Daniel Dulake On Being a Web Designer or Developer

Step 1: Dispel the Myths
Before you can make any decisions about what kind of tech career you want, you need to make sure you know exactly what web designers and developers do. My biggest misconceptions about designers and developers had to do with how much money they make, how steep the learning curve is, and what kind of work they actually do. I mistakenly believed the myths that:

LEARNING TO BE A PROGRAMMER IS HARDER THAN LEARNING TO BE A DESIGNER (OR THE OTHER WAY AROUND). In fact, when you’re starting from scratch, any new skill is a challenge. Web development and web design aren’t inherently more or less challenging—your strengths and weaknesses will dictate which is the path of least resistance for you.

DEVELOPERS MAKE FAR AND AWAY MORE $$$.
If you look at average salaries, it does appear at first glance that web developers make far more money. But if you start searching for more specific areas of web design, you’ll see that the salaries are competitive!  It’s true that on average, developers make more money, but as a beginner this isn’t something you’ll have to worry about.

WEB DESIGNERS DON’T CODE.
On the contrary, web designers write HTML and CSS code. And some (!) even use a CSS preprocessor like Sass or LESS and write JavaScript.  But I’m getting ahead of myself. You need to know what designers and developers actually DO all day!


Step 2: Figure out exactly what designers and developers do. Now that you’ve gotten some of the myths cleared up, you need to know how designers and developers actually spend their time.

The first thing to note is that both designers and developers can build a site from scratch. Designers lean more towards careful planning, and developers are stronger in implementing designs, BUT they can both build a fully functional site. Web designers and developers both code on a regular basis. On a team, designers and developers work together, with designers focusing on user experience design and planning and developers focusing on code.

Step 3: Analyze yourself.
Now that you are well informed about the true differences between web design and web development, you need to figure out which one fits YOU. And if you’re looking at those descriptions and thinking, “I could do any one of these!” that’s okay. These simplified descriptions of the general characteristics of web designers and developers should help:

WEB DESIGNERS
Web designers tend to experience the world in a visual way. For example, when giving you directions, they might tell you to turn right when you see the big tree.

Web designers also tend to rely on intuition and feeling, since they spend a lot of time developing the look and feel of websites. For example, if you asked them to write a word in the center of a page, they would probably eyeball it.

Web designers love to come up with big ideas and imagine the whole picture. For example, if a web designer were building a theme park, they would love to focus first on the overall “vibe” of the theme park, the layout, and the way a visitor would experience it, before getting into details like the colors, shapes, and names of the rides.

WEB DEVELOPERS
Web developers tend to approach the world from a logical, scientific standpoint. If they were lost, rather than looking for a familiar landmark to guide them, they might look up at the stars or drop a GPS pin.

Web developers also tend to see the world as a vast collection of data that can be used for different purposes. If you asked a web developer to write a word in the center of a page, they would look for a tool to measure it in the quickest, most efficient way, maybe by folding the paper evenly into 4 squares or grabbing a ruler.

Web developers like to handle big projects by taking them one step at a time and paying close attention to the details. If a web developer were building a theme park, she would love working on the details of the physics of the rides and the number of visitors the park could accommodate, and she’d work through them one small step at a time. And unicorns? Well, they’re a unique combination of both!

Daniel Dulake is a web designer from Surrey, who specializes in tech, web design, app design, and SEO. Check back on our blog for our latest posts. You can also follow Daniel Dulake on his about page here or  check out  Daniel Dulake's Soundcloud page to hear his music. Connect with him on the Daniel Dulake official website.