Ever wonder what the difference is between web design and web development? It’s important to know that they are both specialties of their own and can rarely be done to the expert level by one individual. Think of it like building a home. Web designers are the architects and interior designers of the house, while deb developers are the builders. Similarly, web designers are focused on user experience and user interface, while web developers are writing the code and engineering the site. It is integral to have both when it comes to building a website.
What is Web Design?
Website designers are the starting point of any web design process, researching and gaining insight to the client and their audience. Also known as “user experience” (UX) and “user interface” (UI) designers, understanding the primary user is the main goal. They really pay attention to the user journey and how users navigate from one page to another, and design the key call-to-actions such as making a purchase, signing up for a newsletter or even learning more about services offered by a client.
Web designers also make all critical decisions in regards to the visual design such as colours, fonts, navigation menu, button colours, and the sitemap navigation architecture. It’s their job to keep the design easy to use, converting users, and keeping the site on brand.
What is Web Development?
On the other side of the process, a web developer’s job is to take the prototype that the web design team has created and bring it to life by building the website either from scratch or adding onto an already existing theme or template. The web development team utilizes a combination of various coding languages such as PHP, HTML, CSS, and Javascript to ensure the site is functional and also reflects the designs created by the design team. Besides making sure the site is functioning, it is also the responsibility of these Front-End developers to maintain the site and ensure all links, animations, navigation menus, and content are up to date and working properly as well as SEO-optimized.
In addition, web development is not solely based around the development of a site that is optimized for desktop, but also the tablet and mobile devices as well. Some of the specialties of our web development include custom WordPress sites, Shopify websites, and even Squarespace sites.
Benefits of In-House Designers and Developers:
When it comes to designing and developing a website, it is a huge advantage for clients to have both in-house designers and developers communicate and work together on the site because of the ease of collaboration between the two departments. Here at White Canvas, we have a team of web designers and developers who work on projects together in-house, making sure our local talent gets the chance to shine and show off their expertise in each area of the web design and development processes. Having both designers and developers in-house also allows us to meet deadlines through increased productivity and efficiency in a collaborative environment.