Are web development and web design the same?

Web devel­op­ment and web design are not the same – they’re actu­al­ly very dif­fer­ent fields with­in the realm of dig­i­tal work. Although both work with web­sites, a web devel­op­er will build and main­tain them whilst a web design­er will design their visu­al and use­able ele­ments. Devel­op­ers are more con­cerned with struc­ture and func­tion, while design­ers focus on use­abil­i­ty and aesthetics.

This arti­cle will explain these roles, their dif­fer­ent types, and their respec­tive required skills. You’ll also learn about their salaries and how you can become qual­i­fied to work in either field.

Plus, if you’re look­ing to hire a web devel­op­er or design­er, this arti­cle will enlight­en you about what you should expect from a con­trac­tor so you can get the best out of your work­ing agreement.

First­ly, let’s take a look at web devel­op­ers.

Web devel­op­ers can be cat­e­gorised into three main types:

• Front End Developers
• Back End Developers
• Full Stack Developers

Front-end web devel­op­ers will often col­lab­o­rate with web design­ers as their role large­ly involves the pro­gram­ming and cod­ing of the visu­al ele­ments seen by site vis­i­tors. Front-end devel­op­ers will code the web­site using HTML, JavaScript, and CSS (as well as oth­er languages).

Back-end web devel­op­ers will code the serv­er and data­base with more advanced pro­gram­ming lan­guages (e.g., Java, Ruby, PHP, C#, SQL, and Node­JS). The out­comes of back-end devel­op­ment work aren’t seen by web­site vis­i­tors but instead form the essen­tial “behind the scenes” action.

Full-stack devel­op­ers can do both front and back-end web devel­op­ment as well as set up and con­fig­ure servers and code Appli­ca­tion Pro­gram­ming Inter­faces (APIs).

What skills do web devel­op­ers need?

• Ana­lyt­i­cal and prob­lem-solv­ing skills.
• Be able to code and pro­gram in lan­guages such as CSS, HTML, JavaScript, and PHP.
• Under­stand frame­works such as jQuery.
• Be able to con­duct tests and debug sites.
• Use Chrome DevTools.
• Under­stand databases
• Be pro­fi­cient in Con­tent Man­age­ment Sys­tems such as WordPress.
• Under­stand the impor­tance of SEO and the role web devel­op­ment plays in it.
• Use File Trans­fer Pro­to­col and host­ing con­trol panels.
• Abil­i­ty to col­lab­o­rate with oth­er team mem­bers and clients.
• Maybe use tools and plat­forms such as GitHub or Jira.

Now we’ll look at the role of a web design­er.

There are three main types of web designers:

• UX Design­er
• UI Design­er
• Visu­al Designer

UX design­ers, as the name sug­gests, are involved with “User Expe­ri­ence.” This means their design work is intend­ed to guide, engage, and nur­ture site vis­i­tors to remain on the site, nav­i­gate it eas­i­ly, and ulti­mate­ly make a pur­chase. UX design­ers will use data to make design deci­sions that are proven to pos­i­tive­ly affect the goals list­ed above. UX deals with the users’ expe­ri­ences more gen­er­al­ly than UI design, though both strive to pro­vide a pos­i­tive experience.

UI design­ers deal with the inter­ac­tions users have with soft­ware, com­put­er sys­tems, and appli­ca­tions. UI, stand­ing for “User Inter­face,” means these design­ers are more focused on mak­ing users’ expe­ri­ences more intu­itive through the use of colours, but­tons, and icons.

Visu­al design­ers aim to make web­sites easy to use and aes­thet­i­cal­ly pleas­ing. Their work will use ele­ments from both UI and UX design.

What skills do web design­ers need?

• Use design and edit­ing pro­grams and soft­ware such as Photoshop.
• Use image com­pres­sion and opti­mi­sa­tion tools.
• Com­fort­able with using Con­tent Man­age­ment Sys­tems such as WordPress.
• Pro­fi­cient in colour the­o­ry, brand­ing, and typography.
• Under­stand web acces­si­bil­i­ty standards.
• Knowl­edge of CSS and HTML.
• Under­stand user jour­ney mapping.
• Com­fort­able with Con­ver­sion Rate Opti­mi­sa­tion (CRO).
• Knowl­edge of inter­ac­tion and respon­sive design.
• Under­stand pro­to­typ­ing and wireframing.

Evi­dent­ly, design­ers and devel­op­ers use dif­fer­ent tools and work in dif­fer­ent ways: whilst design­ers work with con­cepts and visu­al ideas, devel­op­ers must use tech­ni­cal and prac­ti­cal meth­ods to com­plete their tasks.

How do design­ers and devel­op­ers collaborate?

When web design­ers come up with artis­tic ideas, they’ll cre­ate a mock-up and send this to the web devel­op­ers. The devel­op­ers will scru­ti­nise this mock-up to deter­mine its plau­si­bil­i­ty – tech­ni­cal­ly and finan­cial­ly. There might have to be a bit of “back and forth” before both par­ties are satisfied.

Once the mock-up is deemed suit­able, devel­op­ers will pro­gram and code the site to match the design­ers’ ideas.

Though their dai­ly tasks look very dif­fer­ent, these two roles must learn to work togeth­er if they are to cre­ate a high-qual­i­ty end result. Both design and devel­op­ment are essen­tial for pro­duc­ing smooth­ly run­ning and aes­thet­i­cal­ly pleas­ing web­sites that pro­vide vis­i­tors with pos­i­tive experiences.

Who earns more: web designer or web developer?

When think­ing about the web design­er vs web devel­op­er salary, it real­ly comes down to the num­ber of years worked (i.e., the expe­ri­ence), the vari­ety of projects that make up one’s port­fo­lio, and the pro­fi­cien­cy to com­plete a ser­vice to a high standard.

Despite the sta­tis­tics that fol­low, the above fac­tors are much more impor­tant in deter­min­ing the kind of mon­ey you can make as a web devel­op­er or designer.

On  Upwork, both web devel­op­ers and web design­ers can be seen to charge between $25 and $150 per hour.

Accord­ing to Indeed, the aver­age UK web devel­op­er’s year­ly salary is £36,906, with Lon­don work­ers earn­ing an aver­age of £52,751 per year. Mean­while, Kin­s­ta reports web devel­op­ers earn, on aver­age, $69,430 before tax­es in the US. Across Europe, Devox Soft­ware reports web devel­op­ers’ year­ly salaries rang­ing from $39,682 (Bel­gium) to $123,947 (Den­mark). So, evi­dent­ly, it real­ly depends on where you live.

Think­ful reports the aver­age US salary for junior web design­ers lies between $42,000 and $62,000, whilst Prospects states UK web design­ers might begin on a year­ly salary of £24,000 and earn upwards of £45,000 per year in senior roles. Euro­pean web design­ers are best off work­ing for Swiss, Ger­man, and Swedish clients, as Hongki­at reports, with annu­al salaries in these coun­tries reach­ing $77,000, $47,000, and $43,000, respectively.

Evi­dent­ly, dif­fer­ent sites report dif­fer­ent rates, which makes it dif­fi­cult to be spe­cif­ic about salaries. Com­par­a­tive­ly, though, start­ing rates tend to be high­er for web devel­op­ers due to their high­ly-prized cod­ing skills – an essen­tial abil­i­ty in today’s dig­i­tal land­scape. Nev­er­the­less, both types of con­trac­tors can make decent mon­ey once they’re well-established.

Fur­ther­more, since many devel­op­ers and design­ers are free­lance, their suc­cess will also depend on their abil­i­ty to adapt to the demands of self-employ­ment. These demands will vary from being able to self-moti­vate, pro­mote them­selves, fig­ure out their tax­es, and bal­ance work from mul­ti­ple clients.

Afford­ing a design­er or developer

How can com­pa­nies hire tal­ent­ed con­trac­tors with­in budget?

It’s com­mon for com­pa­nies to out­source web devel­op­ment and design work to per­son­nel liv­ing in poor­er coun­tries, as they tend to pro­duce high-qual­i­ty work for con­sid­er­ably low­er rates than those liv­ing in wealth­i­er countries.

One side effect of this pat­tern lies on the con­trac­tors’ side of things. Work­ers from all over the world might find them­selves in a high­ly com­pet­i­tive jobs mar­ket as they’re being under­cut by tal­ent­ed work­ers sell­ing their ser­vices for cheap­er. Of course, this is the nature of the gig econ­o­my; devel­op­ers and design­ers are not exempt from the issues it poses.

Design­ers and devel­op­ers in this sit­u­a­tion can prove their worth by build­ing a list of sat­is­fied clients, a pro­fes­sion­al-look­ing web­site, and an impres­sive portfolio.

If you’d like to hire a high-qual­i­ty devel­op­er or design­er, but you’re on a bud­get, you should­n’t expect it to come cheap. These work­ers spend years hon­ing their skills, and if you want to hire some­one with a track record of good results, then it’s going to come at a high­er cost.

Though you can out­source work­ers from poor­er coun­tries, your rates should­n’t be so low that they’re dis­re­spect­ful. Pro­fes­sion­al design and devel­op­ment work are prized and hard-earned, and your bud­get should reflect this. If you invest in some­one at a fair rate, you’ll see an even big­ger return.

Since many busi­ness own­ers don’t have web devel­op­ment or design skills of their own, out­sourc­ing is an inevitabil­i­ty. But since these roles can have huge­ly pos­i­tive impacts on SEO, user expe­ri­ence, and web­site func­tion, their val­ue can’t be underestimated.

Can a web developer also be a web designer?

Tech­ni­cal­ly, a free­lancer can offer a vari­ety of dif­fer­ent ser­vices to their clients, and it’s very com­mon for web devel­op­ers and design­ers to under­take this type of employ­ment rather than more con­ven­tion­al channels.

How­ev­er, as dis­cussed above, these two job roles have very dif­fer­ent skill require­ments. Web devel­op­ers tend to be more ana­lyt­i­cal and enjoy the tech­ni­cal aspects of their jobs. On the oth­er hand, web design can attract cre­ative peo­ple despite there being some tech­ni­cal ele­ments to the role.

Web design­ers will nev­er have to mas­ter com­plex pro­gram­ming lan­guages, and web devel­op­ers aren’t expect­ed to have an artis­tic side.

Most indi­vid­u­als will be bet­ter suit­ed to one or the oth­er – rarely both. Plus, mas­ter­ing one skill is dif­fi­cult and mas­ter­ing two is almost unheard of.

Nev­er­the­less, if you find that your ana­lyt­i­cal and cre­ative sides are fair­ly bal­anced and that you’ll enjoy both – why not go for it? Free­lancers that sell a vari­ety of ser­vices can be extreme­ly pro­duc­tive since their work is var­ied and rarely monotonous.

If you’d like to pur­sue one or both of these roles, read on to learn how to get started.

Pursuing a career in web development or design

If you like the sound of both careers but can’t decide which one to go for, why not take a web devel­op­er or web design­er course? Then you can make an informed deci­sion after expe­ri­enc­ing both and choose the one you enjoy most.

If you’re inves­ti­gat­ing how to become a web design­er, you might like to do an inten­sive course. Some of these take only twelve weeks to com­plete, and par­tic­i­pants leave them ready to take on design jobs.

Learn how to use the tools

New­bies will want to famil­iarise them­selves with web design tools such as InVi­sion Stu­dio, Word­Press, Sketch, Google Web Design­er, Dreamweaver, and Photoshop.

Study web design theory

Web design the­o­ry will teach the fun­da­men­tal prin­ci­ples of cre­at­ing great sites. These prin­ci­ples include things like:

• Colour the­o­ry
• User expe­ri­ence
• User nav­i­ga­tion
• Web­site purpose
• Use of typography
• Use of imagery
• Impor­tance and imple­men­ta­tion of visu­al hierarchy
• F‑Shaped pat­tern reading
• How dif­fer­ent devices (e.g., com­put­ers and phones) change aspects of web design

Create a portfolio

Once you com­plete your course in web design, under­stand the fun­da­men­tal prin­ci­ples, and can find your way around some essen­tial tools, your next step will be to build a portfolio.

Putting your new­found knowl­edge into prac­tice will help sharp­en your skills as well as cre­at­ing a port­fo­lio of work you can show to prospec­tive clients.

Apply to jobs

Your next step will be to apply for jobs and start work as a web design­er! You can go free­lance or choose to work in-house or via an agency, and choose between UX, UI, and Visu­al Design.

Those who want to learn how to become a web devel­op­er fast might opt for a cod­ing boot camp since these can teach skills very quickly.

Learn coding languages

New­bies should learn the fun­da­men­tal aspects of web devel­op­ment, begin­ning with cod­ing lan­guages such as CSS, HTML, and JavaScript.

Choose a specialism

Choos­ing a spe­cial­ism will deter­mine your next steps. Would you like to be a front-end, back-end, or full-stack devel­op­er? Front-end devel­op­ers should learn about a site’s design and lay­out, as well as how vis­i­tors inter­act with it. Com­par­a­tive­ly, back-end devel­op­ers should learn about how sites func­tion – net­works, host­ing, data­bas­es, and servers. Those who wish to pur­sue full stack devel­op­ment will have to learn both.

Learn about web design

It’s help­ful if devel­op­ers (espe­cial­ly front-end devel­op­ers) have some web design skills. Though you won’t be asked to design entire web­sites, under­stand­ing the fun­da­men­tal prin­ci­ples of web design will give you a tighter grasp of what con­sti­tutes user-cen­tric devel­op­ment and design.

Learn the “hard” skills

When you’re a spe­cial­ist, you can choose which pro­gram­ming lan­guages to use depend­ing on what works best for you. But before you reach this stage, you’ll have to do a lot of prac­tice. Mess­ing about with cod­ing and web­sites will improve your skills. Soon, you’ll learn the “hard” skills such as pro­gram­ming in Python or SQL. You’ll learn to use the jQuery library of func­tions and Git.

Build a portfolio

Before you can land those high-val­ue clients, you’ll have to build a port­fo­lio. Try to make it as diverse as pos­si­ble to show you’re ver­sa­tile. Your work should demon­strate your sol­id under­stand­ing of the dif­fer­ent aspects of web devel­op­ment, but it does­n’t have to list every job you’ve ever worked on.

When you apply for dif­fer­ent jobs, you can adapt your port­fo­lio to suit the client. After a lit­tle research, you should under­stand what they’re look­ing for and edit your port­fo­lio so that it appears as rel­e­vant as possible.

Keep up with industry changes

Since things can change in the web devel­op­ment world – i.e., tools, trends, and pro­gram­ming lan­guages – web devel­op­ers must keep up. This might involve retrain­ing or sim­ply keep­ing an eye on changes via forums.

Should I hire a web developer or a web designer?

If you need to hire a devel­op­er or design­er, you have the bud­get, and don’t want to do it your­self – then you should! You’ve prob­a­bly already worked out which one you need from the infor­ma­tion above, but put simply:

You’d hire a web devel­op­er if you’re hav­ing prob­lems with the func­tion of your site. Maybe it’s run­ning slow­ly, you’ve got bugs, or you’d like to re-devel­op the entire thing. If you’ve got a mock-up from a design­er, you’d hire a devel­op­er in this instance to make the mock-up a reality.

You’d hire a web design­er if you want to rebrand or make your site more user-friend­ly. If you’ve had feed­back that said your site was­n’t very trust­wor­thy, then you’d hire a design­er to improve this.

Benefits of hiring a web developer:

• They’ll lay out a strate­gic plan
• High-qual­i­ty web devel­op­ment can have a pos­i­tive impact on SEO
• They can be on hand to fix prob­lems when they arise
• Saves time
• Improved web­site speed

Benefits of hiring a web designer:

• Your web­site’s design will be high-qual­i­ty and user-friendly
• User-friend­ly web design can mas­sive­ly ben­e­fit SEO
• They’ll make your site com­pat­i­ble with dif­fer­ent devices
• Saves time
• They’ll keep your site up to date and trendy
• Good web design means cus­tomers trust you

Now that you know the dif­fer­ences between these two skills, your next steps will either be to start the hir­ing process or to pur­sue cours­es to become qual­i­fied in one of them.

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