I'm sure you all have heard managers saying that "we need an analyzer", or "we need a designer". While I'm a .NET developer, I hardly can differentiate an analyzer from a designer (not web designer or UI designer).
Who is analyzer? Who is designer? Do they overlap?
Analysis: Define the problem. Answer this: "What do we need?"
Design: Define the solution. Answer this: "How will we build it?"
Study the Software Development Life Cycle. This question was answered within the first two weeks of Software Engineering 101. Its a relevant question, and there is a definite but sometimes not so clear answer.
If you can imagine the analysts, designers, coders, project manager, other roles as a large Venn diagram, analysts and designers overlap considerably.
Analysts are usually the pioneers in a project. They take usually a set of basic requirements provided to them by project managers and stakeholders, to nail them down and go over things with a fine tooth comb to figure out what exactly the project is. More specifically what the non-functional requirements are.
Designers take this information gathering from the analysts to iron out a functional requirements, along with many others possibly (hopefully) including UML.
On a side note, analysts are usually paid more than programmers.
