Nowadays, websites have become so much more than being an interface. They are a means to a commercial end for businesses globally and in the United States during 2024. Differentiating between Design & Development for websites is important for every business today.

Websites provide businesses with the perfect opportunity to connect with the audience and help in expansion. They have become the doorway to business in today’s digital world. If your business doesn’t have a website, then it’s time you build an online presence for users to interact with.

Interestingly speaking, a lot of people confuse design and development to be the same. In the terminology of design & development, they go hand in hand with each other. They relate in every manner to the extent of being considered the one and same thing.

However, it is not the case. And this article will cite the major difference between the two. Keep reading to understand both concepts and their differentiation. This way you will do differentiating between design & development for websites easily.

Differentiating between Design and Development for Websites
Differentiating between Design and Development for Websites

Treating a Website like a Software Development Project

Currently, the web development industry is worth billions of US Dollars. Today, the website development cycle has also broadened. The majority of website projects are now mapped onto proper software development life cycles with the following phases.

  • Requirements Analysis
  • Design
  • Development
  • Testing
  • Deployment

In the waterfall model, all these phases take place separately. However, now that we are more focused on Agile methodology, the product is developed incrementally. And so is your website where you gradually phase out features. This makes sure that the gradual buildup of your product is based on this iterative approach.

Treating a Website like a Software Development Project
Treating a Website like a Software Development Project

Design draws a blueprint of the Website

The design is all about how is something structured and is ready to be perceived by an eye. On a surface level, any online business or product is all about its color schemes, fonts, images, and content. This is the design or layout of the product that helps user gauge their first impression. It is all about branding or creating the image of your company in the market.

Consider how a logo, choosing specific colors, or creating something different yet cool gives you a market niche. It’s about standing out but at the same time conforming to your true company vision. This makes certain that users see you as a credible, and approachable brand.

Presently, web design has become so much more than a simple website architecture. So, you must dig deeper to grasp its true intent. UI/UX design is the foundation that helps understand how users will navigate through screens and perform actions on the website.

Design draws a blueprint of the Website
Design draws a blueprint of the Website

Creating or Re-inventing you

A lot of times, companies stick to their initial corporate colors to continue the same association they had with users. Take the example of Facebook that sticks to the same blue but brings mild changes to the logo. If you remember the first interfaces of the product and compare them to now, they are extremely different. But the introduction of changes has been subtle to ensure user adaptation.

Sometimes, companies that don’t do too well even want to completely re-invent their image. They rebrand their logo and website with a different color palette and design. This approach may seem drastic at first thought.

But it has its advantages when you re-define your approach to target users in the market. The primary intent of every business and startup is to have a greater web presence. So, if a complete make-over and re-branding help, then so be it.

Tip: Best features of Websites in Digital era

Popular Design Techniques

Realize that design is the narrative behind features and how ultimately, they will be in the product. Website designers work on all these aspects to make sure that the product can be visualized. They try to make it interactive to a certain point in form of a prototype. Website designing has a lot of layers.

  • For starters, there are exclusive Discovery workshops that help in defining the exact needs of the user. This helps in indulging in a variety of creative techniques to understand the business needs. You define user personas that give a very high-level architecture of what the customer wants.
  • There are also special Design sprints that help in laying out the overall wireframes or prototypes for the website. These are like visual aids for making the way for development.
  • The design ultimately becomes the guidelines for the entire product blueprint. It sheds light on not just how the product should look but also how the interfaces should be developed. The design envisions the way users will navigate through a screen and move to another for completing a feature.

Significance of Development for Website implementation

Imagine the direct translation of design in programmable code – that’s development in a crux. Development deals with the programming constructs, the code, and all the fine practices that take place behind the scenes. The development itself is divided into two components.

Significance of Development for Website implementation
Significance of Development for Website implementation
  • Front-end Development
  • Back-end Development

Now, we briefly discuss these two types of web development.

Front-end Development

You create the client-facing interfaces in front-end development. Many web developers are specialized in this line of expertise where they work with a lot of front-end technologies/tools. They create the undertaking of all the designs in terms of the look and feel.

Therefore, they carry out the creation of interfaces including the buttons, fields, and any other controls. The Client-side or front-end is the part that interacts with users and relates with design the most. Front-end developers bring to life the envisioned UI in a format that can work as a product for the users.

Important: Web Design vs Web Development

Back-end Development

Server-side or backend development is the part that connects the front-end or the user-facing interfaces with the processes. This makes sure that any action performed through the UI gives you a response or an action. For example, you input all the fields and then click the submit button. Thus, all the entered data is then successfully stored in the database with a success message displayed to the user.

Back-end developers create the APIs and develop the business logic. They make sure that all the input data or performed action by the user on the interface is stored properly. Besides, they ensure that the process provides the subsequent reaction for the user.

Website undertaking is the coming together of the two components of development. Front-end development and backend development combine to give users a fully functional product/service that works on the required levels. Whereas, full-stack developers have all the necessary capabilities to execute a website project including both client-side development and server-side development.

Develop a Website with user-helpful Design
Develop a Website with user-helpful Design

Conclusion

Remember that design of a certain component, feature, or the entire product always and should take place before development. Design is the navigator and a way to visualize the product. It helps in dictating the development excursion of the project.

Web Developers are specialized resources who solely work in coding the website. While specialized UI/UX designers are there to perform various design activities. They ensure that the company’s branding, look and feel and overall layout is available.

Both aspects of design and development go hand in hand. But everybody needs to know the differences between design and development to realize their scopes. So, their distinction is important to help in a better product narration visually and in terms of code. Hopefully, the concepts in our write-up help you in performing differentiating between design & development for websites more easily.

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