08/11/2019
A Beginner’s Guide To Web Design And Web Development In Singapore
web design and development in Singapore
ICON IT
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A website is one of the most important business tools in the modern business environment, and you will hear a lot about companies that do web design and web development in Singapore when you go searching for an agency to build your website. In this article, we will give you a guide to web design and web development.
One of the greatest hurdles individuals and businesses face is in telling the difference between these two terms. Read on to the end of this guide and know all there is about web design and web development in Singapore.
Table of Contents
The Difference between Web Design and Web Development
Front-End Web Developer
Back-End Developer
Full Stack Developer
Web Designer
The Languages Used For Web Design and Web Development
PHP
JavaScript and JQuery
HTML and CSS
SQL
Python
Ruby
Which One Should You Choose?
How to Get Started In Web Design and Web Development in Singapore
Learn to Code
Join Online Web Design and Web Development Communities
Get Into Action
What Do Web Designer And Web Developer Do?
Conclusion
The Difference between Web Design and Web Development
These are the two terms thrown around by website builders. However, web design is part of web development, but due to the differences in the work done, they take a life of their own. Let us look at each one of them and see how they differ.
Web development is also known as web programming, and it involves both non-design and design aspects. However, most web developers focus on the non-design aspects of the website. There are three types of web developers
Front-end web developer
Back-end web developer
Full stack web developer
Front-End Web Developer
This is a web developer who is focused on the design aspects. The developer is responsible for inputting the images, icons, colours, and all the elements that will help the website user have a seamless user experience when navigating the site.
Front-end developers need to learn and master various programming languages or technologies such as CSS, JavaScript, HTML, and JQuery. While these have similar roles to web designers, they will give out a well-organised and clean website.
Back-End Developer
On the other hand, these developers are responsible for making the front-end design functional by doing back-end programming. This type of developer needs excellent problem-solving skills and with a passion of how the website works more than how it looks. These types of developers use programming languages such as Python, PHP, and Ruby among others.
Full Stack Developer
They are also called hybrid developers since they do both front-end and back-end development of a website. With the web development sector getting more competitive by the day, most web developers are choosing to become a full-stack developer.
Besides this, the majority of the people looking for web design and web development in Singapore are looking to hire full-stack developers. It might take you a long time to become one, but it will be worth it in the end. A full stack developer will use languages such as LAMP, MEAN, Ruby on Rails, and MAMP, among others.
Other than the above roles and differences in web development, the web developers are responsible for testing that every aspect of the website is working.
Web Designer
Web designers on the other hand are solely responsible for the user or browser side of the website. They are responsible for creating the interface that the user interacts with when they land on the homepage.
web design and development in Singapore
Unlike web developers, web designers are artistically oriented and must have advanced graphic design skills. Adobe is one of the most popular tools used by web designers. For example, they will use Adobe Photoshop to manipulate photos, Adobe Illustrator to create graphics, Adobe Dreamweaver for user interface design.
Web designers need to understand languages such as CSS, HTML, and JavaScript on an extremely high level. For web designers who work with interactive websites, they also need to know how to use languages such as PHP, Ruby, or Python.
The Languages Used For Web Design and Web Development
In the sections above, we have looked at the languages or technologies that you need to learn to become a web designer and web developer in Singapore. Let us now take a deeper look into what they represent and mean.
PHP
This is one of the most common languages used in web development mainly because it is easy to learn as well as it is scalable. Web developers use it as an object-oriented as well as a function-oriented programming language.
It might take you some time to learn PHP, but it is one of the easiest languages you can use to develop web applications. Besides this, it is also a server-side programming language. This means that it can be used to manage server-side requests as well as handles the response sent by the server.
JavaScript and JQuery
This one runs on the client’s computer, and it aids in reducing your traffic and use of your machine’s processing power. A majority of the websites uses JavaScript to form animations, validations, timers, AJAX requests, among other client-side operations. JQuery, on the other hand, is a JavaScript library that is used to simplify the operations.
HTML and CSS
This is an abbreviation for “Hypertext markup language,” and it is the standard markup language used for designing the website’s user interface. CSS stands for “Cascading Style Sheet,” and it is used to define the styling patterns for various HTML elements on a web page.
However, these two languages are code heavy, and there are new tools that take away the need for endless coding. For example, Adobe Mouse, allows you to incorporate stunning features to your websites such as parallax scrolling.
While these tools make website design and development faster and easier, it is always worth the effort to learn the basics. This way you can customise a client’s website as well as style dynamic content.
SQL
This is short for Structured Query Language is essential for running the queries, which are also known as commands, to create, perform, as well as update the operations on a database. A database in website programming acts as the book-keeper of everything that goes into the website. SQL commands are triggered on request using PHP scripts running on the server.
Python
This is a high-level object-oriented programming language. Unlike other programming languages, Python uses simple easy-to-use syntax, and this makes it easy to learn for everyone. It is used for programming, testing, microchips, building video games, virtually everything.
The syntax has a high resemblance to English, and it uses words such as ‘in’ and ‘not’ and this makes it easy to read the code. It also has strict punctuations which mean that you do not have to deal with confusing braces in your code.
Ruby
This is a dynamic and simple open-source programming language that has a focus on productivity. Much like Python, Ruby is similar to English, and it is easy to read for beginners. It is perfect for backend web development, and it first started out making games in Japan.
Which One Should You Choose?
Both web design and web development require that you continuously improve your skills since web design and web development in Singapore is highly competitive. However, being a web designer and developer takes time and unique skill.
A majority of the firms offering web design and web development in Singapore hire both developers and designer. This is because finding a full stack developer is extremely rare. This way, they can seamlessly put out high-quality websites without risking a drop in quality from either department.
How to Get Started In Web Design and Web Development in Singapore
As a beginner, it might be overwhelming when you try and choose between the two. However, the good news is that there people who have gone ahead of you who will help you along the way. In this section, we will look at how you can get started on the right foot in web design and web development in Singapore.
Learn to Code
This is especially important for web developers and web designers who are involved with interactive websites. However, it all comes down to your preferred coding language and platform. For example, the Linux Apache MySQL (LAMP) is mostly used for running websites.
Unlike years past, you do not need to go to college to learn how to code. With a website such as Code Academy, you can learn how to code for free. However, the best way to learn how to code is not consuming endless hours of theory at once, but by doing.
Join Online Web Design and Web Development Communities
The greatest thing about web design and development is that there is a multitude of people who are willing to help you out. However, trends in web design and problems in web development are constantly changing.
This has led to the formation of online communities where designers and developers can help each other. When it comes to web development, there are several forums that could help you get started as well as help you out when you get stuck.
You could try communities such as Stack Overflow, the Mozilla Development Network, The New Boston, among others. These communities will help identify the problems in your code as well as suggest solutions to your problems.
Web designers also require a community to support them when they hit a dead end with their projects. While they might not be as popular as the web development communities, you should search for web design communities and forums. Whichever you choose between web design and web development in Singapore, you should not do it alone, join at least one online community.
Get Into Action
Once you have learnt how the languages work and how to code, then you are on your way to building websites. The joy is that you can build the websites from scratch or previously written code. For web development, you can get more information from this article.
What Do Web Designer And Web Developer Do?
Web design and web development professionals have entirely different duties. This is why most agencies specialising in web design and web development in Singapore hire both web designers and developers. But what are their duties?
web design and development in Singapore
Web developers as we said earlier mainly focus on the back end of the website. For those who deal with front end development, the website still needs to go to a web designer for fine tuning to the required standards.
Web developers would mainly take on tasks such as
Testing the different aspects of the website to ensure it remains functional
Build a functional shopping cart for e-commerce websites
Build photo galleries
Create an architectural structure of a website
Give websites the ability to collect information from visitors
Building up website security
There are different types of web design, and it will dictate what web designers do on a daily basis. They include:
Background control web page UI design
New product promotion design
E-commerce visual design
Activity project web design
Enterprise official website design
Web designers will contend with doing these types of tasks on a daily basis, and on one day is the same. However, to expedite these duties, you will need to improve your skills such as
Layout design
SEO rules
Colour combination
Photoshop
Interaction design
Basic coding language
Principles of visual design
However, there is an increase in the number of website builders that allow you to design a website from scratch without doing any coding. While this is an easier way out, it will pay off to learn and master at least one front-end coding and editing software.
More so, you can learn web design at home as long as you have an internet connection. There are online classes you can enrol to, some which are free, while you will need to pay for others. The tools you will need in your quest of becoming a web designer include Adobe Photoshop, Dreamweaver, and Mockplus. There are other tools you could use, but these three are the easiest to learn.
Conclusion
Web design and web development in Singapore have come a long way. This means that trends are often changing and for an aspiring web designer or web developer, they will need to get involved with more experienced developers and designers.
The above guide will get you started on the right note when starting in web designing or development. You can choose to go into employment, but for a freelancer, it is best if you learn all about web development and designing in to become a full stack developer.
Web design and web development is not a walk in the park. Instead of going through the process of learning web design and development, you can contact us for professional web design and development services in Singapore.
Author Bio
Tom Koh is the CEO of MediaOne, a leading Asia digital agency. He comes packed with 2 decades of international digital marketing experience. In his spare time of maybe 20 minutes a day, he loves coaching, blogging about all things digital and trying to figure out how to make his dog do the roll.
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