Web design and development
The distinction between web design and web development is better understood if one has knowledge in the workings of a website. In this light, it should be noted that a website is a group of web pages interconnected with each other by a series of links. A webpage, in turn, is a document written in a web programming language called Hypertext Markup Language, or HTML. In order for users to be view and access a website, a program called a browser is used. Browsers are online applications that interpret the HTML script of a website and render it on-screen for the user to see and work with. Examples of these are MS Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox.
All these information mentioned serve as background to distinguishing web design from web development.
Simply put, web design is involved with the visual and interactive aspects of websites when accessed using a browser. Web development, on the other hand, is concerned with writing actual HTML script that will make the website work when used with a browser.
Web Design Precedes Web Development
Prior to the creation of a website, a working concept would need to be developed to form the general idea behind it. It would need to cover the scope of purpose and appearance, as well as its interactive properties. This conceptualization process is a requisite step in web design. This stage in the creation of a website involves blueprinting and prototyping for the general outlook of the website to-be. Web design is the process where everything visual about the website is addressed. Only after the design is made can the design team proceed to the development stage.
Web development takes over from design after a general idea and blueprint has been made. The blueprint is used as a guideline for scripting HTML code, in a way that would make this working design render correctly using a browser. The objective is to literally translate the idea of the designer in a language that would be understood by the web browser, so that this idea could be communicated to viewers just the way the designer envisioned it should.
Given this relationship between web design and development, it is needless to say that both fields depend on each other to accomplish a mutual objective, and that is to create a website. Web design provides the idea, and web development takes this idea and turns it into a working copy.
Websites everywhere owe their existence to this wonderful synergy between web design and development.
