Unless you are speaking to a fellow web geek, you’ll find explaining what you do for a living quite tricky. For those not in the know, Websites are created by pixie dust or possibly some form of dark arts.

The likely outcome is that you’ll end up saying “I build websites” rather than “I create front-end code” or “I define the sites user experience”. When these situations arise I simply compare building a website to building a house.

Everyone understands the fundamental building blocks of, well, buildings and you can compare most roles quite nicely.

Here’s how I explain things:

It’s not a perfect analogy, but it can be used to help people understand that your job actually isn’t as simple as “building websites”.

If you leave other suggested job role comparisons I’ll add them!

* Another problem with the web industry is that job names aren’t consistent. A web design in this context is a graphic designer type and not someone who would touch code.