What is the Difference Between Web Development And Web Designing?

What are the differences between web development and web designing? A lot of aspiring engineers, designers, and businesses might wonder about this quite often.   

Thus, we thought of answering the question for them in this blog and helping them uncover the magic of web development and leverage this technology for their academic or business endeavors.    

Website or web development has been the traditional means to offer products and services using the internet. The technology has evolved with time with new concepts such as PWA (progressive web apps), responsive websites, etc., adding to its functionality every now and then.   

These platforms provide a comprehensive view and understanding of a business to its customers and produce informed decisions. Web designing and development facilitate this experience and ease of business, among other processes. Thus, the website development costs are all worth it! 

Before diving into their differences, let’s look at the concepts first.   

What is Web Development?  

Web development, as the term suggests, refers to the coding part of the web development process that brings a business idea to life. Web development facilitates the functionality aspect of a website or web app.   

It is divided into two categories namely the front-end and back-end. The former is the client side of the app and determines how the design mock-ups could be displayed for maximum impact. The latter, on the other hand, also called the server side of an app, looks after data management within the database and supplies that data to the front-end developers.   

Front-end developers have a lot of roles and responsibilities that overlap with that of web designers. These developers use tools and technologies such as HTML/CSS/JavaScript, Git, and GitHub, and frameworks like AngularJS, ReactJS, etc.   

While back-end developers make use of tools and technologies such as programming languages for custom software development like PHP, Python, Java, C#, restful APIs, database management systems like MySQL, MongoDB, etc.

What is Web Designing?  

Web design handles the visuals, aesthetics, and usability of a website or a web app. From color scheme, images, and layout, to all the other aspects of UI/UX design, is worked out and managed by web designers.   

The two goals of web designing are to make the web product visually appealing and functionally digestible. The UI/UX designers must ensure that the web app or site leaves the user with a positive experience.   

Web designers too, use HTML, CSS, and JavaScript to create mock-ups of a web app while pitching an idea to the web developers or improving the UI/UX of an app. 

Therefore, web development and web designing are crucial aspects of a web/product development process, having separate design and dedicated development teams.   

Moving forward, we would look at the difference between web development and web designing.   

Web Development vs. Web Design

Although web development and web designing are parts of a web development process and work in tandem with each other, they are completely different functional phases.   

The key differences between web development and web designing are as follows:   

• Web developers focus on the functionality aspect of the web app while web designers decide the appearance and usability of the product.   

• Web designers conceptualize the idea and appearance of a web product as per business requirements. A mock-up defining the visual, UI/UX elements is created thereafter. While web developers check the financial and technical viability of the mock-ups before programming and coding the product. They translate the designer’s wireframes and mock-ups into code using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.  

• Web developers need to be technically sound, while web designers need not have technical skills. Some technical knowledge may help them to design the apps better, however, it’s not a necessity. Their role requires a little bit of research and analysis and creative thinking.   

• Web development includes three profiles: front-end, back-end, and full-stack developers. While web designing involves profiles for UI, UX, and visual/graphic designers.   

• The tools and technologies used by web developers include back-end programming languages, frameworks, issue-tracking platforms such as GitHub and Jira, CMSs, etc. While web designers typically make use of design editing software such as Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, CMS such as WordPress or Joomla!, and website builder like Elementor, in addition to wireframing and prototyping tools.  

• Web development resources are costlier than web designing resources. However, the global demand and opportunities for both web design and development specialists are plenty high due to digitalization. In fact, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts the web development field will increase by 13% between 2018 and 2028 — much faster than the national average for all jobs. 

Tabular Representation of Differences:

The table below gives the differences between web development and web designing:

Parameters	Web Development	Web Designing
Technical requirements	Requires writing codes.	Does not require coding. Requires creative thinking and research and analysis skills.
Focus	Focuses on functionality and structure.	Focuses on design, appearance, and usability. Control the flow of information and sometimes website analytics.
Elements	Includes elements like programming, SEO, optimization, CMS operations, structure	Includes elements like layout and design, branding and colors, graphics, hierarchy, navigation, accessibility, website speed
Role played	Check the financial and technical feasibility of the mock-up and writes code thereafter	Creates visual, UI/UX elements mock-up
Tools and programs	Coding libraries and frameworks, issue tracking platforms, version control systems, text editors, command line interface, CMSs	Design editing software, CMS, website builder
Profiles	Front-end developers Back-end developers Full-stack developers	UI designers UX designers Visual/Graphic designers

Conclusion 

Although web design vs. web development has conceptual differences and roles and responsibilities that need technical and creative knowledge and skills, however, web developers and web designers work alongside each other to create the most suitable and practical web apps and sites.  

The coordination and collaboration between these two teams are of utmost importance to justify the idea and its development. While web designers must transform the business idea into the most appealing and usable app, web developers must perfect the functionality. And for this, they need to work closely with each other and create synergies.  

Thus, it is important for businesses to choose the most appropriate and experienced web development service providers and teams.  

BigOhTech is one such leading and trusted web development partner. We offer custom, progressive as well and responsive web app development for the modern businesses and their users.  

So, why wait? Get your stunning custom website/app today!