Choosing a Web Design and Development Company
It can be challenging to find a single company to take on your whole website project. But it’s worth it to partner with a team with in-house expertise in both web design and development. If you hire multiple vendors and separate these two schools, you’ll likely end up with inefficient project workflows, an unstable layout and a breakable website.
Read on to learn the differences and crossovers between web design and development services. Then get tips for finding a team that is excellent at both.
Web Design vs. Web Development
While design and development are separate fields, they are closely intertwined during a redesign, migration or new-website project. Web design services will make your pages visually appealing, easily understood and engaging. Web development services will bring the design to life in a responsive, fast, accessible format.
Here are a few key differences between web design and web development.
Web design:
- lays the baseline for user experience and user interface
- creates the layout of the website for mobile and desktop
- manages the usability and aesthetics of the website
Web development:
- is the process of coding a website
- displays data from the database of the site
- determines how a site will display the layout created by web designers
Why pick a team that does both?
Things like mobile optimization and web animation require close collaboration between designers and developers. Additionally, to make a website that’s ADA compliant (i.e., accessible to all), designers and developers need to work together at dozens of points in the website process.
Finally, every design team has a different way of communicating how designs should be translated to the live user experience. So, a project is most efficient if the web developers and designers (1) understand each other’s ways of communicating and (2) use the same project management technologies.
When teams don’t know each other or they work in silos, your website may get messy.
How to Hire the Right People for Custom Web Design and Development
Once you’ve decided to hire a web design and development company, how do you know which one to choose? Search for a website services team that plans structural, technical, functional, and visual elements of a site together.
Here are a few tactics:
- Match their specific services to your goals. Before you commit to a vendor, outline your website goals to make sure the company is single-handedly capable of reaching those goals. For example, if they focus on small websites and don’t know SEO, they may not be prepared for your enterprise project.
- Review experience and portfolios. Do your research about how long the company has been around and how satisfied their other customers are. Be sure to look at real examples of their work.
- Consider future service needs too. Could this vendor serve you after the website is done? You may prefer to hire a team that offers ongoing website maintenance, site speed optimization, graphic design, photography, video, SEO/content and other services to keep your website healthy and frequently visited.
- Ask questions! Set up interviews with your favorite potential vendors. Ask them about industry experience, specific processes, and if you can meet the team that would work on your website.
- Make your proposal request(s) specific. Communicate everything you’re hoping to achieve with your website so that each candidate can provide a proposal that matches. You may decide to communicate budget up-front, which will eliminate vendors that can’t work within that price range.
If you stick to these guidelines while looking for a website partner, your project is bound to be a success.
P.S. We can help.
Here at Oneupweb, our in-house web designers, web developers and other experts can tackle any website project – from mid-size to enterprise. We’ll make sure your website looks awesome, works perfectly and is easy to maintain. Since we’re a full-service agency, we could even rework your marketing strategy to attract quality people to all your business.
Whatever you need, we’ll have a fun time taking care of it together. Contact us online or call (231) 922-9977 to get started.
