Readers of this blog will notice that there are separate categories for ‘Web design’ and ‘Web development’. This is a distinction which is often made in unhelpful ways. Some people think of Web design as a form of graphic design—arranging text, images and other graphical elements on a Web page. The same people think of Web development as programming/coding/scripting.
Both ideas are too narrow. And with narrow views of the activities, we get the relationship between them wrong. Artist works in own sweet way, then hands stuff over to Engineer, who does the dull work of coding.
In an earlier post I have argued against starting work on the visuals too early. Web design is not just graphic design. It is more like product design, or theme park design, or architecture. You have to think first about the uses to which the site will be put, about who in particular will be using it, and how they can best be helped to use it. After that, you can experiment with visual forms and find which works best.
Except on the very biggest of teams, then, the developers need to get involved with the design. I might want to create a more shapely tea cup, but I can’t design it in a vacuum. I need to know about materials, about heat, about social expectations. The artistic and technical sides of design need to be deployed simultaneously, not one after the other. And so it is with Web design. It’s joint work. It’s a great mistake for companies to separate their designers and developers—until the design work is complete.
My favourite expression for this joint work is ‘website creation’—which just happens to be in this blog’s tagline…
