Web Designers and Web Developers

Hi Mk,

You are correct in these points. Unfortunately, some companies do not follow the standard definition of web designer/web developer. Some of them are even not familiar with these titles like the HR dept staff. And sometimes this causes confusion on the job applicant on how the job responsibilities is defined. Some companies also make use of "Webmaster" or "Senior PHP Developer"

Probably would be best to clarify with the one who is offering the position to define the work responsibilities.

 

in our company, person A does the design and person B does the developing. i dont think its that uncommon seeing different people do the code and the design on the same web project. some people are just better at one thing than the other.

but if by any means, you can do both, then good for you and youre more likely to be preferred in some companies, even.

 

Being a designer isn't just about aesthetics. It's actually largely about usability and functionality. You have to work closely with other team members for conversion rate optimization, search engine optimization, analytics, usability, etc.

So it doesn't really take just 1 person to "design" a website. But a good Web Designer has some knowledge in the things I mentioned above, and not just "coding the design".

Other companies oversimplify it to just a web designer + web developer set up.


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SEO and analytics aren't part of a web designer's job. That's the webmaster's duty. Usability is under the designer though. Also, writing the code for a design *is not* developing.

@mk

You are correct. A web designer builds the frontend (and that includes coding it up) while the webdev writes the backend. Basically, designers work with HTML and CSS and Javascript and anything else that gets parsed on the browser while webdevs work with PHP and Rails and .NET and anything that is serverside.

Also, Photoshop is often used for wireframing and doing mockups of the design. I think what you're referring to is Dreamweaver.

In the Philippines, web design studios often package their services with domain registration, outsourced webhosting, and extras that would normally be a webmaster's job. Perhaps it's gotten so prolific that it has become the norm?

 

As a home-based web developer (stopped since december 2010 [got a local job now]), i've been to many different company and :

Web designers should do the User Interface and not the developers. Meaning as long as the code will do something with the UI, the designer is the one who'll code it.

and

Web developers are for back-end programming such as In-debt HTML formatting, client-side script such as javascript, and server-side script such as PHP.

BUT

If the company only wants the design from the designer then it will be stated by the company (sometimes I also do the coding of the designs, but hey, I'm a developer).

 

SEO is also a very integral part of web design as real SEO is involved from the front end to the back end.

http://www.useit.com/alertbox/9605.html
http://webdesign.about.com/od/jobs/tp/web-designer-job-skills.htm
http://www.webdesignfromscratch.com/blog/top-10-skills-for-web-design/
http://www.onextrapixel.com/2010/08/24/20-methods-for-upping-your-current-web-design-skills/

It does also involve good usability sense and everything I mentioned above.

And as a web designer takes into consider the whole user experience, from search / social media to conversion. He doesn't have to master everything since there are other people who do the other jobs, he needs to be knowledgeable in those aspects as well.

Good web designers design experiences not looks.


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Good for you MK.

Really, the bottom line for good design is function. Anything that works is good. What works really well is better. What works really well and looks good is a winner.

Keep designing using code. Follow your head. Be at the forefront. Be the King. It'll work.

Applying for a job is different from being King.

If they want PSD sent to them, send them a link instead of what you can do. No need to mock or underrate your employer's understanding of the position. Remember, they have the moolah and you maybe need the moolah yourself. If it isnt about the bread - it must be about exposure.

I suggest you skip the job application and build your own kingdom. You can do it. I can feel your confidence.

In case the confidence fails.
Go send them a PSD.

Cheers.

 

@ddare

Again, SEO has nothing to do with design nor webdev, actually. I have never seen a search engine rank a site based on it's interface and what it looks like nor with the underlying serverside code. Spiders only crawl text, which includes alt attribute content and meta information, and hyperlinks to other pages. No stylesheets, scripting, images, graphics, videos, or whatever media or embeddable file is crawled. While designers consider, among other things, the intended content of a site, it's the content alone that affects SEO.

You seem to be mistaking web designers as webmasters. Of course, there's an overlap in a lot of cases but they are still separate and distinct. While SEO knowledge is good to have, it is not strictly within the duties and responsibilities of a web designer.

The web designer builds the frontend and the webdev writes up the backend. The webmaster carries all the maintenance and operational duties where SEO falls under. In small firms, a person may be tasked to do a little more than required but in large companies where there are dedicated teams and divisions for design, webdev, and maintenance, your complete attention to your area is what will be expected of you.

@mk

High five for a fellow purist. I'd also like to say that I know how you feel about clients insisting on what they want even when it's against the things that you learned is right. Being able to coax clients and explain the principles behind the design to convince them is a skill you'll have to perfect. xD

 

I think theres really nothing wrong with using adobe photoshop or other tools, tools are created especially to make your work easier and more efficient and at the end of the day, using photoshop still requires the users creativity and dedication in order to create something good

 

@cake I'm sorry but I disagree with you.

"As the worlds of web design and SEO merge ever closer, we've been seeing design-specific elements produce a positive impact on SEO for the sites that employ them. It's terrific news for SEOs who love design and are capable of and passionate about making it part of their repertoire. It's also great for designers who find that as they evolved from Flash designs to machine-readable CSS and separated markup from content, they've earned more links and more organic search love."

Image below from SEOMoz: 7 Cutting Edge Design Trends



Here's another good article: SEO Guide for Designers




"According to a poll I conducted, just over 1 out of 10 people don’t think SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is mandatory as a designer; and what really surprised me is about 24% don’t even know what SEO is! If you’re among the quarter of people who don’t know what SEO is or understand how it can help you, you should really read this article. This is an SEO guide for designers who want to learn about making it easier for websites or blogs to be found by search engines. I’ll explain the common mistakes made by designers and developers. Then I’ll provide some basic tips that you should be practicing to optimize your site for search engines."

 

I'll have to agree with ddrare

SEO and analytics is somehow part of a web designer's job or should i say skill set. Not entirely, but having good enough knowledge of how it works and how to prepare for it is best.

You should have an idea where and how to layout every piece of content in the design. That affects analytics. Like, where should I put this one so it can get many click rates? How should this one look so user won't be too overwhelmed and leave my page in 3 seconds? How can I keep them coming back?

For SEO, it's on stuff like which should be image, or should I even use image links instead of text links? Or should I combine text and image link(image replacement)? I got six iFrames on my markup, what's wrong with it?

In markups, why is the "alt" tag so important? Why should it be there at the first place? I got 20 H1's and 10 million links on my homepage, is that ok or will Google slap my bottoms?

Stuff like that.

Well it depends on the company you're working at for they may have a separate SEO specialist and UX designer that will work with you. But overall, it's best to have that in your arsenal. It may not be part of the requirements from yesteryears, but time is moving. You don;t have to be an expert, a firm knowledge is enough. Just my 45 centavos for this thread XD

 

get a day job for experience, constant learning, and to get yourself a stable monthly paycheck. on the side, on nights and free time, get started w/ your own business. start small maybe someday you'll build your own studio.

don't jump directly to going solo until you're stable enough. unless maybe if you're an art prodigy as you proclaimed and was born to be an art god then you can jump directly to the ocean lol

 

altho im not a web designer this topic is kinda related to what I do..

I work as a User Interface Designer in a Software Company that develops products on/for desktop, web and mobile platforms.

Some folks here did define perfectly the difference between a "designer" and a "developer". In my field the designers are paired in a team with "usability analysts" together we define the initial structure of the user interface based on the needs and expectations of our users (customers), we the design team falls under the "Green Phase" of the "Product Development Lifecycle".

which consist of:

Red Phase: Inception (Software Architects)
Green Phase: Elaboration (Software Architects, Design Team and Business Analysts)
Blue Phase: Construction (Software Engineers, Programmers and Developers)
Yellow Phase: Validation (Quality Analysts)
Black Phase: Closure

(note that companies have other definition and placings for this)

Now why elaborate? its because this is how we can define the expertise of Designers and Developers/Programmers as like jushjush said some people are just better at one thing than the other..

Some companies put the devs and programmers on the green phase and will start to create the UI using their own ways or own judgment on how to make it work quickly without even thinking if the users will be able to use it well or enjoy using it.. or worst.. learn to use it.

In that setup the designers and usability analysts are forced to go with the devs initial design of the UI and what will happen is just they plainly put some "lipstick on a pig" -- (from David Cooper's "About Face" book on Usability)

This also work on web design as people tend to navigate more on websites than in softwares (which has a specific user) in web all kinds of people from different ages is your audience, and with that expertise are needed to create a website with intuitive user interface to cater even the most novice visitors, an efficient usability where visitors can find immediately what they are looking for (ex: contact us, about us, learn more etc) without clicking all the dropdown box buttons and most important of all? an excellent user experience where visitors will enjoy navigating your website.

all in all some expertise are just too much to handle between each person and it will take much more of a genius and a workhorse to have all those qualities and do them all at the same time.

Thus if somebody will have those qualities in one package well companies definitely will welcome it.. but here's the question.. will the company also give you both the rate of the designer and developer in a package? I dont think so as having both in one is a huge savings in their part.

 

been in this business for 14 years and i'm still learning a lot from this thread. back in 1999 when i created bpiexpressonline, we were only called plain webmasters. Back then, when I offered my services to people, they'd ask, "What's a website? Internet?" duhhhhh.

i started as a designer who relied on PS heavily. Animated GIF's was the IN thing. hahaha. Through the years learned a few tricks, then Macromedia Flash came along, then Swish, etc. etc. I used frontpage extensively, then dreamweaver, then learned CSS, Lotus Domino, so on and so forth. As demands came, was forced to learn to code backend stuff, java, php, cgi, perl, ASP, etc.

i was deeply affected by the dot-com bubble last 2001, and was left flat broke. But I still pursued on this field, and somehow business got better through the years.

now i just oversee things, my skills are now so nineties. i've hired a pool of younger blood to do web stuff for my clients. i am now concentrating more on web, e-mail, database and application hosting, setting up server farms, and providing co-location services (backup) for companies. bulk of the the things i do now are focused on Application Service Providing, may it be deployed for mobile devices or computers, thru the intranet or on the internet (thanks to AJAX and ASP.NET for making it easier). Creating websites for internet presence only eats a small piece of the pie in our everyday tasks.

today, i just call the ones who design the frontend as graphics artists, and the ones who design the backend as programmers. me? probably the web architect. (sounds good. let me put that on my calling card).


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Sidenote: Maybe we could also discuss the ongoing rates today for website design/development.

 

@ddare

The overlap on your diagram is as artlessbum said. It just happens that good design practices are beneficial for SEO like properly using the alt attribute. The article you linked to even affirms that. The first two items are saying how great design could affect pageviews and an increase in inbound links.

Note that the site you linked to is an SEO blog and the article is showing how design could help SEO, not how SEO is part of design.

I'd like to quote something I said earlier:

So I'll reiterate, knowing SEO is a good bonus for designers but not required. When a designer is hired, he is hired to create the frontend. He is not hired to set it up for SEO. On the other hand, if you are in SEO, you must know good design practices as it will help you immensely. The article you posted corroborates with this. So you have it backwards. SEO needs design, not the other way around.

@rockophoria

Exactly! I didn't even know they have dedicated "usability analysts" now! Haha! I always believed usability to be a designer's responsibility.

@mk

Designers *must* know how to code their designs. Also, I think you meant "Print != web design". What I'd like to know is if you've ever achieved Nirvana; successfully making a design that parses consistently across browsers, including IE, but still validates under strict. xD