Building a page on your storefront takes two roles working together: a content author and a page designer. A content author works in Document Authoring or the Universal Editor, choosing the words, images, and blocks a page needs. A page designer works in the storefront’s code, defining how those blocks appear, including layouts, fonts, colors, and sizes.
This split lets a content author choose a page’s content, while a page designer builds its presentation. Pre-built, tested layouts keep pages fast, consistent, and accessible in ways that page-by-page styling can’t guarantee. The consistent markup they produce is also easier to optimize for search engines.
Here’s what each one does:
Page Designer
Builds new blocks and their layout options, including a block’s styling, spacing, and behavior across devices. This role requires HTML, CSS, Git, and JavaScript skills, and a working knowledge of Edge Delivery Services component design. It works directly in the storefront’s code, but not on drop-ins or their underlying behavior. See Blocks Reference for the blocks already available to extend, or Customizing Blocks to build a new one.
Content Author
Starts from the template closest to their needs, then adds text, images, and the right pre-built blocks to assemble the page, in Document Authoring or the Universal Editor. Content authors choose from the layout options that a page designer has already built. They also own block settings, placeholders, metadata, publishing, and scheduling. This role maps to the “author” role described in Author and developer tasks.
A layout option must exist before a content author can pick it.
A hero banner, for example, might offer a two-column layout and a full-width layout, each built and tested ahead of time.
When a content author needs a layout option that doesn’t exist yet, or an entirely new kind of block, the request goes to the page designer. If that need is a new drop-in, live catalog data, or a change to existing behavior, it becomes a developer task outside the page designer’s scope. See Author and developer tasks for how to file that request.
Page designers create templates for common content pages, such as a landing page or a category page, so content authors can start from the right baseline instead of starting from an empty page. A content author selects the template that most closely matches their needs and builds from there.
If you’re a content author ready to build a page, start with Create your first commerce page. It walks through assembling a page from an existing template in Document Authoring.
If you have the front-end skills to build a new block or layout option, start with Blocks Reference to see what already exists, then Customizing Blocks to build something new.
