Web Design vs. Web Development: What is the Difference?

WEB DESIGN

Web design governs everything involved with the visual aesthetics and usability of a website—color scheme, layout, information flow, and everything else related to the visual aspects of the UI/UX (user interface and user experience). Some common skills and tools that distinguish the web designer from the web developer are:

Adobe Creative Suite (Photoshop, Illustrator) or other design software
Graphic design
Logo design
Layout/format
Placing call-to-action buttons
Branding
Wireframes, mock-ups, and storyboards
Color palettes
Typography

WEB DEVELOPMENT

Web development governs all the code that makes a website tick. It can be split into two categories—front-end and back-end. The front-end or client-side of an application is the code responsible for determining how the website will actually display the designs mocked up by a designer. The back-end or server-side of an application is responsible for managing data within the database and serving that data to the front-end to be displayed. As you may have guessed, it’s the front-end developer’s job that tends to share the most overlap with the web designer. Some common skills and tools traditionally viewed as unique to the front-end developer are listed below:

HTML/CSS/JavaScript
CSS preprocessors (i.e., LESS or Sass)
Frameworks (i.e., AngularJS, ReactJS, Ember)
Libraries (i.e., jQuery)
Git and GitHub