Differences between a Web Developer and a Web Designer

It is frustrating nearly all the time, to hear people getting a Web Developer and a Web Designer mixed up.

Yep, indeed they “sound” similar, and one cannot do without the other, however these are 2 extremely different jobs…

Below is an in-depth explanation of the main differences between a Web Developer and a Web Designer, and why neither one cannot do without the other:

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Whilst the two roles go hand in hand, one title implies a functional focus, whilst the other implies aesthetic.

Web design focuses around the look and feel of the interface – the colours chosen, where what text is placed etc, right down to deciding whther a menu should be fully displayed or require the user to click or hover their mouse over another piece of text to be displayed. In technical speak, web designers deal with “non-functional requirements”.

Web developers on the other hand deal with writing the functional code: how to process the data sent by the client, how to get the menu to work once it has been decided that the menu should be able to appear/disappear, managing entries in databases, etc. These are “functional requirements” which can be outlined by writing down a step by step process.

In this much, designers will deal more with what the user will see and why they should see it in that way, whilst developers will decide how the presentation will be achieved computationally, and how the appropriate data will be selected for presentation.

It is evident that one can’t do without the other, which is why the roles are blurred, but you can tell the absence of of developer ability when the pages are more often static and heavy, whilst a lack of designer ability is betrayed by poor aesthetic presentation. In companies, people tend to specialize in one of the roles and work together to achieve the final product.

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Source: Answer.com

Hope that clarifies for most of you what the main differences are, and why you shouldn’t call Web Developers Web Designers and vice versa!