When looking for someone to build a website most of the time we're looking for a website designer or developer. Most people don't give it much thought, even as a developer myself I have often enough used these two titles interchangeably but there are a few fundamental differences between the two. Today we'll answer the question what does it really mean to be a website designer or a website developer.
While this topic can be of some debate among professionals, here is a break down the terms, what they mean and how they relate to one another.
While this topic can be of some debate among professionals, here is a break down the terms, what they mean and how they relate to one another.
The Designer
A web designer is to a website what an interior decorator is to room in a house. The web designer chooses where things will go and how they'll be arranged. They will choose aesthetics and color schemes that go together in an eye catching way. However rather than furniture or color swatches the website designer uses graphics and graphic design software (think Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign) to create a look and feel of a website. This design is then tied in with coding (html & Javascript) to give it life as website you or I might interact with on a day to day basis.
The designer however is not always the person writing the code and can even work totally independent of the ones writing the code or will ultimately be responsible for the website. The designer’s job is creative process that uses their imagination and intuition to bring together various parts of a website into a collective whole. Designers can come from practically any background but are commonly associated with graphic design and art in general. A designer will usually showcase their skills with a portfolio containing past works from previous employers to help persuade future prospects of their skills and capabilities.
The designer however is not always the person writing the code and can even work totally independent of the ones writing the code or will ultimately be responsible for the website. The designer’s job is creative process that uses their imagination and intuition to bring together various parts of a website into a collective whole. Designers can come from practically any background but are commonly associated with graphic design and art in general. A designer will usually showcase their skills with a portfolio containing past works from previous employers to help persuade future prospects of their skills and capabilities.
The Developer
While parts of what a developer does might resemble that of what a designer does the two can actually be quite different. Typically a web developer will be responsible for building the underlying code responsible for the functionality of the website. These tools come in the forms of various languages and frameworks such as HTML, Javascript, JQuery, AngularJs and CSS3. Before the prominence of the internet and websites developers, from a historically standpoint, typically didn't focus on making something look visually appealing but create websites with written code. These types of individuals are often more analytical and logical than the more creative web designers. Granted these are generalities among the two types and are hardly set in stone. Web developers will usually have degrees in a variety of fields such as information and computer science or computer engineering. Developers themselves can further be broken down into sub categories such as Front End Developer, UX Developer, Back End Developer and Full Stack Developer to name a few. They all can vary quite a bit but ultimately they can all fall into this bucket save for the fact they the tools, frameworks and languages they will will differ.
The Goal
Despite the differences between the roles of a designer and a developer at the end of the day these two are working towards the single goal of creating an attractive website that attracts and engages its users. This means the website needs to look good and function properly. The colors and imagery need to reflect the brand and the interface needs to encourage visitors to take a desired action, be it calling the business, filling out a form or purchasing a product. Of course nowadays often the defined lines between designers and developers are becoming more blurred as more designers are learning to code and more developers are paying close attention to best practices in design.
Can these two roles really be filled by one person?
Before starting McEachron Website Design Services in the early days of my professional career I strictly considered myself a developer. In particular I was a Java developer which any developer can tell you is a pretty big distinction between other other strict language programmers and most web developers. It wasn't until I started getting involved with working with front end frameworks like Node and AngularJs that I realized that I could apply my knowledge towards building websites. After that I started getting involved with building web apps and UX (user experience) and understanding how users interacted with websites. From there it seemed easy to make the next logical jump in actually making websites for customers.
So in short to answer the question, yes I'd say MWDS is proof that someone can be both a designer and a developer. Don't just take my word for it, see what some of my customers have said about it.
So in short to answer the question, yes I'd say MWDS is proof that someone can be both a designer and a developer. Don't just take my word for it, see what some of my customers have said about it.