Web Design vs Website Development

If you’ve got a website that needs some tender loving care, it’s best to hire a professional to fix the problem for you. Of course, before you can hire a professional you’ll need to know whether your problem calls for the aid of a web designer or a web developer. While these two types of professionals both work on websites, their services and areas of expertise differ widely.

Web Design

Web designers work with anything having to do with the appearance of a website, including the look and feel of the user interface. These professionals are frequently experts in graphic design and branding, and can help you if your website needs a new color scheme, a more professional layout, or even a new logo. Many web designers dabble in technical areas such as basic HTML and CSS, so that they can create a reasonably close mockup of their ideas to demonstrate to clients how the end result will look.

Website Development

While web designers focus on how your website looks, web developers are chiefly involved with making your site work the way you want it to. Most web developers fall into one of two categories: back-end developers, who create processes for managing a website’s data and serving it up as needed, and front-end developers, who manage the code that makes the web designer’s vision a reality.

Of course, in many cases, a website issue will require the help of both a web designer and one or more web developers to resolve. If you’re building a website from scratch, you’ll definitely need to get multiple experts involved in the process. For that reason, any significant website project is best handled by an agency that can provide the services of numerous specialists all in one place. Working with such an agency saves you the time and hassle of shopping around for various individuals, and also helps ensure that all members of your web support team will be able to work together well.