What is the difference between a web designer and a web developer? In the early days of the web, the answer to that question was simple: designers design and developers code.
Today that question requires a little more nuance–you’d be hard pressed to find a web designer who didn’t know at least a little HTML and CSS, and you won’t have to look far for a front-end web developer who can whip up a storyboard.
If you’re strictly speaking about the general concepts of web design vs. web development, however, the distinction is a little more clear. Let’s take a look at these two concepts and the roles they play in building the websites and apps we know and love.
WHAT IS WEB DEVELOPMENT?
Web development governs all the code that makes a website tick. It can be split into two categories—front-end and back-end. The front-end or client-side of an application is the code responsible for determining how the website will actually display the designs mocked up by a designer. The back-end or server-side of an application is responsible for managing data within the database and serving that data to the front-end to be displayed. As you may have guessed, it’s the front-end developer’s job that tends to share the most overlap with the web designer. Some common skills and tools traditionally viewed as unique to the front-end developer are listed below:
- HTML/CSS/JavaScript
- CSS preprocessors (i.e., LESS or Sass)
- Frameworks (i.e., AngularJS, ReactJS, Ember)
- Libraries (i.e., jQuery)
- Git and GitHub
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