Although the world of UX and web development have fundamental differences, they share several similarities.
Product managers and their design teams share one primary goal across the digital landscape—to improve the user’s experience.
If you’ve shown an interest in UX design, it’s crucial that you can tell UX design apart from web development. Having seen the title, you’ve noticed that we’ll also discuss web design.
Given that we’ll discuss web development in today’s guide, it’s only fitting to also discuss web design. It’s not uncommon for individuals to confuse web development and web design. Thus, it’s imperative that you can also differentiate web development from web design.
By the time you’ve finished reading this article, you’ll know the meaning of UX design, web development, and web design.
We’re here to provide the answers to the great web developer vs UX designer vs web designer debate!
What Is UX Design?
Before we explore the differences between UX design, web development, and web design, you must know what they mean.
When it comes to UX design, the first question you probably asked is, ‘What is UX design?’
UX design (user experience design) focuses on designing and improving human-computer interaction. However, it’s worth noting that UX design concerns itself more with the user’s journey on a broader scale.
Specifically, UX design refers to the creation of products or services that provide meaningful experiences to the user. A meaningful experience could mean that your designs aim to entertain the user, provide more information, or resolve an issue.
Thus, product development teams utilize UX design to optimize every facet of the product that could affect the user’s experience. Typically, these facets refer to aspects of the product’s branding, design, usability, and functionality.
What Is Web Design?
If you’ve researched web development, you may have also encountered the term ‘web design.’ Web development and web design often get mistaken for one another. We’re here to clear up any confusion that you may have.
Like with UX design and web development, you’ve probably also wondered, ‘What is web design?’
Web design revolves around the process of planning and conceptualizing the visual design of a website.
In the past, web design focused solely on designing websites for desktop browsers. However, ever since the mid-2010s, web design has expanded its reach. Nowadays, web design has evolved, focusing on creating responsive designs across several electronic devices and modern browsers.
Similar to UI design, web design focuses on creating the compelling visual elements that you see within a user interface. These visual elements include colors, typography, images, and information architecture that adhere to the brand’s business goals.
What Is Web Development?
Web development refers to the processes involved in the creation and maintenance of a website.
Where web design focuses on the visual components of a website, web development is all about coding and programming. A web developer’s primary goal is to optimize a website’s functionality.
Web developers created the internet tools we use today, from eCommerce websites to content management systems (CMS).
There are three types of web development:
- Front-end Development
Front-end development refers to the creation of interface elements that the user interacts with. Front-end developers will create interactive elements like buttons, sliders, and animations.
Ultimately, front-end development refers to everything that the user experiences directly when interacting with a website.
- Back-end Development
As its name suggests, back-end development refers to the behind-the-scenes processes of website creation that users don’t see.
Back-end development refers to the storage and organization of data, ensuring that the ‘front-end’ runs seamlessly.
Primarily, back-end developers focus on a site’s structure, data, system, logic, and functionality.
- Database Technology
A database is a combination of digital and hardware bases where you can store data. Furthermore, a database contains the necessary files and content that allow a website to function. Database technology makes website-related data easy to retrieve, organize, edit, and save.
Both front-end and back-end development, combined with database technology, create and maintain a functional website. These three subsectors make up the ins and outs of web development.
Web Developer vs UX Designer vs Web Designer: Key Differences
Now that you know the meaning of web design, web development, and UX design, it’s time to analyze their differences.
Roles and Responsibilities
The roles and responsibilities of a web designer, web developer, and UX designer vary tremendously. Let’s examine these distinctions further.
- Web Designer: Roles and Responsibilities
A web designer focuses on how a website looks and its layout, especially on the part users see and interact with. They aim to enhance every visual element for optimal user experience.
For tasks, web designers must create things like sketches, sitemaps, and content inventory lists.
Here are the daily responsibilities of a web designer.
- Using web content management systems.
- Conducting website testing.
- Establishing design guidelines.
- Creating graphic designs.
- Designing a website’s layout and interactive visual elements.
- Creating responsive designs.
- Registering web domains.
- Web Developer: Roles and Responsibilities
A web developer creates and maintains websites, ensuring they look good, work well, and are easy to use.
Here are the typical tasks of a web developer:
- Creating, testing, and debugging website code.
- Understanding and using HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and other programming languages.
- Presenting design specifications.
- Troubleshooting website issues.
- Maintaining websites, updating if necessary.
- Monitoring website traffic.
- UX Designer: Roles and Responsibilities
A UX designer designs digital products by understanding and observing how users interact with them.
UX design is an iterative process. Thus, a part of a UX designer’s role is to create ideas, test hypotheses, and continuously refine their design process.
UX designers improve digital products using research and testing to optimize aesthetics and functionality for a better user experience.
Here are the day-to-day duties of a UX designer.
- Determining the information architecture of a digital product.
- Conducting user research.
- Conducting market research.
- Designing wireframes.
- Creating prototypes.
- Creating user personas via user surveys.
- Understanding user psychology.
- Creating user journey maps and analytic reports.
Goals
Web designers aim to create visually appealing websites that adhere to modern, dynamic, and responsive designs. Web developers aim to build websites that perform reliably and efficiently. In both web design and web development, there is a significant focus on the technological aspects of creating digital products.
However, UX design focuses primarily on those who use said digital products. UX designers utilize the data from user research to understand who their users are on a psychological level. In doing so, their designs can cater to every need of a diverse range of target users.
The ultimate difference here is that UX design aims to meet the users’ needs. Web design/development, on the other hand, aims to meet the requirements of the web browser.
Domain
Both a web designer’s and a web developer’s work is strictly tethered to web browsers across the digital landscape.
Comparatively, UX designers can work independently because their designs focus on human interaction. This means that UX designers could work on anything from video games to desktop software to even retail environments.
A Web Designer vs Web Developer vs UX Designer Salary
There is another considerable difference between web designers, web developers, and UX designers—their average salaries.
Below, we’ve addressed the web designer vs web developer vs UX designer salary distinctions. Hopefully, by seeing the differences in earnings between the three fields, you can determine the most rewarding career path.
- Web Designer Salary
In the United States of America, the average salary of a web designer is $68,246 per year.
Given that web designers typically work 40 hours per week, this then translates to $32.81 per hour.
It’s also worth noting that, realistically, you could earn anywhere between $51,063 and $112,147 per year.
- Web Developer Salary
In the United States of America, the average salary of a web developer is $91,662 per year.
Web developers typically work 40 hours a week, meaning that they earn $44.07 per hour.
Remember, this is only an average. Realistically, you could earn anywhere between $68,241 and $129,980 per year.
- UX Designer Salary
In the United States of America, the average salary of a UX designer is $107,333 per year.
Given that the typical UX designer will work 39 hours per work, this translates to $52.93 per hour.
As you know, this is only an average figure. In actuality, you could earn anywhere between $87,747 and $145,000 per year as a UX designer.
Note: All average salaries were sourced from Talent.com.
How To Become a UX Designer
In our discussion of UX design, it’s likely that your prior interest in the UX field has developed.
If this is the case, you’ll want to know how to become a UX designer.
We’ve provided a brief summary of the steps you can take to become a UX designer.
- Learn the principles of UX design.
- Familiarize yourself with commonly used design tools, research techniques, and usability testing methods.
- Utilize valuable resources like books, blogs, YouTube videos, and podcasts.
- Enroll in a UX design course like Generalassemb.ly’s Beginner UX Design Course. Alternatively, you could also enroll in a college/university degree in UX design.
- Complete a boot camp course like CareerFoundry’s UX Design Program.
- Strengthen your technical skills by working on independent projects.
- Create a strong portfolio that showcases your work. Outline every step of your design process, including your reasoning behind every decision. Include the challenges you’ve faced and the skills you used to overcome such obstacles.
- Find a UX design community and share your work, receive feedback, and make consistent improvements based on your critiques. Additionally, finding a UX design community could also mean you find a mentor to give you advice if needed.
- Practice, practice, practice!
Digital Product Development: Creating User-Centric Websites
UX design, web development, web design—you now know what connects the three sectors. No matter which path you choose to follow, it’s important to remember the fundamental principles of all three fields.
These principles solely relate to the quality of the user’s experience. Every element of graphic design and functionality must help the user achieve their goals.
Hopefully, now you have the knowledge to make a well-informed decision about your future career path. It’s time for you to take the next step – witnessing true inspiration.
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With Page Flows, you can explore your users’ journeys as they interact with your products. Your access to our abundance of emails—collected when we record user flows—will allow you to flourish! By learning how to receive and utilize feedback, you’ll have a continuous source of refinement.
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We’ve settled the web developer vs UX designer vs web designer debate—the power is now in your hands. Become an integral part of the evolutionary world of user experience design!
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