Evolution in technology, the internet amongst other things over the past decade has had a tremendous effect on a lot of things including job descriptions, the way business are run, client relationship and a host of other things.
Companies are becoming a lot more dependent on the internet as a means to achieve their individual business objectives and so business owners have to rely on the best of the best web developers and web designers to drive home their business plans through the internet. In cases of hiring the services of a developer or a designer, the choice to make between the two becomes a bit difficult and unclear because they both have coinciding functions which in some cases could be seen as inessential and therefore put aside.
Though both developers and designers have clear-cut roles to play, however these roles tend to always conflict each other. So, let us first of all what a web developers’ main responsibility is; generally, developers are responsible for creating a fully effective and operational website with the use of codes and programming languages, while that of the web designer is to make sure that the website has its own unique and attractive design. This is however just one part of their distinct responsibilities, furthermore, both developer and designer are behind the success of the site online, both now need to take into consideration the structure of codes being used and how it affects the UX (user Experience) and functionality.
The conflict in responsibilities always comes to play because both of these professionals need to be competent in both programming and graphic design, which has become more like a requirement to being a professional web designer or web developer. The services of both professionals don’t end the moment the site has been created and is fully functional, because as tech and the internet evolves, so would the site require regular updates and maintenance.
A developer and designers’ duty actually never end because their still tasked with creating new web content that go with trending designs and images, be creative in SEOs, and equally keep track of the website’s performance to ensure its safe, up to date and working at full potential even after it has been designed.
Looking at more distinct responsibilities of the developer and designer, the web developer is mostly required to have in depth knowledge on programming languages and other web dev technicalities like JavaScript, HTML/XHTML, CSS, Server Architecture, Python, ruby, PHP, Java and others. While the designer’s concern is with factors that affect the human like what is known as ergonomics, in other words the design of the website would be based on patterns and formats that would keep visitors glued to the site for as long as possible.
Now the time any individual spend on a site and how appealing the site is to that individual is a task that is handled by search engines and in recent time has become a vital area in SEO algorithms, and now designers don’t dwell on how creative a site must be but how the array the right elements on the site in the right places which are directly related to the UX (User Experience).
Website Developers and Designers need to understand the principles that govern Search Engine Optimization like placement of options which make a big difference in how a user accesses and uses a site, and so cannot be avoided.
It is very important to have an in depth understanding of SEO, both On-page and Off-page SEO elements is crucial in how search engines rank your webpage which is clearly of pivotal essence to business that are carried out online. SEOs is clearly the number one factor for driving traffic to a site, so both the web developer and web designer must be insightful enough when handling their respective responsibilities.
You may now be wondering how you can solve the problem of choosing the right web developer and web designer. The past years have seen most computer geeks gather knowledge in both web development and web designs and they take the time to deliver quality jobs for their clients, they in turn are quite expensive to hire because the take care of three things in website development by themselves which is; they develop, design guide you through digital marketing, some others even offer to be the website managers too which of course attracts an extra cost.
If you have already embarked on an online marketing campaign or intend to, look to hire the services of one the fore mentioned professionals that has put in the extra effort of learning how to develop and design as well.
