Web Design and Development
Web Design and Development
It’s no longer sufficient for a Web Designer to be able to only produce designs (at least not the smaller ones) with no concept of how it is to be implemented in the world of Web 2.0.
The new generation of web design, if it follows the standards, does not require a ‘browser check’ or a ‘flash sniffer’ – it is automatically assumed that for every item on a website, there exists alternate information that will be displayed when accessed by any Web reader.
Now the designer must become more creative. All items must now exist on a page, but only those the designer chooses to display is visible. Other items are made available interactively using javascript. Adopting this concept and learning to maniputate HTML objects graduates the designer to a ‘Front-End Web Developer.’
A front-end Web Developer, to me, is closer to a designer. It is possible to learn the basic concepts behind a javascript Library (Script.aculo.us, mootools, jQuery, YUI, etc.) and use less than 10 lines of code to add substancial interactivity to a Web-page/site. If one elects to go deeper into code, they could even write their own functions to customize site interactivity for individual clients using these libraries (requires high proficiency in HTML and moderate profiency in Programming), but the learning curve maybe steep for non-programmers. This makes the designer/developer a client-side programmer (javascript is mostly processed on the client-side).
When we open up the world of AJAX and Back-End (or server-side) Web development, the developer is usually involved in building the DB structure, the application UI, application development, etc. The developer, much like the designer, now must at the very least understand of the javascript libraries, and be able to granularize Application Development to integrate with AJAX via server side programming.
In todays world, anyone who is or plans to be in Web Design and Development, must in the very least know XHTML and CSS and have understanding of at least one javascript library. In order to be successful and to be able to provide custom solutions in the world of Web 2.0, a detailed understanding of website management applications along with AJAX and server-side programming is imperative.
The creative aspect of design has not been discussed as it cannot be learnt.
