “finding the right place” or niche within your market space, additional strategies for differentiating your brand from the competition come to mind. Because of this, companies and organizations often aim to create their own sect within the marketplace, using new terms or new ways of showcasing their services. However, oftentimes, this leads to added confusion. One such example of this confusion involves Website Design vs. Website Development.
After all, you’ll need to know the difference between the two if you’re looking to build your own website, or hire a company that can do it for you.
This Corner: Website Design
Website Design basically refers to the part customers or users see—the end game, at least visually. It includes anything aesthetic that appears across the site. Web designers leverage software programs like Adobe Photoshop or InDesign to build the visual framework of the website, layout ideas, and other various designs. This includes everything from color schemes and whitespace, to usability and wireframes.
Your website designer should be focused on how the site looks, and how your customers are able to interact. Remember, that website designers deal with the artistic aspects, so they need to have an understanding of the audience, who they are, why they’ve come, and how to help inform them with visual cues as to where they need to go on the website. Each site should have a purpose, and every tactic should question why this matters to the sites’ bottom line.
This Corner: Website Development
Website Development is, in a way, the other side of website design. Developers concern themselves with programming with a focus on how visitors are able to engage with the site. Developers are generally well versed in Javascript, HTML, PHP, and other programming languages. With these languages, developers are able to take the design of the website designer, and transform it into a fully functional addition to the World Wide Web.
Web Developers often have a better understanding of the functions of the site, including web forms and continuous maintenance. They’re the ones to ask about internal site issues, because they build the backend that makes your site tick and tock, as there is more to launching a site than hitting a button that says, “Publish.” It involves the handling of web traffic, functional frameworks, integration with social media, and so much more.
Blurred Lines (Hey, Hey, Hey)
So, obviously website design and website development each have their specific tasks when it comes to building a quality website, but it’s important to know the difference between each as well. While the two get interchanged often (we see it all the time with clients), it could be dangerous to assume that each had the others qualities. That being said, both designers and developers are tasked with knowing both sides of the coin.
You’d be hard pressed to find a designer who didn’t have a working knowledge of HTML and Java, just as much as it’d be hard to find a developer who wasn’t aware of some of the fundamentals of design. The trick is getting both to work in unison to produce an exemplary product. Nobody wants to peruse a website that looks terrible, just as much as no one wants to go to a site that’s beautiful and completely un-functional.
