What is the difference between a web developer and a web designer?

Have you ever thought about people who are behind providing excellent operation of the website you surf every day? These people are web developers and web designers that aim to ensure a great experience for you.

Many people are wondering what role is more vital when creating a website from scratch – a web developer or maybe a web designer. This question does not have any right answers as these two specialists that work in a single software development team have absolutely different roles and tasks that bring the same values to the development process.

No web application development company is considered full-fledged without any of these specialists. The tasks of web developers and web designers are correlated and complement each other.

Further, we would like to highlight what responsibilities web developers and web designers have and find out what the main distinctions between them are.

Web developers

Web developers are specialists who directly write and maintain the code of the web-based software solution. Web developers are responsible for turning the web designer’s ideas and layouts into reality considering all details and requirements. They are technical specialists that master different advanced programming languages and execute technical tasks of diverse levels of complexity, added Wakefield web developers. Web developers can be divided into 2 groups that we are going to discuss further.

Front-end developers

This group of web devs is responsible for the client-side interface of the application, meaning they determine how the web designer`s mockup will actually look like. Front-end developers are not tasked to select the suitable colors, schemes, and patterns, they only execute all these details that have been already chosen by a web designer previously. However, front-end devs should be aware of the best UI\UX practices to know what tool and technology to use when building the interface. Among these tools and technologies we would like to mention:

• frameworks;
• libraries;
• HTML\CSS;
• Javascript.

Back-end developers

This developer group is responsible for the server-side of the solution, meaning the part of the application that remains invisible for users, particularly managing data that will be displayed to the front-end with the use of the following programming languages:

• PHP
• SQL
• Java
• Ruby 
• NodeJS

Let’s take everything into account and highlight what parts of the development process web developers are tasked to execute:

• creation of a user-friendly app interface with the use of HTML\CSS and Javascript programming language;
• provide the high loading speed of interface despite the choice of browser or device;
• correlation of interface (front-end) and backend content to provide a great customer experience;
• create the application that corresponds to the web designer`s concept.

Full-stack developers

Full-stack web developers are a combination of front-end and back-end skills and can write code for both sides of the application – client as well as server-side. The peculiarity of this developer group is that they are tasked to be aware of the functionality and frameworks that will be needed for building the whole app.

Web designers

A web designer is tasked to generate and develop ideas on how the future application will look like. Web designers have a very responsible task to create a user-friendly, modern, and appropriate app interface that would be possible to execute by web developers. The key to the success of designing the future solution is the creation and following the accurate plan with the consistent steps that each of the specialists engaged in the project should perform. Web designers should think of any tiny detail, button, and other elements that will be shown for users, describe how they should respond and what layout it should have.

As you may know, the website design is the first thing that attracts or discourages users and potential customers, so it is important to provide the best UX they have ever had to make these users stay or come back to your website.

Web designer`s responsibilities are the following:

• be aware of how the website actually performs to provide the executive website` layout for web developers;
• use the effective and modern tools to design website pages` mockups;
• ability to create an easy and simultaneously creative interface to attract more users and make their experience pleasant;
• make all website`s elements corresponding to each other to create a logical general picture;
• basic knowledge of SEO to build the appropriate and trendy design layout.

The difference between web dev and web design

Here comes a consequent question what are the main points that differ the tasks of web developers and web designers, and what role is more important in the software development lifecycle. 

These differentiators are the next:

• the key difference between devs and designers is their primary aim, web designers are tasked to create a user-friendly, trendy and convenient for users exterior of the website, and web developers aim to perform all these features into reality and make them functional;
• web designers are concentrated only on the appearance of the website including all visual elements in a harmonic way; web developers know all about writing code and care only about the technical part, so both of them should correlate to release a highly functional solution, consequently, the web designer should know how the website works, and web developers should deepen their programming skills to execute the website mockups;

• web designers can be split into three groups just like web developers, particularly UX, UI, and visual designers;
• web devs and web designers execute their tasks in absolutely different tools so they have to find ways of exchanging and awareness of the project information.

There is no right answer to who – web dev or web designer – plays a more vital role in the software development process. Web developers and web designers belong to a single development team where each professional has only one goal – successful product delivery. GBKSOFT team has developed and successfully launched dozens of custom software solutions of different types. So feel free to contact our team if you are ready to turn your website idea into reality.