In most of the websites used today, Back-End and Front-End are developed to have a dynamic structure as well as to produce user-specific content. After opening the browser you are using and connecting to your account, you can access your friends, their and your own shares. So how do these websites know your friends? How does it remember posts you’ve shared before and everything else?
Back-end developers are exactly the names behind the work at this point. On the websites we access, after the servers receive the request with a signal from the browser we use, with this signal, they retrieve all the data that your account is connected to from the background of your system and present it to the user.
What is Back-End?
Back-End is the name given to the parts of a computer application or a program that allow its code to run and are not accessible by a user. The people who code the architecture that provides this are called Back-End Developers, that is, software developers.
Most data and operating syntax are stored and accessed in the Back-End of a computer system. Generally, code consists of one or more programming languages. Back-End is also called the data access layer of software or hardware and includes all functions that need to be accessed and navigated through digital means.
While the script languages required and used for the Back-End infrastructure are ASP.net and PHP, as most users are familiar with, the languages used for database architecture are MSSQL and MYSQL. Within the scope of these components used, it is possible to create a CMS (Content Management System) for a website and thus make your site more dynamic with an easy and user-friendly admin panel.
What is Front-End?
Although it is tempting to have user data in the database thanks to the Back-End, when we ask what makes the appearance of a website the most beautiful for us, the Front-End comes into play.
The goal of designing a site is to ensure that when users open the site, they see information in a format that is easy to read and relevant. This is further complicated by the fact that users now use a wide range of devices with varying screen sizes and resolutions, thus forcing the designer to take these aspects into account when designing the site. They need to make sure their site appears correctly across different browsers (cross-browser), different operating systems (cross-platform), and different devices (cross-device), which requires careful planning on the developer’s part.
Languages used for Front-End include JavaScript, HTML and CSS. These languages, which highlight the visual part of your website, are the biggest reason why they are used. Let’s talk about how the Front-End part works:
• UID (User Interface Designer) used to design the web interface on the graphical plane.
• Then UXD (User Experience Designer), which is necessary to complete the first part of UX developments.
• In order to make the draft prepared within the framework more understandable for the Back-End Developer and the Company, it is sent to the Company for approval as a Wireframe.
Back-End and Front-End Need to Work Together!
Following the Wireframe approval, the Front-End Devoloper working on the project must transmit all pages, sub-pages and all sub-breaks of the brief document transferred as PSD, within the standards.
At this stage, the design is transferred to HTML and CSS on the Front-End. The most important factors we consider in UI coding today are; The coding must be clean, comply with schema.org and W3C School factors, have AMP and Rich Snippet, and write the coding dynamically using rules such as LESS or SASS.
In the remaining parts, apart from the visual aspects, the Back-End Developer has a big job. As in Front-End Development, the Back-End side does not use a single software developer in its projects. In order for the project to emerge, an analyst is appointed to perform data mining, create the road map of the project, and specify the duties of the team that should be formed with different titles and numbers of Developers depending on the size of the project.
Design is not just how something looks from the outside!
When talking about what is back-end, it is impossible not to agree with Steve Jobs’ short and simple definition:
“Design is not just about how something looks and feels. Design is also about how something works..”.
To summarize briefly, Back-End; It covers the background that ensures smooth operation between the website where the project is located and the server side. In addition, it helps in exchanging data with Front-End and storing the data. Front-End is; What users see and interact with when they enter the website It is responsible for heating and allows users to exchange data with the Back-End.
After touching on concepts such as Back-End and Front-End, I think it is useful to point out the following. Until a while ago, websites that were published after completion were considered to be the end of the project. When it comes to today, the projects we call finished actually reveal that everything is just beginning. It should not be forgotten that design is a vast universe. It is now possible to track users’ movements through the heat map in the data background, to see where users hang out on the panel on the site, and to determine how much time your users spend on the page and in which parts they exit the site, thanks to Analytics tools.
Therefore, in order for designers to provide users with a better experience; Front-End coding needs to be updated by taking scheme.org, W3C School, SEO friendly into consideration. This situation is also valid in the Back-End section. It is beneficial to update the software used in an architecture developed with current technology, taking into account cyber security requirements.