Ever so often the terms and jobs of a web designer and a web developer get confused or are just seen as the same thing; but they really do differ. This could also affect which you chose for your next website project. Do you need a web designer or a web developer?
Web Designer
So let’s get started with clearing things up. Most people think a web designer is responsible for building your website and developing its functionality. I guess that’s because the web design is what users interact with visually when browsing a site, and not the other technologies behind which makes the site’s structure and functionality. Some go as far to think a web designer does everything you need for a website. The fact is, a web designer ONLY deals with the visual design of a website. This visual design of the site is the front-end. A web designer concentrates on the look and feel of a website and should be a visual art expert in UI design (User Interface design), UX design (User Experience design), color, and graphics.
Web Developer
Since a web designer is in charge of the visual design, they do not need to write HTML, CSS, PHP or any code for the site. This is the job of the web developer. There are two types of web developers, front-end and back-end developers. A front-end web developer handles all the html and css of the website. Front-end developers work with web designers to transform static psd’s or graphics into amazing structured websites.
A back-end web developer concentrates on how a site actually works and all its functionality. For example, an e-commerce site requires a back-end developer to code the functionality of the shopping cart and checkout. A back-end developer uses programming languages such as php, ruby on rail, and python. You can say that web designers are the architects and the web developers are the builders.
A web designer also differs from a web developer in terms of available jobs and salary. According to Visual.ly , there are 1,336,300 available jobs for web developers compared to 200,890 for web designers. Also the median salary for a developer is $85,430, while a designer’s salary is $47,820 per year.
Given all that, A web designer that can code is also a web developer and a web developer that can design is also a web designer. I guess you can call these type of people web hybrids, someone who can fall under both designer and developer.
For either profession, having the cross knowledge and skills is a plus; but in a case where you get a web designer or developer that specializes in just one field, they will most likely excel and provide better quality work than a hybrid. It will also generally be more expensive to get a specialized web designer or developer.
So which do you need for your next project, a web designer, web developer, both, or hybrid.
Summary
As we see most people refer to web hybrids rather than web designers or developers when the person actually does both tasks of designing and coding the website. Given the above info, a web designer is a person who designs a website either through photoshop or any other graphics editing programs; while a web developer builds the functional site with HTML, PHP and other programming languages. As the years go by, the term will continue to be used interchangeably because more developers are learning to design and more designers are learning to code.