Question: Do most Website Developers also Design the Website?

Knowing how to design a website is a bonus, I would recommend it. Although in real world you'll probably have UX Designers who would design the website for you.

Yes study both it will only serve you more in the long run. The more skill you have the more value you will have to a company.

Hello Chris,

The short answer is yes. I would recommend that a person know as much as possible about both. Let me explain.

I believe everyone naturally leans to one side. That's to say, many people can technically perform both job functions but are truly great and passionate about one over the other.

The net result from this is usually a beautiful visual design mixed with forms that don't validate correctly, or that don't function as expected (some don't function at all). On the flip-side, there are also many sites that are hideous to look at but are solid as a brick functionally.

What I would recommend is that you dig deep into what you are truly passionate about whether it be design or code, because that's the path you will endure and see to the end. However, I would not ignore the other path. If it doesn't come as naturally to you, keep working at it. Don't give up.

Some companies will be large enough to hire a separate design and development team. For example, say you want to go all code and skip design, you'll still need to work with a designer at some point so having the knowledge to communicate and contribute with the other side of the house is still important.

In summary, I believe you would be doing yourself a real disservice by only knowing one side of the industry. If an employer can find one person to do both well, there's a good chance that resume won't get trashed immediately.

I back Justin Horner, the maturity of testing tools, html preprocessors or templating engines such as Jade, HAML, and Mustache; as well as JavaScript MVC frameworks such as Angular.js and Ember.js that dramatically makes web page design a lot easier.

There are still companies or clients however that are resistant to adapting with the times due to their current company structure or workforce not a good fit at the moment to change from the classic approach that's no longer efficient to meet the needs of today's web surfers.

Sometimes you can be considered a Frontend Engineer or Product Design Engineer if you're able to do both, though it's widely expected you should anyway.

Learn how to design in the browser, learn how to generate and test your solutions when necessary, and know how to generate things to keep yourself DRY (don't repeat yourself so much) to avoid being WET (writing everything twice).