The Importance of a Strong Online Presence
In today’s digital era online presence is not just an option it is a necessity. Having a strong online presence Ensures that your brand, business and your personal achievements are visible to the world or the global audience and it makes it easy to stay connected.
For that, websites play a vital role to establish a strong online presence. Well-designed websites can attract visitors, followers and customers which helps convey your message, showcase your ideas or products and build your online presence.
A good looking and responsive website is the combined effort of two key players which are web designer and web developer. A web designer and web developer play an essential role in creating websites however, they both have different responsibilities.
Key Differences: Web Designers and Web Developers
Web Designer:
Visual appeal is the main focus of web designers. This is the person who makes websites look good. Their main focus is to shape, style and overall feel of the website. They basically use tools and resources as per below to create visually appealing websites.
Code Editors and IDEs:
Graphic Design Tools:
Colour & Typography Tools:
User Experience (UX) Tools:
Collaboration & Project Management:
Icon Libraries:
Stock Photos and Images:
Animation and Interaction Design:
Mock up and Presentation Tools:
It is very important to understand that not all web designers do the same job. They have different specializations with certain limitations so that they can focus on one or two aspects of web design.
Below are the types of Web Designer
User Experience (UX) Designer: UX designers mainly focus on websites to look easier and more enjoyable for the end user. On the basis of feedback and info about the customer they mainly focus on design layout and features.
User Interface (UI) Designer: UI designers mainly focus on individual user interaction with your sites. They are mainly focused on how each and every part of your websites will look and feel to the end user as they explore it.
Visual Designer: Visual designers are responsible to handle both user interface as well as user experience. They make things align for the site to look great and work well. They resolve design related concerns and make sure that website is fully functional and looks good.
Web Developer:
Technical expertise, proficiency in coding and building a website from scratch are something web developers are specialized in. They are very sound and their process involves everything from designing the layout, user interface to coding and creating programming functionalities.
They are key people to collaborate or coordinate with Web designers to create web pages based on the design. Developers take designs from designers and convert it to fully functional websites. As web designers focus on visual aspects and web developers bring all those visual aspects to life with their coding techniques and programming language.
Their responsibilities mainly focus on maintaining backend and frontend developments which includes database, servers and integration of applications. Developers ensure websites are functional across devices including desktops, mobile and tablets. They basically use tools and resources as per below to create fully functional websites.
Code Editors and IDEs:
Version Control:
Front-end Development:
Back-end Development:
CSS Frameworks:
Package Managers:
Build Tools:
Local Development:
Databases:
Testing Tools:
Performance & Optimization:
APIs and Services:
Collaboration & Project Management:
Same like web design, web developers also have specialization. Web developers are responsible for building websites with proper understanding of frontend and backend development.
Below are the types of Web Developer
Front-End Developer: A front end developer is a magician or artist who transforms code into user friendly web experience. They are responsible for everything you see on the web and interact with. Their job includes to develop layouts, text style, images, graphics, buttons, and menus. Their main trade tools are HTML, CSS and JAVA scripts. They do not only look for websites’ visual appeal, they are responsible for responsive-ness of the website too.
Back-End Developer: Back end developers are artists behind the curtain. They make sure everything runs smoothly on the website. They are behind the scenes artists of the website. They are mainly server and data side professionals who handle server data storage and ensure everything on the frontend runs smoothly. They are someone whose work is not visible directly however, they create the foundation for the website. Their work is more crucial since they create functionality by writing APIs, creating libraries and managing system components without visual interface.
Full Stack Developer: Full stack developers are someone who has both the qualities of frontend and Backend tasks. They are way more sound that they can handle everything from visual designing on the frontend to handing server side on the Backend.
Web Design or Web Development?
Keeping all the discussion aside there is no one superior role between web designer and web developer. Both have their individual importance to create a fully functional and visually appealing website. If someone is looking to obtain this as a profession then it depends on their own preferences and personal interest. If someone is more into design and user experience, they should choose the role of designer and if someone is more into the coding and technical side of it they should prefer the role of developer.
If you want to hire someone to create a website that is also an individual choice. If your main focus is on the look and feel of the website then you should hire a web designer and if you have an ambitious design project then you probably need to hire a web developer as well to overlook all the development of your site. You should hire someone who can understand your vision and goal to bring it to reality.
