What’s the Difference Between Web Design & Web Development?

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Website Design and Website Development are terms used frequently when discussing building websites. Also, UI (user interface) & UX (user experience) are frequently used. While these terms are sometimes used interchangeably, each of them has a specific and important meaning.

It is important to understand the difference if you are in the process of or planning to have a website created. Let’s decode, so to speak, the definitions of Web Design, Web Development, UI, and UX, and see how they are different but have similarities.

Web Design

Each and every element on the website, including the layout, graphics, colors, text, photographs, videos, and visual elements of UI and UX are all part of the website design. Whatever you see on the website comes under the term web design. It starts with the creation of a website wireframe, layout design, and mock-ups. Coding is not part of website design.

Web design is the foundation when building a website. Along with UI and UX, web design is also concerned with website mapping and navigation. Web design defines the functionality of the website and helps you to enhance the website experience and increase the conversion rate. The placement of important information about your products and services and email sign-up buttons is part of web designing.

In short, web design is everything that you are able to see on the screen of mobile phones, tablets, laptops, and desktops. If you are planning to hire a web designer, and are interested in custom web design services, then look for specific experiences and performance abilities such as:

• Examples of their work – live sites already built and managed
• Their knowledge of typography (fonts) and page layout
• For eCommerce sites, they’re understanding how important user engagement and conversions are

Web Development

Web development is concerned with creating and maintenance of a website with the use of different types of programming languages, frameworks, and tools. Even creating a single web page with HTML and CSS also amounts to web development. It can range from 200 lines of coding to 2 million lines of coding.

Initially, web developers were limited to creating static web pages. Nowadays, web developers can create dynamic websites, online tools, web-based applications, and portals using different technologies.

Web development handles the coding of the website. It is divided into two types of categories, front-end, and back-end. The front-end coding controls the actual display of the website design, whereas, the back-end coding encompasses the processing of user data on the web server and displaying it back to the user.

In addition, there are also full-stack website developers who can manage both the front-end and back-end coding of the website. In case, if you don’t want to hire both front-end and back-end developers, then you can hire a full-stack web developer with experience in front-end and back-end development.

UI (User Interface) Design

UI is the visual platform that enables us to control the device functionalities. Any device with a screen has a UI or User Interface Design.

UI design can be divided into three categories, Graphic Design, Interaction Design, and User Testing.
• Graphic design is mostly known to everyone. It is the process of visually designing a digital product.
• Interaction design is all about designing the operational flow and specifications. It is mostly performed by Interaction Designers (IxD)
• User Testing is performed to check the practicality of the interaction design and aesthetics of graphics.

UI designing differs with mobile screens, laptops, tablets, and websites. So while selecting a UI designer ensure they are able to design the interface on different screen sizes.

UX (User Experience) Design

UX or User Experience design references the experience of website users. UX designers will make sure that the website is engaging and interactive to enhance the user’s website experience. The user experience is scaled on the basis of the interactive abilities of the user interface created by UI designers. UI design is associated with UX design and thus, many people get confused between the roles of both UI and UX designers.

UX designer crafts the wireframe for the website and renders interface communications to acquire the feedback of users.

Final Thoughts

You have to understand the use and working of Web Design, Web Development, UI, and UX to narrow down the selection according to your requirements. Thus, to help you with the selection of the best suitable option for you, here is the list of some of the tasks, which can be performed by each one of them individually.

Web Design:

• Responsiveness of the Website
• Update Website Look and feel
• Improve Graphics Quality
• Driving Traffic on a Particular Page
• Page Loading Time Issues

Web Development:

• Functionality of Website
• Website Safety
• Page Not Found Error – 404
• Failure of DNS Lookups
• Website Breakdown
• Content Loading Failure

UI (User Interface) Design:

• Improve Website Navigation
• Website Customizations
• Social Sharing on the Website
• Complaints – What to do?

UX (User Experience) Design:

• Improve Conversion Rate
• Solve the issue of a high bounce rate
• Driving attention toward the content
• Compel visitors to stay longer and explore more

While these tasks can be performed by different people, it is also possible that an experienced web designer or web developer may be able to do some of the tasks of a UI or UX designer. However, knowing the difference will help you make a more informed decision when selecting the right person for your job.