What is the difference between web design and web development

09 September 2011

When you browse the Internet you always come across various websites that look really outstanding. Every bit on information is clearly there to be seen without having to search for it.

The site is uncluttered and pretty self explanatory but more importantly it catches your eye because it really does look good. You can bet your bottom dollar that the site has been created by a web designer, by someone who really knows how to make websites look brilliant. This is because they have a background in graphic design which is a very necessary skill when it comes to creating good looking websites.

The website may look brilliant but you then notice that although everything needed to make it look good is on the site, it does not actually work that well. The chances are that although the web designer used his graphic skills to build the site he lacked the necessary Web development skills to make it work as well as it could.

A web developer has background knowledge in programming which basically means he is extremely skilled at making the site work very well.

The problem is that he does not have the necessary graphic design background to make the website he has built look that good which often results in the fact that it looks a little or very often, rather unprofessional.

Web development means knowing about programming, coding and computer languages which are all very vital to making a website run well but it can be a wasted effort if the site lacks any appeal. Most people who are browsing the Net jump quickly away from unattractive and complicated pages because these confuse them or even bore them. It is often the case that they do not even attempt to navigate through the site and just leave it to go to another website.

This in fact means that you need a good web designer to create a great looking website for you to get the people onto it. Then you need to keep them there and the only way of successfully doing this is to ensure that a web developer has made the site work for you.

These two very different skills are vitally important to creating a website that actually works and which attracts viewers to first enter onto the site and then keep them interested in staying on the page they are viewing. Visitors need to be tempted into going onto a following page as this means you have got them hooked.

Web design and web development go hand in hand to create the perfect website, but they are two very different skills which need to be combined in order for it to happen successfully. The need to have better presented websites that work really well has become a vital part of how they are received by the audiences they attract.

Technology has advanced to levels never before known and as such web developers need to be in step with what is now available to them. The same goes for the graphics used on websites which are now high definition 3D effects which is what makes the look of a website look so great these days. A web designer is very conscious of these new innovations and incorporates them into the designs they create.