How Difficult is it to Learn Web Design?

Are you curious about learning Web Design but worried it might be too hard? Of course, the difficulty that comes with learning a new skill is somewhat subjective. The challenges of learning Web Design depend on factors likeyour comfort with coding or visual design skills, your ability to juggle a lot of different concepts, and the kinds of web pages you are hoping to design. 

No matter your current schedule or comfort level with web design, plenty of tools are available to help make learning easier than you might think.

What is Web Design?

Web design is the process of creating and maintaining websites. It covers a wide range of topics, including web architecture, user experience, information architecture, and web development. The primary goal of web design is to create a website that is easy to use, informative, and visually appealing. The skill set required for web design is constantly evolving as new technologies and trends emerge. However, some core principles remain constant.

Web design is a process, not a product. The term “web design” refers to creating a website or the finished product itself. A Web Designer is someone who specializes in this process by using their creativity, technical skills, and experience to craft websites that meet the specific needs of their clients. This means that web design is not a one-time event but an ongoing process that should be regularly updated to keep up with the latest trends and technologies. 

Read more about what web design is and why you should learn it.

What Can You Do with Web Design?

As the name suggests, learning web design skills will teach you how to design, develop, and maintain web pages. This means that whatever you can do on the digital canvas of Web 2.0, you can learn to do with web design. You can learn to build professional working websites as a career path or build your own personal brand using elaborate WordPress designs. Students can build a digital CV to make themselves more attractive to employers, or they can launch a digital art project hoping to advocate for a cause that is important to them. Students can turn their passions into a business by building a digital marketplace to advertise their wares or get an idea off the ground with a rhetorically appealing pitch website. The sky's the limit for talented web designers.

Web design also covers a diverse field of specializations and skills so that individuals can create even more specific niches for themselves within the field. Programmers can enter a vibrant community of like-minded designers who iterate on and improve programming languages, making them more versatile and accessible to new users. Developers may find themselves specializing in a specific programming language for things like data science and SEO purposes. User Experience Designers will make web pages themselves more accessible and easy to navigate. Given the amount of time individuals spend online each day, there is no shortage of unique opportunities for skilled web design students.

What Are the Most Challenging Parts of Learning Web Design?

For many students, the most difficult aspect of learning web design will be in the early stages of the process when students are navigating the field. Web design projects are almost never undertaken by a single person, and complicated projects will be worked on by teams of dozens or even hundreds of specialized professionals. Most students don’t know going into the process exactly what they want to do as Web Designers, so the early process may involve a lot of trial and error. 

How Does Learning Web Design Compare to Other Applications/Languages/Fields?

Since web design is such an expansive field, it encompasses a number of different subfields with significant but not total overlap. For simplicity's sake, the biggest divide in the field relevant for students hoping to learn web design is the difference between learning visual design skills and web development skills. Many Web Designers will learn both, but some students may find that they want to specialize in one field or the other.

Visual design emphasizes the look and feel of a web page, and it is a creative field. Using design tools like Adobe Illustrator and Figma, Visual Designers will create outlines and layouts of web pages that will be handed off to developers for launch. Visual Designers won’t need to learn how to code since the tools for creating the visual assets of a web page will not require them to program the actual infrastructure underlying the web page. Another significant subset of visual design is user experience design, which focuses on the tactile feel of a web page when it enters users' hands.

Web development is concerned with the technical aspects of running, maintaining, and launching web pages. Learning web development skills will entail learning how to code and debug web pages using languages like HTML/CSS and JavaScript. Oftentimes, Web Developers won’t be involved in the planning stage of designing the visual look of a web page and will only enter into a project once the desired design has been approved. Web development skills are broken up into front end development, which concerns the visual and interactive elements of a web page that users interact with, such as the links and menus, and back end web development, which concerns itself with the infrastructure and databases that work behind the scenes to make the web application operate. Some developers, called full-stack developers, handle both sides of the operation.

Introductory Courses

For students who are interested in learning web design skills but aren’t confident as to which aspects of web design they want to pursue, free online classes can be ideal, risk-free spaces to experiment with various aspects of the process. Noble Desktop offers students a selection of free online courses that are the perfect introduction to the tools and techniques they will learn in a web design course. In Noble’s Getting Started in Web Design course, students will learn the basic principles of designing web pages, including the difference between visual and technical programming elements. This course is a perfect fit for students who aren’t entirely sure what aspects of web design they want to specialize in since it covers all those elements. 

Noble also offers more detailed videos covering topics such as visual design, HTML/CSS, WordPress, JavaScript, and more on the Web Design and Development playlist on the official YouTube page. These classes aren’t a substitute for professional skills training, but they are the perfect place to take the first step on the road to becoming a professional Web Designer.

Learn Web Design with Hands-on Training at Noble Desktop

Students looking to master web design skills should consider the hands-on training options available to them through Noble Desktop. In these courses, students can learn how to design and code web pages using a variety of platforms and programming languages. These courses, which are all taught by live instructors with years of experience in their respective fields, give students the opportunity to interface directly with their instructors, ensuring they can receive the assistance and feedback they need to succeed. Students can enroll in a web design class or bootcamp either in-person or online.

Students looking to start off their web design and development career without investing too much time into their training may want to consider Noble’s Web Development with HTML/CSS course. In this class, which requires no prior coding knowledge, students will learn the fundamental skills that go into designing and developing web pages using the HTML/CSS programming languages. This class will teach students how to design basic web pages using the coding languages that form the basic infrastructure of a modern web page. Students will learn how to use HTML to build basic web pages and how to use CSS to add a visual flair to their designs. While anyone wanting to design web pages that look up to modern standards will need more training in other, more advanced programming languages, learning HTML/CSS is essential for anyone wanting to build web pages.

Noble offers a Web Design Certificate program for students who want a more immersive, career-focused experience in their training course that aims to take students from novice programmers all the way to professional designers in just a few short weeks. In this course, students will learn how to code web pages with HTML/CSS, JavaScript, and through the WordPress hosting platform. They will learn how to build elaborate, multi-page websites that replicate the kinds of projects they will be hired to work on as professional Web Designers and Developers. In addition, since these are career-focused courses, students will receive extra professionalization training, including one-on-one career mentorship sessions and seminar time dedicated to helping students construct a sample design portfolio that they can take with them onto the job market. For students looking to start a new career in the field of web design, there is no better way to prepare themselves.