To many people, the terms web design and web development are pretty much the same. That couldn’t be farther from the truth. Web designers have completely different skills and roles than web developers. So, what is the difference between web design and web development? Read on to find out.
 
Web Design
The biggest element of web design is a visual one. This means that web design is all about what the user sees when they visit the website. Web designers create a visually appealing design so users enjoying looking at the site. This all has to do with format, layout, colors, photos, you name it. Any design component you can see on a website is there because of web design.
 
Main Roles of a Web Designer
Wed designers use software tools like Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, or Sketch to build the final design of the website. Their graphic design skills allow them to identify the best approach to attain the desired function of any particular site. This includes things like layout, buttons, images, and the general format. They have to keep themselves informed of the latest trends as well as the branding of the website they are working on.
 
Web Development
Web development is all about taking the web design and turning it into a live website. Web developers use web languages and software tools to actually develop the functionality of the site. There are two types of developers: front-end and back-end. Front-end developers build a fully working website by communicating between the web designer and back-end developer.
 
Main Roles of a Web Developer
Web developers use tools like HTML, Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), and JavaScript (JS) as languages to build the site. The front-end developer uses styling preprocessors, javascript libraries, and frameworks to speed up the process of development. Back-end developers create the backbone of the site using languages like PHP and MySQL. The two then work together to code and build the structure for the website.
 
So, what is the difference between web design and web development? The biggest difference is what you see versus what you don’t see. Web designers create the visual, and web developers make it happen. An average of 12 billion searches are conducted every month on the web in America. Web designers and web developers work together to make sure the websites people are searching for look great and function well.