Learning Web Design – Top Tips to Get Started
Do you need to develop web sites for your business, but have no web design experience? This friendly, straightforward guide is just the place to begin. From beginner levels to advanced knowledge, you will start at square one, learning what web sites and web development work. What does “web development” mean? How do different types of programs help you learn web design?
Learning web design requires using a variety of programs and learning about how they all work. Even though you may find that you know most of the information on the web, including “how web pages work,” you will still need to study, research, and practice until you are completely fluent in all areas of web design. It is better to know some basic computer skills before diving into the advanced world of web design, because you may find it difficult to learn the more advanced skills. Once you have learned the basics, though, web design is simple and fun!
Aesthetics and User Experience Design Most people think of graphic design when they hear the word “web site” or “online presence.” However, web design encompasses a wide variety of tasks, such as user interface design, visual design, and search engine optimization. In fact, a graphic designer can contribute to both user experience and visual design by helping to create the interface for a website. A good graphic designer can present the designer’s vision for the end user experience and provide a point of contact for the business owner.
CSS and HTML terminology Most websites employ a combination of HTML code and style sheets in order to display graphics, text, links, videos, and images on a web page. Web designers use a variety of stylesheets to put web pages together and to provide structure to the website. CSS stands for cascading style sheet and HTML codes are used to put those styles and code into style sheets. Learning to use CSS and HTML is an integral part of learning web design and is essential for aspiring designers to learn.
User Interface Design The user interface design process begins with a basic platform that allows the designer to explore the user experience in more detail. The platform is usually a browser or operating system like Macs, PCs, or iPhones. From the user interface design, a designer can develop a user experience design, which refers to the way a user will interact with the website or application. This includes things like menus, buttons, form fields, forms, pop-up boxes, spinner boxes, and more. Designers will then use a style sheet to create the actual interface, as well as an HTML/CSS file to define the colors and other visual aspects of the interface.
Graphic Design Many online businesses and sites use graphic design in order to attract users and persuade them to purchase products or services. Many websites are now created using vector images, rather than traditional bitmaps, which are typically used by web designers when creating bitmaps. Vector graphics are very detailed and are designed to scale to any size without loss of clarity. Graphic designers work with translators and art directors to create the final visual designs for web pages. A graphic designer’s job may require the creation of many different visual designs for a page, depending on the product or service being offered.
Adobe Photoshop The most widely used editing and pre-creating software for creating graphics are Adobe Photoshop. It is a free program, but there are various versions of the software designed for different platforms, including Apple’s OS X and Microsoft’s Windows operating systems. Most web designers prefer to use Photoshop, because it is very simple to learn, as well as very easy to use in the browsers of most browsers. Almost all Adobe Photoshop tutorials will show users how to customize their graphics with different colors, shadows and lighting, and text effects like gradients, glow, and stencils. Even beginners can produce an excellent result in their first few attempts using Adobe Photoshop.
HTML5: Hyper Text Markup Language Another type of relatively new development is HTML5, which is becoming increasingly popular among web designers as it provides a way for devices such as smart phones and tablets to view the website. Unlike Adobe Photoshop, HTML5 does not have a huge learning curve. Web designers can simply install the necessary plugins to get started with creating HTML5-based graphics. By using a tool called Extensible Markup Language, or XML, a designer can create a markup language that can be used in conjunction with JavaScript code, which enables him to manipulate digital media. Web browsers such as Google Chrome, Safari and Firefox support the W3C standards that define the syntax of HTML.