Know the Professionals Involved in Web Designing

The widespread popularity of online business has made it inevitable for the companies to have their websites for achieving success globally. However, it is not that easy to make a website and some professional is definitely required. There are many professionals who are involved web designing. Here is the list of personnel that are vital for web design and web development. A good culmination of all these will enable you to own a good website.

• Server administrators: This very technical field and the main role that the administrators play is to take care of all the technical issues. The server administrators are concerned with the management of firewalls, modem ports, internal security, file administration, and back up procedures. They also generate reports about the number of visitors and their whereabouts. Thus, enabling you to make future decisions.
• HTML coders: the HTML coders are other professionals who are required to for web designing. HTML coders are experts in creation of HTML code and troubleshooting for your website. These experts also take care of testing and evaluation of the website in the various operating systems and web browsers.
• Designers: this is the most important area and requires real experts. The graphic designers create the beautiful websites that you see on the internet. The designers use various designing software like Photoshop and other standard graphic design programs. They also contribute in designing template page, navigation icons, color scheme, and logos. The web designers are responsible for the entire look of the website and its functionality.
• Content Writers and Information designers: a content writer writes the content that is to be displayed on the website. The content writer is responsible for writing content that is rich in keywords and the one that highlights the company’s services in a convincing way. These individuals work hand in hand with the designers for page templates as well.
• Software Programmers: the software programmers are assigned the duty of writing variety of applications for the website design. These applications include Common Gateway Interface scripts, Java scripts, back end applications, and others which interact with the database. The software programmers play a very significant role for building Ecommerce websites.

  However, other thing to bear in mind while website designing is to prefer a standard layout style for the web pages. Hope this helps you to understand the involvement of different professionals in making of one website. Therefore, while choosing a web design company make sure you choose the right one with expert professionals in all these fields.

To imply that each of the above roles is required is doing a bit of injustice to the process.

The audience here is non profit organizations. And while a fair number of NPOs are substantial enough in size to warrant sites demanding of the roles outlined, the vast majority would find the cast members above to be overkill, and a poor investment.

Of the roles stated, to imply that the web designer is the most important role is contrary to public opinion. The fact of the matter is that content is king. It is the content that brings the visitors to the site. At the end of the visit, the visitor does not care how pretty the site is. They ask themselves if they got the information they wanted. Further, in these days of canned CMS systems, etc, the design is often dictated by simple templates that can be modified and customized by those with even a modicum of skill, and the template approach supports your statement that it is good to "prefer a standard layout".

Over-hyping the process is a disservice to current state of web building!

I think Mark's post was meant to inform people of the nature of the Web design and development process, and all of the different roles and responsibilities that go into making this process work effectively, more than anything else.  I agree with Tim that each of the roles outlined above are not required by every organization or every website.

But still, I appreciate Mark's post because it makes organizations aware of whats involved in the process.  To me that's a good thing.  And like Tim pointed out, at the end of the day having a beautiful site is not what's most important; rather your efforts are much better placed in making sure your content is of high quality to your audience.

If you want to ensure you have a good site, just keep the following rule in mind:

"Content is king but presentation is his queen."

In other words, while it's most important to provide your visitors with excellent information that is relevant to them, having an aesthetically appealing site will also make your visitors happy.  This doesn't mean that your site has to be super glitzy with all the bells and whistles!  Quite the contrary -- so many sites work quite well by just being simple and elegant.

Yann

These roles are rarely so distinct or cut and dried, there's always going to be overlap. And often one person or a small team shares all of these roles. I've had to do most or all of the above, often within a single project.

Rather than software programmer, the term Web Developer is more usual. The difference between a web designer and a web developer is perhaps the most common area of confusion.

There are many other possible roles: search engine optimisers, website publicists, forum moderators, usability testers etc etc.

Our org just did a complete website over-haul.  We, like many other orgs, are feeling the economic downturn.  Revenue is down, costs are up. So, to save money, I was tasked with wearing many hats in the design and implementation process.  While I am a novice at web design, I gave it a shot and came up with something that I am pretty proud of.  Content is a big part of the design process and how to tie it all together.  I think Mark's original post would more reflect a large corporation with money to spend.  I can't see a small non-profit spending the money or having a need to have that many people involved. 

Good follow up posts, guys.

I think it's so true that many of us in this line of work often wear many hats.  I recently launched a website for a client and took charge of every aspect of the project, from the initial planning and conception of the site to developing the content, doing the web design, information architecture, and managing the web marketing and SEO aspects of it.  I handle everything.

Personally I like being involved in many different roles.  I find it more fun and interesting than just sticking to a specific function, but that's just me.

Yann