Difference Between Website Design And Website Development. How To Maintain Balance In Both
It can be observed by looking at Google Analytics that various businesses and companies are searching for both Web Design Company and Web Development Company. Both these terms are kind of interchangeable and are termed "web companies". But both these terms have different significance and they both are two fundamentally different aspects of the website building process which require requiring two different and unique skill sets. It is important to know the difference when you are looking for someone to design and develop your company's website? Let's start with the discussion.
Web Design vs. Web Development in A Nutshell
Let us first see what website designing actually is? Website designing is concerned with both, the aesthetic portion and the usability portion of the website. Various software such as adobe photoshop, illustrator, DreamWeaver and much more software are used to develop the website layout and its other visual elements by the web designers.
On the other hand, it is the job of the website developers to take the website design and create a functioning website from it. HTML, JavaScript, PHP, CSS and other programming languages are used to bring to life the design files by the website developers.
Web Design
It is the job of Web designers to always begin by considering the client's website objective. Then they can move on to an Information Architecture (IA) so that they can set a website's information hierarchy. This website information hierarchy helps the designing process and is used as a guide.
Web designers then start creating the wireframes. And finally, they move to the designing stage. Web designers make use of several basic design principles so that they can achieve and provide the web developer with an aesthetically pleasing website that offers an excellent user experience.
Some design principles followed by web designers are discussed here;
- Balance : The creation of a balanced layout is the first aspect to take care of. In web design, a balance of heavy (dark colour) and light (light colour) elements are preferred.
- Contrast : Contrasting colours are used to stand out. Two colours are contrasting when the colours are placed opposite one another on the colour wheel on the colour board. Designers use contrasting textures, sizes and shapes to define and draw attention to some specified sections of the website.
- Emphasis : Emphasis is highlighting the content. In the design principle, "highlighting" certain important elements of the website layout will make the content stand out. It is quite important to note that you cannot emphasize everything on the page, if you do so you end up emphasizing nothing. For instance, If in a book 80% of the content is highlighted in red or yellow, anything special does not stand out.
- Consistency : Also known as repetition or rhythm. It is an important aspect of the critical web design principle. Therefore, it is the job of the designers to be consistent with the contents and the design
Web Development
Web developers are also called programmers. They take the design from the designer and then with the help of the above-mentioned software, they build a website, which is fully functional. The designs developed by the designers are the non-interactive version of the website, a web developer brings life to the website and makes it functional.
It is the job of the developers to take the provided design and break it up. Then they use either HTML or a more dynamic approach for incorporating the programming languages like PHP so that various website pages can be developed. In order to streamline the development of the website and allow clients to have access to an easier way of maintaining and updating the website, some advanced web developers use Content Management systems (CMS) like WordPress or Joomla.
It is also the job of the web developers to have active states for links and buttons to use various reference images and content sliders, and other interactive elements, the static designs become dynamic one.
Conclusion
Many companies or people looking for a website designing company or simply want to re-design their existing website may find both the term "web design" and "web development" confusing. There are individuals who can do both, companies generally have dedicated designers who can create the layout for the website, and then hand those designs and files to the web developer, who then completes the development stage of the website. Hopefully, this article was helpful to you, you got a clear vision of both these terms and you are able to clear out the confusion.
