Frontend Versus Backend

You may hear web designers and developers say that they specialize in either the frontend or backend of
web site creation.

Frontend design
“Frontend” refers to any aspect of the design process that appears in or relates directly to the browser.
The following tasks are commonly considered to be frontend disciplines:

Graphic design
Interface design
Information design as it pertains to the user’s experience of the site
Site production, including HTML documents, style sheets and JavaScript

Backend development
“Backend” refers to the programs and scripts that work on the server behind the scenes to make web pages dynamic and interactive. In general, backend web development falls in the hands of experienced programmers, but it is good for all web designers to be familiar with backend functionality.
The following tasks take place on the backend:

Information design as it pertains to how the information is organized on the server
Forms processing
Database programming
Content management systems
Other server-side web
applications using Perl/CGI, PHP,
ASP, JSP, Ruby on Rails, Java and
other programming languages.