Web Designer vs Web Developer

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Hi everyone,

I'm after a bit of advice. I've read some great information on this forum already which has helped me enormously, so thanks to everyone for that.

I'm currently signed up for a Web Design course with a course provider, which covers the Master CIW Designer certificate. However, after doing a lot more research, including on this forum, other websites, and on job websites, I'm seriously considering changing to their Programming course, which covers the 70-536 (.NET Foundation), 70-562 (.NET Applications), and 70-564 (ASP.NET Developer) exams (with the SQL exam 70-431 as the last module).

It was originally suggested/advised to me to take up the Programming course after doing an aptitude test, but I was determined to get on the web design course so signed up for that. Months later, I now realise it probably wasn't the right thing for me to do. I haven't got any visual design skills, and am more naturally left-brained/analytical as it is. I did Physics/Maths/Computing A-levels as opposed to, say, Art/Music/Drama, and my degree is in sound engineering (although there was plenty of creative musical work too).

I'm not going to lose anything if I do swap over as I haven't reached that stage of the study as it is, I'm still on the A+ at the moment. It would be great to hear what other people think, about the differences between the design/development side of things, or any thoughts that anyone has.

Once I've made a final decision (although I think I already have), I'll probably ask more specific questions when the time comes, such as what's the most useful language to take, C# or VB.net, and is it worth learning HTML/CSS/JavaScript well at an early stage along with the ASP.NET stuff. Although if anyone can answer these now, and has any other advice, it'd be greatly appreciated.

Thanks for reading everyone,

Rich.

 

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Depends on what kind of aptitude test it was.
Web Designer/Developer titles tend to get a bit mixed up nowadays, and the skills required for both can be interchangeable.

Very generally:

A Web Designer is likely to be more 'artistic' and needs to appreciate layout, colour etc as well as the 'rules' of web design, such as site depth and navigation etc. However, they will also need to appreciate the more technical aspects of site design, if only to make a developer's job that bit easier.

A Web Developer is really a designer too. but will probably focus more on the actual functionality of the site, such as shopping carts, sessions, connection to data sources etc.

On a fairly simple level, it is possible to be both.
However, as you start to work on bigger and more complex sites, the differences tend to become apparent.

I've done both, web design and then moved on to development when I realised how much more there was to it. That worked pretty well for me. The problem when you are learning is that until you understand the basics of design, you have nothing to develop with. Unless you have a grounding in HTML then you don't have anything to connect your data source to.

Sorry, that's massively over simplified - but if you are just starting out, hope it helps.

 

I think johnny has got more experience then me on this, but i think you already know what to do!
But you really should learn (X)html first though! as it's the building blocks of all websites that get built. PHP, ASP, ASP.NET....they all start from or reside in an html doc file!

So that's your first port of call....learn (X)HTML. And it would certainly help to learn CSS as well! It doesn't take long to learn enough of them to get by, as they are the easiest languages to learn!

Good luck!

 

1) Find out how long you have to make your mind up
2) Learn the basics of HTML, CSS and JavaScript, there are hundreds of decent tutorials for free out there.
3) If you find JavaScript infinitely more fun and useful, change.