Help: web design and web development, is there a difference?

Typically your designer should provide access to site mockups ahead of beginning the development phase.

The purpose of mockups are of course to assist in terms of project direction and prevent unnecessary change requests, that can result in wasted time/money.

I guess if you wanted to get nitty gritty about it, you could consider the design the aesthetic element (front end) whilst the development could be considered the actual coding (back end)... although these terms are often blurred within the community.

Does this answer your question?

Hi there,
Indeed there can be several stages - depending on the approach of the production team/person.
If designing a site from scratch then it should start with a brief, a written document that you contribute to, to explain the goals and wants of your site.
They should then draw up 'wireframes' which are diagramatic (or paper) drawings of the site's key pages. This is like a sketch, and has no design elements on it at all. This step is to be able to ensure the site has all the features and is usable - before the distractions of design come in.
Then they can begin the design - which in many cases is indeed done first as just a 'picture' designed in Photoshop or similar, and not functional at all.
That's then reviewed and amended as needed, before it goes off to be built (developed) and turned into a real site (either by HTML coding - or perhaps by creating a WordPress theme etc).
That's a full methodology - although in some cases, with the popularity of CMS and blogging platforms, themes, plugins etc - you can get sites a lot faster and cheaper by piecing together ready made elements and tailoring it from there - it depends on your approach.

I hope that helps!

If a designer provides mockups, you can see a rough draft. If not, that's all part of the communication process with a designer. You tell him what you want. He goes with that and provides a design. You request any changes you want.

A developer usually does more of the site function (as in interaction and programming, etc.) and a designer handles the user interface design.

Every website should begin with a clear sitemap and wireframes indicating the interface and navigation. These are WAY more important than a lot of people take into consideration. Making it as easy as possible for a user to browse your site is very important.

Many people consider this as one and the same, but actually both web design & web development are Different phases,

Here we go,

Web Design:
Its all about look & feel of your site, deals with Graphics, visuals, fonts colors, structure.
Major software used: Photoshop, Coreldraw etc.

Web Development:
Now After the design phase we get our desired site in .psd or .cdr format, so then starts the web development part this is achieved with various technologies like html, php, java, asp.net etc.
Again if you need any application or feature integrated in your site then this can be done with above languages.

A (good) web designer will be able to design the look and feel of your site, and code the HTML/CSS/Wordpress theme to go along with it. Web developers deal with mostly just code and create web apps or complicated backend solutions.

Designers are usually the creative types, developers do the leg work (aka writing codes).

Designers = Art/Communication Majors
Developers = Computer Science Majors

Designers are usually the creative types, developers do the leg work (aka writing codes).

Designers = Art/Communication Majors
Developers = Computer Science Majors