Understanding Front- and Back-End Integration in Website and Mobile App Development

Singapore has become an epicenter of the growing information technology (IT) services and outsourcing industry. A typical mobile app development company in Singapore today provides inclusive services in website design and development, user research, prototyping, usability testing, and even post-market services. This shows how robust the IT service sector in the country is.

The vast reach of modern IT software and hardware development services today also manifests in how companies specialize in both front-end and back-end services that are distinct processes in digital design. In fact, a company’s ability to effectively integrate these activities has become a benchmark of competitiveness.

Front-End Design

In a nutshell, front-end design refers to activities in making customer-facing web application interfaces. Also known as ‘client-side’ development, front-end design involves producing a platform for a website or application that a user can perform actions on or interact with to get the result they want from the product or business.

Front-end development is considered the “less technical” side of web applications and website design and development. Front-end designers harmoniously blend aesthetics and functionality to create the entire environment that users see and organize content the way they are designed to be experienced. Working for the front-end involves the design and layout of content, buttons, images, navigational elements, links, and all other interactive features. Roughly, front-end designers are responsible for most of a user’s experience of a digital product.

Back-end Development

Back-end development, on the other hand, is the more technical side of digital solutions that refer to more intricate processes of creating data infrastructures. Back-end service providers are knowledgeable in using various programming languages like Ruby on Rails, Python, PHP and older ones such as C++. Back-end designers must also be familiar with caching mechanisms, internet information services, application program interfaces (APIs) and server administration.

Referred to as the ‘server-side’ end of web design, back-end development involves creating and integrating databases, website architecture and designing the process flow, which is the “behind the scenes” dimension of creating web platforms. If front-end designers are responsible for how users interact with a website or application, back-end developers are responsible for making them work.

Front- and Back-end Separation

Although both front-end and back-end development are done through programming, they are very distinct processes. In fact, there are continuing debates on whether or not these two activities must be integrated or kept separate.

On the one end, many companies argue that separating front- and back-end activities allow better focus for each group. This means front-end designers can concentrate on designing interfaces while back-end developers can focus on data infrastructures, enabling a faster way to finish the turnaround cycle of even complex systems. Separate experts working simultaneously on their specialized tasks will also result in faster progress and completion.

However, front- and back-end teams must clearly work seamlessly and communicate effectively to avoid burdensome documentation, problematic integration, difficult troubleshooting and uneven commitments which result from having large groups working on one project.

Front- and Back-end Integration

Also referred to as ‘full-stack’ development, front- and back-end integration refers to the holistic integration of the interface and infrastructure sides of web development, created by a single team with cross-functional capabilities.

The biggest advantage of integration is that there are less risks of miscommunication and coordination since there is only one team working on a project. Thus, they use the same concepts and follow the same workflow, have common documentation and likely understand the full creation process.

A drawback, however, is that since there is only one group performing two distinct activities, there are limitations in terms of the complexity of a project that a group can finish and the time by which they can finish even simple projects. However, contracting a single web design and development company can still provide resource efficiency and lessens security risks, which adds more value to “full-stack” development.

Know Your Options

Front-end design and back-end development are technically different activities but just represent two sides of the same coin. In the end, the effective usability and exceptional desirability of any website or application depend on the effective combination of these two processes or the coordination of the teams working for them.

To understand more about front-end backend development services, contact a reputable company that provides comprehensive website development services, such as Frontline. Frontline Mobile Pte Ltd is a reliable web development agency that also specializes in other digital solutions such as app development and IT outsourcing. Visit https://www.frontline.com.sg/ and see the best options for improving your front-end or back-end development.