How To Learn Web Design

If you have had no experience of web design and want to design your own website you may wonder where on earth you should start. However, there is plenty of help available.

If you are keen to learn web design and use those skills in the future the best place to start is by learning some simple html.  You don’t need to learn it in detail as there are plenty of web design programs that will do all the coding for you, but if you have no experience of coding at all, it can be difficult if the site gives you problems as you won’t know where to start when trying to fix it.  Also, even the best web design program doesn’t have perfect coding and you may have to make changes manually to make it work effectively on all web browsers.  There are sites on the internet that help you to learn html and will give you exercises to work through, or you can buy a book to guide you through it.  There are lots of very good books out there but it is a good idea to look at a few before you buy to be sure it is in a style that you like.

Once you have learnt some of the basics on how to create the site, you will need to learn what are the best designs to use. This is partly down to each person’s individual taste, but there are some rules that apply to all sites that it is worth learning.  Rules such as simple is better, and make sure the site is easy to navigate and attracts the correct audience may seem obvious, but sometimes it is too easy to get carried away with the design and forget about who you are actually designing it for.  If you make sure you keep your client and the potential audience in mind all the time throughout the design process then you are much more likely to have a successful website.

Website design is sometimes marketed as something anyone can do, and that is true. With the latest software it is easy to put together a simple site in just minutes. However, if you want something that really works, you will need to spend some time researching sites.  As well as looking at sites and/or books on how to code websites you will also need to look at ones that tell you about sites that have good designs and explain to you why the designs work so well. If you study this it will enable you to work out some good designs for yourself.  When you are starting out it is a good idea to sketch out designs on paper first and then work on making them practical for you so that you can put them on the Internet.  If you have never used a graphic design program before such as Photoshop now is the time to learn, because a lot of your time will be spent working on graphics for the site.  A lot of software like this comes with tutorials and if you work through these you should have a pretty good idea of how to use it for your designs.

David Hamer is Director of MakeUsAWebiste Limited, who provide cheap web design services for those who don’t have time to learn HTML! The also provide a range of SEO services.

Read more at Technology Blog by Ash Chuan