Short answer: web design is on the edge of IT (and that’s its power)
If you look at official classifications, web-related roles are firmly inside information technology. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics groups web developers and digital designers under “Computer and Information Technology Occupations,” with employment projected to grow about 7% from 2024 to 2034, faster than the average for all occupations.Source
But if you talk to designers and marketers, they’ll tell you web design is a creative, user-experience, and communication discipline. Both are right. Modern web design is a hybrid field that lives where IT infrastructure, software engineering, UX, and marketing all collide.
That “in-between” position is exactly what makes the question “Is web design part of IT?” so important:
- For businesses, it affects who owns the website — IT, marketing, an external agency, or a blended team.
- For careers, it shapes whether you choose an IT-focused path, a design path, or a mix of both.
As Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web, put it: “The power of the Web is in its universality. Access by everyone regardless of disability is an essential aspect.”Source That “access” depends on both solid IT (infrastructure, security, performance) and good design (usability, communication, accessibility).
Why this matters more than ever in 2025
The distinction between web design and IT isn’t just academic. Websites are now core business infrastructure:
Roughly 71–73% of small businesses now have a website, up significantly from earlier in the decade.Forbes Advisor, MarketingLTB
First impressions of websites are estimated to be up to 94% design-related, and 75% of users judge a business’s credibility by its site design.Source
Web developers and digital designers are formally categorized under Computer & Information Technology occupations by the BLS.Source
So: web design directly influences credibility, lead generation, customer experience, and revenue, but sits structurally inside IT in many organizations and in government statistics. That dual identity is exactly what we’ll unpack.
What exactly is “information technology” — and where does web design fit?
At a high level, information technology (IT) covers the systems and infrastructure an organization uses to store, process, transmit, and secure information:
- Servers, networks, and cloud infrastructure
- Databases and business applications
- Security, access control, backups, and compliance
- End-user devices, support, and internal tools
Web design, historically, focused on the visual layer:
- Layout, typography, color, and branding
- Navigation, information architecture, and usability
- Responsive layout and visual consistency across devices
Over time, though, modern web design has merged with front-end development and user experience (UX). That’s why many organizations and schools place web design inside IT departments or computer science / information systems programs — especially when it involves:
- HTML, CSS, and JavaScript implementation
- Accessibility (ARIA, semantic HTML, WCAG compliance)
- Performance optimization and Core Web Vitals
- Integrations with back-end APIs and cloud services
A 2024 explainer aimed at non-technical business owners puts it simply: “Web design focuses on visual layout and usability, while IT involves hardware, software, and network maintenance. They are different professions, but they converge around websites.”Source
Or as UX expert Donald Norman famously said: “Design is really an act of communication, which means having a deep understanding of the person with whom the designer is communicating.”Source For the web, that communication sits directly on top of IT systems.
The spectrum: from pure design to pure IT (and where roles live)
Instead of asking “is web design IT or not?” it’s more useful to see a skill spectrum from visual design to deep infrastructure. Most real-world web roles sit somewhere in the middle.
| Role Type | Primary Focus | Closer To | Typical Skills |
|---|---|---|---|
| Brand / Visual Designer | Look & feel, color, typography, imagery | Creative / Marketing | Figma, Photoshop, brand systems |
| UX / Product Designer | Flows, information architecture, usability | Hybrid | Wireframing, prototyping, user research, analytics |
| Web Designer–Developer (Front-end) | Interfaces that run in browsers | IT / Software | HTML, CSS, JavaScript, accessibility, performance |
| Full-Stack Web Developer | End-to-end web applications | IT / Engineering | Front-end + back-end (e.g., Python, Node, databases) |
| IT Systems / Network Engineer | Infrastructure, networks, security | Core IT | Cloud platforms, firewalls, VPN, SSO, monitoring |
Most small businesses don’t need to label these roles perfectly. But they do need to understand that:
- “The IT person” who manages your printers and Wi-Fi isn’t automatically a good web designer.
- A great visual designer may not know how to secure or scale your website.
- The sweet spot for business value is where design decisions are informed by IT realities (hosting, performance, integrations).
If you’re looking for that sweet spot for your own business, starting with a strategic website design and development plan that brings both design and IT thinking to the same table is usually the best move.
Case Study 1: When “the IT guy can just do the website” goes wrong
Context
A 15-person professional services firm asked their internal IT administrator to “spin up a quick website.” The admin was excellent at networks, backups, and cybersecurity — but had limited experience with UX and content.
What happened
- The site lived on a secure, well-patched server, but the homepage looked like a 2008 intranet — gray boxes, tiny text, no hierarchy.
- Navigation labels reflected internal departments (“Operations,” “Back Office,” “Admin”) instead of client needs.
- The site had almost no calls to action, and the contact form was buried three levels deep.
Impact
- Analytics showed a high bounce rate from both SEO and paid traffic.
- Existing clients complained the site looked “outdated” and “confusing.”
- New leads from the website were almost non-existent, despite good rankings for relevant keywords.
Fix
The firm brought in a web-focused team that understood both design and IT. They:
- Rebuilt the information architecture around customer problems and services.
- Created a modern, responsive layout and clear CTAs on every key page.
- Kept the secure hosting & monitoring under IT, but moved design/UX decisions to a marketing–design collaboration.
In six months, inquiries from the website more than doubled — not because the IT work was bad, but because IT alone wasn’t enough without proper web design.
Case Study 2: When marketing owns design but forgets IT
Context
A regional eCommerce retailer ran their website entirely out of the marketing department. Designers and content creators were strong, and the homepage was visually impressive. But the site was hosted on a bargain shared platform, with no staging environment, no monitoring, and minimal security hardening.
What happened
- During peak holiday campaigns, the site slowed to a crawl and occasionally went down.
- Large hero videos and unoptimized images ballooned page weight to over 6 MB, causing slow load times on mobile.
- There were no automated backups and no clear incident response plan.
Impact
- Campaign ROI dropped — ad clicks were wasted on slow or unavailable pages.
- IT was called in only when there was a crisis, with little context or documentation.
- Customers reported timeouts and abandoned carts during busy periods.
Fix
The company reclassified the website as critical IT-supported infrastructure:
- Moved hosting to a scalable cloud platform with autoscaling and CDN.
- Set up monitoring, logging, and automated backups managed by IT.
- Created performance budgets for designers (max page weight, image guidelines, Core Web Vitals targets).
After the changes, holiday uptime improved, and campaign conversion rates rose — showing that design and IT need each other, especially in revenue-critical environments like eCommerce web development.
Case Study 3: A student discovers web design is a gateway into IT
Context
A college student started with a passion for art and branding. She took an introductory web design course thinking it would be mostly Photoshop and moodboards.
What she learned
- HTML and CSS were required to make her designs real in the browser.
- Accessibility standards felt less like “compliance” and more like a moral obligation to users.
- Performance and responsive behavior were just as important to user experience as fonts and colors.
Path into IT
Her program encouraged students to explore programming as part of “interactive design.” She took follow-on courses in JavaScript and then a class in Python and web development, eventually working on small internal tools and APIs.
Today she works as a hybrid UX engineer — sitting in an IT/product team, helping design and build web interfaces. For her, web design was the doorway into IT, not something separate from it.
When web design behaves like IT
In practice, web design is unquestionably part of IT when it touches areas like:
- Security and access control (authentication flows, role-based access, secure forms)
- Accessibility and standards compliance (WCAG, semantic HTML, keyboard navigation)
- Performance and reliability (Core Web Vitals, caching strategy, CDNs)
- Integrations with core systems (CRMs, booking engines, payment gateways, internal APIs)
On larger projects, web design sits inside broader application and platform efforts — for example:
- Customer portals, dashboards, and secure account areas
- Booking and scheduling interfaces tied to back-office systems
- Multi-site or multi-tenant platforms that must scale reliably
That’s why many organizations treat serious web projects as part of their wider application development and scalable development strategies, not just as one-off “web design” jobs.
When web design behaves like marketing or communication
At the same time, web design is clearly aligned with marketing and communication when the primary questions are:
- “Does this page tell the right story for this audience?”
- “Is the brand expressed consistently across site, ads, and social?”
- “Do visitors understand our offer in the first 5 seconds?”
Studies show that first impressions are overwhelmingly design-driven, and that three-quarters of visitors say they judge a business’s credibility based largely on its website design and layout.Source These are marketing and communication outcomes, even though they ride on top of IT systems.
For many small and mid-sized businesses, the most effective approach is to treat web design as a joint venture: IT ensures the site is secure, fast, and stable; marketing ensures it’s persuasive, on-brand, and aligned with campaigns. The actual web design practice sits at the intersection of those two forces.
If you’re currently deciding whether to keep web work in-house or to work with specialists, resources on web development agencies and freelance vs agency designers can help you choose a model that balances IT rigor with creative excellence.
What this means for businesses: ownership, hiring, and budgeting
1. Who should own your website?
In smaller organizations, the website often “belongs” to whoever cares the most — which might be a founder, a marketing person, or someone in IT. A more resilient model is:
- Marketing / Growth owns goals, messaging, and measurement (traffic, leads, conversion).
- Design / UX owns structure, interactions, and usability.
- IT / Engineering owns infrastructure, security, and integration with core systems.
2. What kind of partner do you actually need?
If your needs are simple, a design-led partner or a small agency may be enough. If you’re building complex portals, integrations, or eCommerce, you’re effectively commissioning a software project — firmly in IT territory.
A guide like Digital Marketing Web Design can help you think about your site as part of a broader growth system, not just a brochure.
3. Budgeting with IT and design in mind
Because web design straddles IT and marketing, budgets are often split or negotiated across departments. Practical tips:
- Bundle infrastructure (hosting, monitoring, backups) with other IT budgets.
- Track design and content as investments in brand, acquisition, and conversion.
- Include ongoing improvement (UX tweaks, CRO tests) as operating, not one-time, expenses.
For local businesses especially, understanding how website investments map to real business outcomes — and how costs compare across different project types — is critical. Resources like Website Cost Orlando 2025 can help anchor realistic expectations and avoid under-scoping IT or over-scoping visuals.
What this means for careers: is web design “IT enough” for you?
If you’re considering web design as a career, the “IT vs design” question is really about where you want to live on the spectrum.
You enjoy visual problem solving, layouts, and communication. You’re happy working in design tools and collaborating with developers on implementation. You might gravitate to roles like visual designer, marketing web designer, or UX designer, working closely with IT but not deep in infrastructure.
You enjoy making things work in code, solving technical problems, and connecting systems. You might grow into front-end engineer, full-stack developer, or technical lead roles, working on web apps and integrations as part of larger IT initiatives.
Because employers and education systems do classify web development roles under IT, web design skills can be an excellent “creative gateway” into a broader technology career — especially if you build on them with coding and systems knowledge (for example, learning front-end frameworks or exploring Python web development for back-end work).
FAQ: Web design and information technology
In most labor statistics and many job frameworks, yes. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics groups “Web Developers and Digital Designers” under Computer and Information Technology occupations. However, employers may list these roles under marketing, product, or design teams even though the underlying occupation code is IT-related.
For most small businesses, the best answer is “both.” IT (or your technical vendor) should own infrastructure, security, and reliability. Marketing (or your growth partner) should own content, campaigns, and conversion. The web designer or web team sits at the intersection, translating business goals into a site that’s both well-engineered and persuasive.
Absolutely. Many IT professionals started with web design, then deepened their skills in programming, cloud platforms, or security. If you already understand how users interact with interfaces, you have a valuable foundation to build on in software development, DevOps, or product engineering.
Related reading to go deeper
To explore how web design fits into broader IT and business strategy, these guides are a strong next step: