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What is a Web Designer?

A web designer is a creative and technically inclined professional who builds or redesigns websites. They possess a unique blend of skills, utilizing their creativity to make websites visually appealing while ensuring functionality and user-friendliness.

Web design is a relatively new industry that has gained significant popularity in the last decade due to the increasing reliance on digital media in people’s lives. The internet has become an essential platform for communication, information, shopping, socializing, and more. As a result, the demand for web designers has rapidly grown, making it a promising field with excellent job prospects and future growth.

What does a Web Designer do?

The primary responsibility of a web designer is to design web pages. However, there are several crucial considerations that may not be immediately apparent to the casual viewer.

One important aspect is aesthetics, which involves selecting appropriate colors, fonts, layouts, and images to establish the overall personality of the website. Additionally, prioritizing usability is crucial. It is essential to create a page that resonates with the target market and provides a seamless user experience.

Are you suited to be a web designer?

Web designers have distinct personalities. They tend to be artistic individuals, which means they’re creative, intuitive, sensitive, articulate, and expressive. They are unstructured, original, nonconforming, and innovative. Some of them are also enterprising, meaning they’re adventurous, ambitious, assertive, extroverted, energetic, enthusiastic, confident, and optimistic.

Does this sound like you? Take our free career test to find out if web designer is one of your top career matches.

What is the workplace of a Web Designer like?

The workplace will depend on the specific type of company the designer is working for. A web design company tends to be part of the creative industries and will typically have a contemporary approach to office space. These types of companies often employ ideas thought to enhance the creative process and aim to create open offices where ideas and inspiration can be shared. This type of workplace is likely to have a casual dress code and attract a younger worker. It may be acceptable to work from home and flexible work hours might be offered.

Some large corporations that rely on their web presence for a lot of their business may have in-house web designers and this kind of workplace is likely to be a bit more traditional.

A lot of web designers do freelance work and will work from home. Their home office will be set up entirely as they choose, although they may have to be prepared to travel to consult with clients, and work environments may vary depending on the type of client or company they are working with. This option gives a lot of freedom with regards to working hours and location, and is a great option.

What is the difference between UX design and web design?

Generally, people associate the word design (when it comes to tech) only with visual design or web design. However, UX design, which stands for ‘user experience design’ focuses on the user or customer experience, and is the ‘behind the scenes’ or invisible side of design.

The following is a comparison between UX design and web design:

UX Design

• is user-focused vs technology-focused; platform independent
• handles the technologies, constraints and conventions of multiple platforms
• aims to deeply understand how a user thinks and feels about a product; its focus is on the user’s habits, needs, emotions, goals, and expectations
• principles and processes can be applied outside of web browsers: on mobile apps, desktop software, hardware products, retail spaces etc.
• focuses on creation, implementation or construction according to a plan
• involves user research and usability testing, interaction design, content strategy
• involves brainstorming ideas, sketching and refining
• involves conducting surveys and A/B split tests, creating user profiles, wire frames, and prototypes
• develops personas, user scenarios, navigational elements, sitemaps and site audits
• frames information architecture, designs visuals in Photoshop
• frames a solution or strategy to deliver the best experience to the user
• handles visual design, prototyping, usability testing, front-end development and data analysis
• handles post-launch maintenance and continuous integration of improvements

Web Design

• is technology-focused vs user-focused
• does not take the human-centered approach of UX design
• limited in that the domain of web design is strictly tied to a web platform
• has extensive knowledge of graphic design and website design principles
• involves being visual, inspired and creative and having foresight and creativity
• up-to-date with all the latest in HTML, CSS and JavaScript
• always aware of any changes within the web landscape
• focuses on design and on the visual elements of a website or application
• involves excellent understanding of graphic design, color schemes, button design, interface design, Photoshop/Illustrator, navigational design, page architecture and file preparation
• knows the latest techniques of cross-browser compatibility and innovations in markup, style and behavior
• aligns the interface with a brand’s colors, fonts and identity
• makes sure that the visuals are compelling for the user
• places the content in the interface so that it is aesthetically pleasing and is easy for the user to understand