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Web designers vs Web Developers

You may have heard the terms 'web designer' and 'web developer' and wondered what the difference is, if there's a difference at all. Web design and web development are two different disciplines: A web designer will typically deal with the 'front end', which includes the visual aspect of a website, the HTML and the user experience, or UX.

The web developer will be responsible for the 'back-end' which means they will write server-side scripts that result in any functionality the wbsite might have. There is overlap though, and often a designer will be capable of developing and the developer will be happy designing.

Who have Maddison Creative Newcastle Web Design worked with?

We've worked with some of the most widely recognised brands globally and in the United Kingdom, as well as some fantastic local businesses. We've experience of working within and with design agencies, along with decades working as a client, so we can see projects from every perspective. We've worked with businesses in the public sector, private sector and charities too, and so we're familiar with the wide-ranging needs of all three

How have web technologies evolved with time?

The web is built on several technologies working together to produce the dynamic resource it has become. But what are these, and how did they come about?

The basic building block of the web is a markup language called HTML. This enables content to be presented to the user in a particular way using 'tags'. Without it the web simply couldn't function. HTML was introduced as an experimental technology in 1992, allowing web designers to build a page using text, images and a basic framework to share information to users browsing remotely from their computer.

Mosaic was the first browser to be released, and despite it being launched eons ago in web technology terms, it is still recognizable to a user of a web browser today. Opera and Internet Explorer soon followed, as did HTML2, an evolution of HTML. In a relatively short space of time HTML3 and HTML4 were introduced, and included significant input from the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) in order to ensure that competing interests from involved parties wouldn't compromise the technology.

HTML4 would become recognized as THE version of HTML for the next ten years because of this, the '4' was invariably dropped in favour of just 'HTML'.

Meanwhile, Javascript, Java and Flash were developed and launched to allow greater complexity in the design, animation, interactivity and functionality of websites. CSS was then introduced to separate the content of a webpage and its styling. Several other browsers followed, including Safari, Firefox and Chrome, and small updates were made in the guise of XML in the following 10 years but it wasn't until 2008 and the introduction of HTML5/CSS3 that HTML made a serious leap forward. HTML5 gave the designer and the user even more scope for dynamic, interactive client side content, running natively in the browser, Flash having been long since phased out due to its reliance on a third-party plugin.

Maddison Creative web design Newcastle were founded in 2009

Today, the main driver of technology change is the increasing number of devices that browsers use to access websites - mobile phones, tablets, touchscreen devices - all dictate how websites are built, replacing the once ubiquitous desktop browser.

Web development and web design - what's the difference?

To build a fully functional, beautifully designed website traditionally requires a web developer and a web designed working together, to cover off all aspects of the design and build. While it is true that a lot of developers are comfortable designing and a lot of designers are comfortable developing the two disciplines are distinctly different:

A web developer is primarily responsible for coding, server-side, in order to allow the website to function. This can include managing the server and the transfer of files and additionally some client-side scripting such as Javascript, but it is predominantly programming.

A web designed on the other hand is responsible for the aesthetics of the site, along with the user-journey and experience. This may also include client-side scripting such as Javascript and HTML, but it is traditionally about the design and layout of the page, imagery, colours, branding and user behaviour.

With the increasing popularity of mobile devices, what are responsive websites and how is web design affected?

Two out of every three minutes spent online in the UK are users browsing on either a smartphone or a tablet. 13% of adults in the UK browse the internet exclusively using their smartphone, 2% more than browse exclusively on their desktop computer.

In the last two years tablet internet use grew by almost a third, and in the same two year period smartphone use grew by 78%, while desktop internet use has decreased.

The way people use smartphones to access the internet has revolutionized the way websites are built. Long gone are the days that companies were happy to have customers browse their full, desktop version of their site on their smartphone, causing users to zoom in and out of areas of the page that interested them, struggling to click on the tiny text links to navigate. If you're building a website for the modern internet user, the likelihood is that if they don't view your site exclusively on their mobile device, they'll at least check you out via their iPhone or Android phone before sitting down later at their computer to have a more in-depth look.

This is why most clients want a 'mobile-first' approach to their website, whereby you ensure that everything looks and behaves beautifully on a mobile device before considering a desktop version, and if something has to compromise, it certainly won't be the mobile site.

A 'responsive' website is one that adapts to the device it's being viewed on, whether that is a desktop computer, a mobile phone or a tablet. The content is then displayed in a way that is optimized for said device, improving user experience.

How long might my web design project take and when will you be able to fit it in?

Just like estimating the cost of a website it's almost impossible to give an idea of how long a website might take to design and build without more specific infomration about what the web design project might entail. Once we've had an initial chat, we can give you a rough guide as to how long it might take, and then once you've given us a brief we can give you an idea of exactly how long it will take and when we can accommodate the request. We prode ourselves on being able to meet any (reasonable) deadline, and we can generally accommodate most jobs within two week period once the scope of work has been agreed - obviously the signoff date will vary on the complexity of the project.

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