Changes in Web Design and Development in the Digital Era
Web development is no easy work, it requires a lot of knowledge in terms of coding and experience in programming languages. Most websites designed from scratch, professionally, take a lot of time to be perfected and have no glitches and bugs. Web designers as well as UX/UI designers are hired in order to make sure the website is functioning properly and a whole team is put on the backend.
However, with the recent innovations in technology, even web designing has become a much easier task. Because of websites like WordPress and Squarespace, creating and designing websites has gotten a whole lot easier and less time-consuming. Although to create responsive websites one still needs to understand HTML and PHP coding for WordPress, it is essentially easy to be self-taught, understood and applied. In the digital era, where everybody’s lives are dictated by the internet and social media, where blogging is becoming one of the highest paying occupations, designing and developing a website are essential skills. One can learn web designing online slowly, or easily understand website platforms like WordPress and Squarespace to create something quickly and mostly through drag-and-drop. Yet, quality and other factors are constantly discussed when the changes in web design are brought forward and design trends over the years are mentioned.
Web development started in the early 1990s with text-based websites; simple websites that looked like pieces of written documents. Over time the coding and programming languages changed and developed. Websites started to have table based formats and more and more page builders started to appear. Coding languages such as PHP and CSS alongside Javascript started to become very common. These languages over time transformed into information that is easily available on the web for people to understand. Website designing became more accessible to the common audience and even people with no background in web development. Bloggers and blogging have become more and more common and the use of WordPress has also increased. With the drag and drop facilities of these page building websites and the YouTube tutorials and other online information available, web designing has stepped up a notch. Competition for web development has also increased since companies want to create platforms that do not contain any bugs and are consistently trying new forms of designing to add uniqueness to their platforms. Small companies in order to balance with the constant growth of software advancements tend to have an outsource web designer if not continuing the use of page builder options.
Although it is simple to create websites through WordPress and Squarespace, these options are generally limited to small businesses and startups. This is because these platforms are extremely cost-effective in the beginning, however, over time during the growth of companies the bandwidth becomes a little more expensive than creating coded websites. Moreover, the themes and other visual content can become limited and the option to grow a website without the integration of codes can result in a lot of hindrances in terms of user access. User experience is an aspect that businesses, big and small, need to keep into consideration and it is highly affected by the manner in which a website is designed. Thereafter, web development has also become a highly debated career option. Most people argue that because of the increase in the importance of UX/UI designers in contrast with web designing which is limited to text languages. However, experts argue that it is still necessary for web designers to create an optimal website under technology of over twenty years back. There are many reasons due to which web developers are an incredible asset to companies that require constant online presence. Web developers are extremely necessary in order to protect websites and increase their level of security, their expertise allows the creation of websites without the fear of hackers. Moreover, a lot of web developers have experience in creating an effective online presence. Therefore, their role extends beyond software towards marketing, creating content strategies and utilizing user analytics on the website to create a better brand image.
The growth of technology and constant innovations have only demonstrated that the online presence of every existing brand is only becoming more important to it. The necessity to create a brand image and value in the digital era is lucidly highlighted. Marketing specialists and brand experts recommend spending time on the visual interface of a website and always press on the importance of good content on websites as it is the most common language in today’s world. This simply represents that the necessity of web designing and development will grow alongside possibly other programming languages and coding. As coding and programming change over time web developers will have to become comfortable with new technology and applying their previous knowledge and experience towards creating value through their skills. Web designers create a level of quality amidst the long list of hosted websites, they are the reason for a website to stand out in the crowd and create an immense user database. Web development will constantly change and therefore so will the manner in which people perceive the digital world, but all will need to recognize the importance of walking with time in terms of innovation, value and creativity.
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