Web development is the work of building a website for use on the World Wide Web (Internet) or even an intranet (a private network). The products of web development can vary from a simple static webpage to complex web applications of social media sites. The term web development refers to the non-design aspects of building a website like a markup and coding. Web development may often require the use of a Content Management System (CMS) to make changes easier.
Web Development as an Industry
Basic web pages can be created using HTML, CSS, or JavaScript. While not required these three can be used at once to create more dynamic and interesting web pages. Many open-source tools exist for web development like Berkeley DB, GlassFish etc. Web developers are increasingly working on web services that were originally only available on desktops. In recent years cloud-based services like Adobe Creative Cloud, Dropbox, and Google Drive. This has helped in decentralizing information and media distribution. This has also allowed people to access files anywhere instead of only in their workplace. Another area that has seen a huge transformation has been e-commerce. Huge marketplaces like Amazon have been so successful that they have been responsible for singlehandedly wiping out entire industries. Customers can now directly have their goods delivered to them without any hassle of bargaining or negotiations. Advances in web development have allowed websites to diversify beyond commerce and introducing social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram have transformed the way people socialize in a more personal setting.
Front End Development VS Back-end Development
Front-end development is related to the work a user sees or interacts with. Front-end development is responsible for things like colour, layout, navigation etc.
While front-end development concerns itself with what a person can see, backend development is the opposite and concerns itself with all the things people cannot see. When someone accesses a webpage, they are just requesting to see a file stored on a server somewhere. When someone wants to login into a website a site it is the duty of the backend developers to make sure the server lets the person in securely and conveniently.
The Web Development Process
Web development follows the same major steps. They are-
-Information Gathering- This is the part where research needs to be conducted regarding the website’s internal as well as external factors. Internal factors could be the website’s purpose and external could be information about the target audience and competing websites if any at all that is. The web developer must know the answer to some basic questions like-
-Why is the website being created?
-What is the target audience for the website?
-What are the things will be able to do on this website.
-Why would the audience use this website instead of their competitors?
-Planning- During this stage, dev teams put together an outline of the website and its web pages. This is known as a sitemap. The sitemap is just a skeleton of the site. The web developers use sitemaps to see how the webpages are linked to each other. They also plan how website data should be structured on the server for the website.
Design- In this stage, the development teams start creating the website. The Layout, images, logos, colors, fonts, and other aesthetic features are put together and visualized during this phase.
Content Creation- Initially the web development team would put up placeholder images and videos until the actual content is ready. Once the content is ready the client would send the content to the team to be inserted. The web development team may collaborate with the client to adjust all the content to make it better suited for the website.
Coding- Once all these steps are completed both the front and back-end developers would start transforming the design into an actual reality.
Testing and Launch– The website would need to be evaluated and debugged before it goes live. The web development team may check for typos and properly working links.
Maintenance- After the website is live it still needs to be maintained. Websites need to be updated for reasons like member bios, product and service description changes etc.
