Web Developer vs. Web Designer

The developments that have taken place over the last decade and the rise of ‘the internet of things’ has redefined a wide range of things which include consumer behaviour, job descriptions and business processes among others.

Companies are becoming more and more dependent on the internet to meet their respective business objectives and this has resulted in businesses to rely on good web developers and web designers to make things happen for them. However, with regards to hiring a developer or a designer, things have become complex and obscure as both entities have overlapping functions which in most circumstances could be regarded as redundancy issues and promptly eliminated.

However, when it comes to hiring web developers or web designers, it is not as easy as both have distinct roles to play and these roles crossing each other is inevitable.

First, let us look at what Web Developers typically responsible for; in general, these guys are responsible for creating a fully functional website that is constructed using codes whereas the designer makes sure that the websites is attractive and unique in design.

This is just the tip of the iceberg as apart from just building a site that is functional and unique in design, these two entities are also responsible towards making sure that the website is a success online and in order to do that, both need to consider the structure of the codes that are used and how this would impact the UX (user experience and functionality).

The cross functions would actually require both these professionals to be competent in both computer programming and graphic design which has become a norm in the professional web design and development circuit. Both the services of a web developers and web designer are never actually over because after a site has been created, the rapidly evolving ‘state of the internet’ requires the site to be maintained continuously.

From SEO initiatives to creating new pages with new content that sport new designs and images, their duties are never over. In essence both the developer and the designer will naturally be involved in not just planning and testing these sites that they have worked on over numerous web applications and platforms, they also need to track performance if they are going to make sure that the site is to reach its full potential.

While the developer is required to have in depth understanding on technical elements such as JavaScript, HTML/XHTML, CSS, Server Architecture, python, ruby, PHP, Java, and others, the designer will be tasked with taking care of human factors which include ergonomics and designing the website in manner that would keep visitors in the site for as long as possible using appeal and having an understanding of how the page will be loaded based on how the web developer coded everything into the page.

The duration that people stay on a site and the appeal of the site has been taken to task by search engines and have become a critical aspect of recent SEO algorithms and the days of creating creative and eye-catching websites alone is over as designers must ensure that the right elements on a given site is in the right place which are directly related to user experience.

The necessity for both developers and designers to understand the principles of SEO is unavoidable as simple things such as placement options these days make the difference between a person leaving a site immediately, clicking on something within the site and remaining longer or making purchases which is the ultimate goal of most businesses.

Having sufficient understanding of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) both On- Page and Off-Page SEO elements is critical towards Page Ranking on search engines which in turn are crucial for businesses that are dependent on online consumers.

As most of us perhaps already know that SEO is among the most important factor concerning online traffic and thus both designers and developers must be savvy enough about pulling off each other jobs!

So, how do we solve this predicament? Well, it is quite simple actually. Over the last decade or so new breeds of combined web developer / web designer have been evolving, and these single entities are mostly ‘geek stock’, but they are not only good in what they do, but in fact better and much more cost effective based on the fact that they do 3 things at once:- They develop, design and guide you through digital marketing.

Thus, if you are currently in the process of building, designing a website or have embarked on an online marketing campaign, hire one of these guys who would not just save you a bundle, but also deliver results.