subject: The Difference Between Web Design And Web Development [print this page] In the field of website production, the terms web design and web development are often used interchangeably. But there are some differences between them in terms of their objectives. While web design is concerned with the front end design, web development is all about site"s functionality.
There are four main tasks concerned with the operations of a website. They are""
Look and feel: Look and feel of the website is what you see when a website is opened in a browser, i.e. the overall appearance. Web designers should possess skills of color and graphics management, page layout and design, and basic skill of typography to give the website awesome look and feel.
Content: Content is very important as far as web designing is concerned. It gives the users all the information. The content should be short, ethical and very informative, so that the viewer can get an overall idea for what they are looking for in very short time.
Functionality: Functionality is a part of web development. It includes adding interactive features to the website. Various tools and technologies like programming language such as Java, PHP, and Perl and database management system are used for creating backend applications. It is very important as the main objective of the website is achieved through the backend development.
Usability: Usability is similar like software testing. This part of web development is concerned with testing the interactions of the newly developed websites such as the design issues, performance issues, and proper functionality of the website.
As you can see, there is a lot of overlap and integration of the web designing and development tasks are needed for production of any website. If there is any kind of lack of communication between the two, a real mess can occur.
It is quite impossible for just one individual or team to do all the things efficiently. While the web designers have to be proficient in graphic designing software, HTML, CSS, AJAX, jQuery and other tools, the web developer should possess expertise in server programming and techniques of database management systems. These are two distinct fields and require different set of skills. But the communication is very much necessary between them in order to avoid disaster.
The bottom line is that web designing and web development are inseparable and they must be done in complete harmony, only then the website can fulfill the objective for what it was created in the first place.
