Understand Your Needs: Web Designer or Web Developer

 This blog post is an effort to help our clients understand their needs better. Planning is key to successful execution so we encourage our clients to carefully determine the goals and needs of their project first before they come to us to inquire/sign up for a particular service. Seeing their list of goals and needs help us come up with targeted recommendations. Similarly, equipping them of the understanding of the difference between Web Development and Web Design will help us determine the focus of our work and assign the right expert for the job.

Web Design and Web Development are often used interchangeably even by many Internet professionals. Experts of the mentioned fields may have common tools and skill sets but this doesn’t mean that a Web Designer will make for a good Web Developer and vice versa. The best way to explain this is to define Web Design and Web Development.

Web Design is about design! Web Design is responsible for the face of the Website— its look and feel. Web Design decides the colors, fonts, images and graphics of the site. It focuses on user-experience, aesthetics and (even) marketing. Web Design is the creative side of Website creation.

Web Development, on the other hand, is about features and functionality. Web Development is responsible for a Website’s CMS, database applications and e-commerce needs. Web Development decides which programming tools will be used to produce the features and functions needed for the site. Its focus is on back-end programming. Web Development is the ‘more’ technical side of Website creation (Web Design is technical in many ways, too).

It is likely that you will find a Web Designer and a Web Developer in one person. Some of them are skilled workers in both fields, but many only claim a place in both worlds. This makes your understanding of the difference between Web Design and Web Development critically important to the success of your Website creation project. Hire a Web Designer if your project’s focus is the ‘face’ of your Website. If focus is on features and functionality, consider hiring a Web Developer. In cases where both is needed; hiring a Web Designer and Web Developer in one is an option but work to fully understand the requirements of your project to be able to make a smart hire. Know the skills and tools that your project requires and hire a candidate who is proficient on them. If resources permit hiring a Web Designer and a Web Developer separately, then do so! As they say, it is expensive to hire experts but it is even more expensive to hire amateurs and screw things big time.

So the next time you are offered Website Design and Web Development services as a bundle package; ask how many people will be working on your project if you purchase. If only one person will be assigned to it; figure out if their Web Designer/Web Developer can accomplish the goals of your project, otherwise; move on to other options such as getting all-in-one-marketing support from a marketing firm like Buzz Internet Marketing Group. We have qualified professionals in the fields of Web Design, Web Development and more. Why settle with a jack-of-all-trades when you can have an entire team behind your back?