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Basic differences between web designer and web developer

Neha sharma 3 Stories

Sunday September 03, 2017 , 3 min Read

Difference Between Web Designer and Web Developer

Web Design and Web Development are two things that are really important for a website to grow and flourish, to make a website that is easy to use as well as well as aesthetically pleasing to the people looking at it. But people often confuse the two terms and use them interchangeably, which is wrong. Here we tell you something about both these fields, web designing as well as web development and how the two are used to create and beautify great websites.

Web design is something that basically takes care of various disciplines and skills that are required for the maintenance of websites. There are many parts of this discipline such as authoring, which includes proprietary software, interface design, graphic design. SEO and user experience designs that are taken up individually by various designers. Here, we explain the responsibilities of both the web designer and web developer by taking an example of both buildings a car together.

Difference Between Web Designer and Web Developer

A web developer is responsible for the fitting and efficient working of the engine, the wheels, transmission etc. so as to bring a fully functional car that has no technical glitches. Whereas a Web Designer is responsible for the aesthetics of the car, all about the comfort for the user, the foam in the seats, the leather, all the things on the dashboard etc.

Now that you are a bit clear about the profiles of the two, let’s talk about the tools used by the two professions.

Web developers use HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language), CSS (Cascading Style Sheets), JavaScript and other programming languages to create websites and applications. Be it user authentication or other technical aspects related to websites such as email services, databases etc. everything is done by web developers using software such as command line interface etc.

Web Designers, however, have a different profile. They don’t need to know all this coding that is used to build websites, but they are the ones responsible for making sure that the website is aesthetically pleasing and user-friendly (the comfort of the seats). They use graphic design software such as Adobe Photoshop, Inkscape, GIMP, and Illustrator. They are responsible for the layout of the site and the controlling the flow of information too.

When we talk about how much do the two professions fetch out from the industry, one big source of information for pay scales tells that the average pay for a web designer is about 46,000$ per anum, whereas 56,000$ is what a web developer gets. However, this is an average of what one might get. There are a lot of factors such as the experience and skillset of the person as well as location, where people are in these professions etc. But both professions are just like the duo of zebras and ostriches that travel together so as to stay alive.

When we talk about both these professions, having a really strong portfolio is really important. Both need to have some work to showcase to their clients so as to get work from both of them. Web Developers depend on GitHub.com in order to show their work of coding work, showing how the developer can make their site look regal to other developers or the people that they are freelancing for. Whereas Web Designers showcase their talent with the help of websites such as Behance.com and Dribble.com. Be it their proficiency in graphic design ability or the creativity that they have, all can be shown to their clients through these sites.

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