How Long Does it Take to Learn Web Design?

Like many aspiringWeb Designers, Web Developers, or UX Designers, you might want to learn Web Design but worry that it will take too much time. The time it takes to learn web design will depend on the depth of a person’s training. Learning any individual aspect of web design may only take students a few weeks of dedicated training, but learning how to handle all of the stages of designing, developing, and maintaining a web page can take years. Of course, this depends on several factors. Keep reading to learn about how you can learn Web Design and some resources to help speed the process along.

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.

Average Time it Takes to Learn Web Design

On average, most professional Web Designers dealing with every aspect of a web page will take a few years of training to master all the elements they need. However, individual skills can be learned much faster, and very few professional Web Designers will actually use all of the skills they would acquire in a traditional 4-year web design degree program. This means that students can learn at their own pace once they have taken a few weeks to a month of immersive study, mastering a few of the important web design skills.

Other Factors

The most significant factor that will affect how long it takes you to learn web design is the question of whether or not you are planning to design web pages professionally. Then, the next most important factor will be what kinds of web design skills you hope to learn.

Professional Aspirations

As with most professional skills, students who are looking to learn a set of skills for professional purposes will need more training than those hoping to design web pages as a hobby or for their own purposes. However, professional web design students will be able to narrow their focus, potentially speeding up the process of learning initial skills.

Different Elements of Web Design

Since web design is such a diverse field of skills, some will naturally take less time to pick up than others. While this will vary from person to person, learning how to use Figma, for instance, may come to students quicker than learning HTML/CSS and JavaScript. In addition, since each skill has a particular niche in the field, students hoping to expand their knowledge and learn many different aspects of web design will find that the process takes longer than students who specialize in a single aspect.

Level of Difficulty, Prerequisites, & Cost 

Learning web design skills will vary in difficulty from student to student because web design is a wide and varied field. Students looking to learn the visual layout skills that go into the pre-production design of a website will need less training than a Back End Developer tasked with building a website's systems infrastructure. Someone looking to learn WordPress will find it easier than someone who wants to learn React and JavaScript. While students can learn all of the elements of web design, that is a task that can take years, so students should enter into their training with realistic goals, which will then determine how difficult and time-consuming it will be to learn.

While there are no formal prerequisites for learning web design, almost all Web Designers will need to learn how to code using HTML/CSS. These two languages form the foundation of modern web design infrastructure, so anyone looking to code their web pages must learn these skills. However, they are also reasonably simple languages, ideal for new programmers to learn as their first. Unfortunately, these are only prerequisites, as almost all contemporary web design uses languages built off these two. Students will need additional training in courses that expect them to know basic HTML/CSS. Visual design students may not need to learn HTML/CSS, but it is still recommended.

Web design has no directly attached cost, save for the incidental price of hosting a web page, which can cost a negligible amount. Almost all programming languages are free and open source, meaning anyone can use them. While students will need a coding application, there are many excellent free options, so new students who aren’t picky about the compiler they use will have access to free applications. Students looking to learn complex visual design skills for web pages must license programs such as Adobe Illustrator, XD, or After Effects, which cost about $20 a month. There are free trials and numerous free alternatives (though free options are likely to have fewer professional training opportunities than these industry-standard programs).

Read about how difficult it is to learn web design.

Watch a Free Web Design Online Course

For students who are interested in learning web design skills but aren’t confident that they want to enroll in a professional training seminar, free online tutorials can be a great place to figure out if more advanced web design training is right. 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.

Students may also wish to consider the free training options available through service providers such as Udemy, Coursera, or YouTube. Since web design is such a wide-ranging field of computer science and is essential to making the internet functional, many solid, free options exist. This is particularly true for introductory material covering skills such as HTML/CSS because it is assumed that most students who learn these fundamental skills will eventually move on to more advanced training.

Read about more free web design videos and online tutorials.

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.

Key Insights

• Web design skills are the skills to go into designing, developing, and maintaining web pages. They represent a fairly diverse array of different skills, meaning that the time it takes to learn them will vary from person to person.
• While many web design students pick up the skills in a 4-year university setting, there are ways to learn these skills faster, particularly for students who are hoping to jumpstart their careers.
• Individual skills can be picked up fairly quickly, with students gaining a working proficiency in a tool or programming language in only a few weeks of immersive study.
• Students looking to accelerate their learning further should consider professional skills instruction through Noble Desktop, which offers live online and in-person web design classes.