Web Designers vs. Web Developers
I recently saw a discussion online asking the question, “Do Web designers need Web developers anymore?” This is a very important question but not because of what it asks but because of what it suggests. This question suggests there is a movement toward designers not needing developers. This is absolutely not true. There are many examples and reasons why that is not true but it’s still a surprisingly common question. There is one case (arguably) where designers don’t need developers (or vice versa). For small, information-only sites you can get away with just a designer (or just a developer). There are many WYSIWYG tools, templates, and canned solutions that let a designer build a simple site alone. Just as there are many graphics applications, free graphics, and templates that would let a developer build a site alone. That is of course if you only need a very simple site. The simple informative type site is the internet equivalent of a highway billboard or a flier, it’s just a placeholder for information. If that’s all you need then a designer alone can build your site. As soon as you pass beyond that level then you cannot have your designer and developer in one. Here are some major reasons you do not want a developer and designer in one.
Art vs. Science
Developers are typically science and technology minded, they are not usually artists (at least not great ones). By the same token, most artists are not great coders. Good code takes discipline, training, and strict adherence to standards. While there may be exceptions to this generalization, most people that are logic/code minded are not great artists and vice versa. Remember back in high school how the English teacher always complained about not being able to do math and the math teacher couldn’t spell his own name? Same thing. Separating design and code with specialists in each area and you will dramatically increase the quality of both while only marginally increasing your cost (<20% usually).
Search Engine and Social Media Optimization
Designers generally do not keep up on the current best practices in search engine and social media optimization, its not their job. Just like developers usually aren’t paying attention to the latest versions of Photoshop or what colors are “in” this year. A designer built site may look good but if no one can find it then it doesn’t matter how good it looks. While SEO and SMO are not very complicated they do need to be done and done right.
Modularity and Scalability
A web site is a piece of software and good software requires the separation of front-end (user interface) from back-end (processing). In the case of a website this line can get blurred or obscured completely, especially for small informative only site. When you hire a designer alone to build your site you are explicitly hiring a person that thinks in terms of front-end (user interface). A designer will build your site to display correctly but your site will be built to work dependent on the way it looks and vice versa. Why is this bad? Because then you can’t change the way it looks without changing the way it works and vice versa – the two are one. Suppose you want to give your site a face-lift? You should be able to make major alterations to look and feel without changing the way anything functional behaves. For example on this site there is a faq section that is functional (draws information from a database dynamically). That piece of back-end code delivers faq messages regardless of the look and feel of the site. The face of the site can be altered but that piece of code remains unchanged and it still works. Another example, suppose you want to expand your site and add major functionality. You should be able to scale up the functionality without concern for look and feel. Your site should be built to scale up functionally with the look and feel coming along for the ride seamlessly. Hire a designer only and you almost guarantee you will break both modularity and scalability.
Marketing vs. Production
The design of your website is a marketing function, not a production activity. Think of a magazine layout vs. the writers – two different people with different skills. One is concerned with look and feel, colors, target market, etc. The other is concerned with the technical details. Similarly think of a car designer vs. the factory workers that put the car together – different people. When you design your site you are in a marketing phase. In the design you need someone well versed in style and presentation who understands color, feel, target audience, etc. When you build your site you need a programmer. Put those two tasks in one person and you’ll cheat yourself out of the best of both.
Common Sense
Asking the “designer vs. developer” question is like asking “Do building architects need home builders anymore?” or “Do automotive designers need automotive builders anymore?” Of course they do. The evolution of any technology is always toward specialization and separation of labor not away from it. The beginning of any technology sees the inventor, designer, and builder as all the same person – as it was in the beginning of the web (i.e. the webmaster). The maturation of any technology sees specialties and specialists growing, not merging (generally speaking). This is especially true in any technology that can capitalize on concurrent production (e.g. a car engine can be built concurrent to the body). In any complex web site the back-end can be built concurrent to the front-end design and construction. This requires the separation of labor not the merging of labor.
There will be people that will say a designer and developer can be one. Everyone “knows” that one guy that claims he can do both. If that all-in-one wonder person exists then he’s the exception to the rule. Not all sites need to be spectacular, some are just placeholders for basic information, however if you want a really good site then you need separate designers and developers.
About the author
Alex is software executive with over 15 years experience in designing and building enterprise applications, scientific and engineering software development, and executive management in the software industry. Website: www.amk.cc
Excellent article, I must agree with you everything must be made by the specialist to be more clear, I’m a designer and I can do little coding like a php contact form and very basic stuff, but when a databese is needed to a web site I do need a developer, and many developers can do pretty good site, this site for example is pretty cool Amber is mostly coder but she has made some college years of design.
We must be clear that to be both is very difficult you have explained well some can try but is very time consuming, if you want to deliver the best you must do it the right way for me is hire a fellow freelancer developer, one thing that is to be considered is be coomprensive in the integration, merging two ways of thinking can be difficult both designer and developer must be aware of the limitations, most of the time related to the browser.
The only thing that I can disagree is that I work with a designer/developer that is very good in both, is really one in a million person but is not imposible to find one but exceptions to de rule do excist.
Having the hall light on, having someone in the room or checking in on them, whichever they prefer, use a teddy bear, (for the longest time i used a teddy bear after my traumatic event!) soothing music, (I also had the radio on,) maybe water on their nightstand, or warm milk if they wake up. positions-tuck them into bed, make them feel secure, but nothing constricting.
Great post! I wrote along a similar vein in my post “An open letter to Web Designers looking for work in 2010″: http://cbus.se/cCXRKZ
…now that it’s been a few months and we’ve made a few designer and developer hires where I work, I think it’s time for me to write a followup — I’ll definitely reference this post — good food for thought!
Excellent, excellent post. I run into this all the time and I feel like sometimes I am the only one extolling out these very points! One sees job postings for developers that have as requirements designer skills and vice versa. We all in the industry need to educate the public in regards to these very specific skill sets.
I’m a bit in disagreement with the status quo over this issue. In the end, both coding and graphics require “creative problem solving skills”. I think these kinds of discussions (or more specifically, the kind you read that triggered this post) mostly only work to further diverge the two arbitrarily. Of course there will always be differences, a need for specialists, and a whole host of reasons why its not good to be a “jack of all trades,” but ultimately I think both sides would benefit greatly from absorbing lessons of the other.
Many (good) graphic designs follow what can easily be described as an “object oriented approach” – what is a Style Guide if not a collection of graphic design patterns? Code – besides being patentable – is copyrightable as a work of literature, and any good coder will tell you there is a certain level of elegance and beauty they strive for in their code, assuming they use such words
Haha
I like to think of the Renaissance masters – people who were at the forefront of both artistic -and- technical prowess; sometimes merely by riding the bleeding edge of painting technique (proper proportions, accurate 3d perspective, etc), and SOMETIMES by actually using their powers of artistic observation to study the laws and science that govern the world around them. Like Da Vinci. To me, this is the model for today’s web designer.
This guy named Hugh Dubberly who was an early designer at Apple, I believe, recently put forth a list of skills he feels todays designer needs:
http://www.dubberly.com/articles/becoming-a-digital-designer.html
His list touches upon Design Theory, Typography, information structuring, History, Biology, Comp Sci, Communications, etc. Not only is the list broad and varied, but if you read the specific elements, they all seem to reinforce one another in very effective ways. I think he’s onto something with this, and I am on my way to checking off as many of these as I can.
Thanks for posting that linked article, Will. I enjoyed reading it, even if it did make me feel a bit old! I graduated from Design school in ’90 so I was using a lot of those early tools.
While I agree with a lot of the content, I still maintain that there is a cognitive divid between these two professions. I’ve been told I’m quite technical for a designer, and perhaps I am, but I also am keenly aware of my shortcomings. Almost all of those being in the more technical aspects of the job. I understand these issues in a high-level and can converse, scheme and hash out issues with developers, but I am not able to actually implement most of the code.
When I was working on my masters back in ’99 I had to code a site in Cold Fusion. I understood what was required, but (and I’m not ashamed to say this), I was brought to literal tears tying to implement it code-wise. That level of granularity escapes me.
Now give me Photoshop or Illustrator and I can make stunning images. I can wax on and on about how to do one task multiply ways. The part in the linked article regarding bezier curves in what was to become Illustrator struck home with me… I remember vividly using them for the first time. I understood what it meant on a deeper level. I relish using these tools to create – but I don’t relish the other side of the spectrum, even tho is part of my work. My passion is for the art/design/communication side of the equation, and I have sincere respect for those who can make those aspects come to life in a much more cost-effective way!
I agree that there will always be some kind of hard divide, but I think your choice of the word “cognitive” is terribly interesting because I feel that’s one of the ways in which the divide is forced. I think you kind of back my point up by speaking to your technical mastery of the more creative tools. I feel like if one is smart enough to master photoshop, they should be able to learn code.
But…
- since they aren’t taught in tandem
- since they are professions and where money is involved, logistics become more political
- since there is a distinctly disproportionate lack of female representation on that “side of things” (to speak to your case specifically)
- and many other reasons
It just doesn’t normally work out that way. Then again, you do say that your passion is for this side and -not- that side, so it only makes sense. I kind of am speaking about people who fall somewhere a bit more evenly between the two, or – to be more specific – are trying to embrace the convergent aspects of the two.
If anything, I think its more a matter of nurture than nature – a fault with how this knowledge is conveyed through various outlets.
btw, as I mature as a developer I realize more and more that the hardcore methodologies and techniques are really just about communication, like agile, design patterns, etc. To this end, I think women technically -should- make better programmers than men, as they are generally better at working through things, imposing a certain amount of intuition on complex problems/domains, can commincate with one another more effectively as a team, etc. However, I think society blah blah blah blah…you get where I’m going with this
Interesting points…
I chose ‘cognitive’ specifically because thats how it literally ‘feels’ to me.
Perhaps it is nature vs nurture… we’ve all experienced it to some degree. I started out in college as a computer science major before switching gears completely and going to art school. I don’t fault any one instructor, but I didn’t feel as tho I was being taken as seriously as some of my male counterparts. While that had no bearing on my decision to switch education paths, I did have a totally different experience in art school – my work received a lot of attention – uniformly excellent, but some critical. I’m sure that has reinforced my way of thinking. However, I see the same phenomenon in others too.
I taught web development for years – mainly to graphic designers wanting to transition to the web – and I can say the guys tended to ‘get’ html/CSS/coding with more ease. Another interesting observation tho is, that while some students totally understood the front-end aspect, very few went onto anything more complex. Regardless of gender.
I too wonder why there aren’t more women in the programming field for the very reasons you state. I guess that something for the psychologists to ponder. For me, its just another example of all the reasons we should educate without shuffling students into ‘traditional’ roles and encourage everyone to explore any area that interests them.
Now, I must get back to coding
Very thoughtful reply, Will. The article here has a lot of good points as well, but I more so agree with you than with a solid divide. Additionally, a lot of what I wished to say you’ve already covered. So, I guess consider this a “thumbs up” tag. *lol*
Amber, I totally agree that there is this natural skill divide between the creative/visual designer, and the math/science programmer type.
What has concerned me over the years has been that both the designer and the programmer tend to treat a project as a one-off event, after which the client is left to fend for themselves. Of course the site will need changing as their business evolves, and then it’s often back to the start: whilst good designers are able to pick up on where they (or their predecessor) left off, it’s rare to find a programmer who is happy to work with someone else’s code (and if they are, it’s going to cost).
Now I’m not the type to sit around and moan about things, so have spent the last few years quietly trying to solve this conundrum. If you’re a programmer you’ll want to look away now, because I think the solution is to abolish you. Yep. The trick is to make it possible, through neat software and components that designers can use themselves, to do all the things that up until now have been the domain of programmers. Sure, that’s a difficult trick to pull off, and the designers do need to have a logical frame of mind and be multi-functional enough to cover the other aspects you mention, but once you take away all of the coding aspects, designers can create awesome sites all on their own.
Now of course you see the (aargh) ‘template’ approach all over the place, and that’s not what I’m talking about. They are awful, and lock you in to the design mentality of a programmer (who has, clearly, no sense of design).
So my prediction is that we’ll see a number of tools to fix this problem. I’ll end with a blatant plug for clearString (www.clearstring.com/press) which I’ve been involved with, but I’m sure this is just the start of a trend and we’ll see more such tools emerge over the next few years. Designers rejoice; programmers, um sorry about that.
Designers shouldn’t have to wait around for developers to get things done, and developers should be able to spend their time working smarter, not harder, so I agree with you regarding the potential future of things, Bob.
And – btw – thanks, TheAL. Glad to see someone agrees
…and it’s not just the waiting, it’s the cost, and the way that strangles the market.
Designers I have a soft spot for. But programmers are expensive. If you can remove a large chunk of the programming costs, that brings the total project costs down enough to open up a whole new market.
Businesses that knew they couldn’t afford a ‘proper’ site now find they can, and so designers find a lot more clients. Everyone wins (apart from the programmers).
An analogy is the motor industry. In the old days, to own a car meant you needed to be (1) rich and (2) an engineer. Which rather limited the market. Nowadays cars are, in comparative real terms, very cheap, and people can concentrate on where they want to go, without worring what’s under the hood. I like that.
I used to get confused by the very comparison. When I started an internship at a company a few years ago I had no clue what the difference between the two were but I soon found out. My boss at the time pulled me aside and said ‘are you a developer or a designer? You tend to do a little bit of both’. That is when I realized that I wanted to stick with front-end design and development. Now all of the true developers out there are rolling their eyes now, “what a fake, he’s not very smart since he doesn’t want to develop”. That’s not the case, but I LOVE to be creative, with whatever medium I can, and I found that designing websites filled this need. Sure you need to be creative with web development…how am I going to setup that DB, or how am I going to allow the user to do certain thins. But that is a different part of a person’s creative brain. I prefer to take ugly sites, or sites that don’t exist and make them into beautiful creations. I take pride in showing somebody my designs and they go ‘those are really nice’, with development they go…’Ok, the website works, do you want a cookie?’ That’s my reasoning for choosing the design-side of things, but I do think it’s important for any legit designer to learn HTML/CSS coding, you need to be able to save your developers some time and have the ability to cut up your own design and create valid code out of it.
I think you, sir, are the exact kind of person I have in mind when speaking of the synergy between the two. Notice how you said you want to stick with frontend design -AND- development.
I’m – primarily – a flash developer, so I understand the unique situation you fall into – you are a creative designer who -must- have a set of good coding practices and patterns under your belt in order to bring your creations to life.
I can see how the more web-developy things you referenced would require creative problem solving skills, but that’s not really what I have in mind when saying the two share a common ancestry.
What I’m really speaking of, is the end goal you expect in both and how you go about getting there. Both require thought in terms of chronology – What is my user’s story? What are they trying to accomplish and when? What happens after they see that screen but before this other one? With development it’s more questions like which object will initiate this conversation between these two? Which object has the right of way or has to have it’s job finished before the other can?
Then, when you start to talk about things like models (as in model view controller) and domains, the similarities are only more obvious. Any good artististic or creative undertaking involves the creation of a “Model” – you have to be aware of which preconceived notions or biases the viewer’s bringing to the table. This undertaking must also be divided into certain conceptual “units” for common/recurring elements to be explored. Then you can also consider certain kinds of iconography or archetypal imagery to be objects of the “Model” as well. I mean really I think designers and developer’s should be able to talk in terms of OOP and “Conceptual Unit” Reuse, but thats maybe a fantasy
haha
I think that – to some degree – you are kind of shortselling yourself if what you think you’re doing is merely making sites “beautiful”. I’m sure a lot of what you do is more like editing a film than simply “facelifting”. I think you – as a “web designer” – are actually creating a visual and interactive “framework”, if you will, and that is more like coding than facelifting definitely
Great post, Alex. When I interned at an ad agency about 10 years ago a copywriter told me, “A good copywriter can art direct a little bit, and a good art director can write a little bit of copy.” I think the same idea applies to web design and development. It’s crucial for the different disciplines to understand each other and overlap slightly in order to effectively communicate and achieve the same goals. Back in the 1950s, advertising was revolutionized with the advent of creative teams where the writer and the art director collaborated together. Prior to that it was: hey, art director, here’s some copy, make it into an ad. Or: hey copywriter, here’s a visual, write something to go with it. Unfortunately that same mentality is still firmly in place in a lot of shops, but the best advertising is truly a collaboration among all people involved.
It’s my hope that in the near future we will see more of that same kind of collaboration between designers and programmers, where they work together to create a killer product.