The difference between a web developer and a web designer. How the roles differ.
Will my project need a web developer and a web designer? Most entrepreneurs want a great website for their business and they require features that can automate so many things like emails, payment online, and all of the advanced features on the website.
In this post, we have outlined the things you need to know before you can decide if you need to have web development for your website or all you simply need is web design.
Let’s get started.
These are important questions you need to ask yourself before you embark on your web design project.
What is Web design? To simply explain, the web design process is making your website look fantastic and beautiful.
It doesn’t necessarily mean adding all that advanced automated features that only developers offer. The web designer takes care of the creative side.
Know the difference between web design and development
The web designer takes care of the creative side of the websites they create the user interface That customers see. They add the style, branding, color graphics, and all the style assets you want your customers to see on your site.
They put together your website to have a brand new look and often work with CSS and HTML Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop and then create a functional website for you using these tools.
Don’t get it confused, design and development differ
Adesola
The developer on the other hand works with programming on the backend of your website. They work with tools like Javascript, ruby, python, or PHP to make your customers experience some advanced features like online shopping, membership tools, email address collection, etc email addresses.
Some designers can do some of this as well using platforms like WordPress, Wix, Magento, Show-it, Square space, etc
But if you’re looking to create a custom website with all these features added from scratch you will need a developer.
This is so especially if you want a vast and advanced website, you need a budget for a developer. Check out this client’s website we created. We had the UX design and UI design done and we had the development done as well.
This is not your regular web design so we had to involve development to create all the designed features in the backend.
Now that you know the difference between web design and development you should be able to decide which one you need for your project.
Firstly you need to have your designer or design agency create a scope of the project. This document details all you need to have on your web design project.
Explain to your designer all you would like to have on your website let the designer come up with the scope and create a budget that you can both work with.
The importance of the scope document
The project scope is a document that includes all the requirements the project has to maak your project completed.
Let there be details of design work to be done and if development is needed, the scope doc needs to also add that detail.
Cost and budgeting discussion with your designer
It’s important to review the scope document with your designer to be on the same page and understand the needs of your web design project.
Conclusion
Lastly, the cost of the web design is different from development. The web design project can start from about $5000 upwards while adding web development might cost about $10,000 or less.
So make sure you work directly with your designer to discuss the budget and cost implications of your project if it needs web development or only design.
