How to Learn Web Design

Web design refers to the cluster of professional skills used by teams to design, develop, and maintain web pages. Given how important an online presence is in almost all fields and industries, more and more people are learning web design to further their careers and ambitions. The number of options for learning Web Design might be overwhelming at first glance. There are books, video tutorials, classes, and more to choose from; it all depends on your learning style and personal preferences. 

Here, we’ll discuss the various methods of learning Web Design so you can decide how you’d like to get started.

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.

In-Person Web Design Training

Many students find that learning in person in a classroom is the ideal way to learn a new skill. The classroom structure is designed to help students succeed, and being in a space with a cohort of like-minded students can be productive. In addition, students will have access to an in-person instructor to whom they can ask questions and to a training center’s computer labs, ensuring that students have access to necessary tech. The drawback to in-person training courses is that they tend to be restricted to specific locations, normally whatever major city the training service provider is located in. This means that many students who can’t regularly commute to a metropolitan area will need to find other ways to learn web design.

Noble Desktop offers live, in-person web design classes at its campus in Manhattan. Students who can make the commute to New York City can receive expert instruction from Noble’s experienced instructors, all while taking advantage of Noble’s onsite computer labs. Students who aren’t located in New York City should explore options for other local training centers, such as Sonic Training (in Southern California) or The School of Visual Concepts (in Seattle).

Live Online Web Design Training

Some students may discover that they are unable to attend an in-person web design training course. They may not live near any that are being offered, or they may be unable to commute. For these students and students who prioritize the convenience of in-home learning, live online web design classes represent an ideal alternative. These courses are every bit as immersive and hands-on as their in-person counterparts, and students will still have the advantage of being able to interact with a live instructor who can provide them with assistance and feedback. The drawback to these courses is that because students won’t have access to a computer lab, they will need to supply their own hardware and software, which may not be a problem for students learning how to code, but might be an issue for students who are looking to learn aspects of web design that rely on paid applications, like visual design or 3D animation.

Noble offers all of its in-person classes through live online delivery, and students who enroll in these courses will get the same hands-on training and benefit from the perks of enrolling in a Noble course, such as small class sizes and free retakes within one year. These classes are an ideal place to receive professional web design training without having to leave the comfort of your personal workspace. Students should also consider the options available to them through other service providers, such as Udemy and Coursera.

Free Online Courses & Tutorials

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.

Which Learning Method is Right for Me?

Students looking to learn web design skills will have a number of options available to them, ranging from live in-person training seminars and dedicated education centers to individual, on-demand lessons that they can pick up and put down when they have the time to study. Since every student is in a different position, it is helpful to seriously consider the pros and cons of each learning option.

Students often suggest that live, in-person classwork is the best way to learn a new skill. Students can take advantage of a classroom computer lab and interact directly with their instructor in order to receive assistance and feedback on their work. In these classes, students can easily get the direct attention they need, making them ideal for students who worry that they will need extra assistance early in their work. The drawback to these classes is that they are both the most expensive options and come with the most logistical restrictions. Students will not only need to be near a training center, but they will also need to be near one that offers courses at a time that is convenient for them, and they will need to find a way to commute to their course, which can all be a bridge too far for some students.

Students hoping to learn from a live instructor but are unable to attend an in-person training course may wish to consider enrolling in a live online web design class. In these classes, students will be able to receive professional web design training from live instructors without having to leave their homes. Students can still take advantage of small class sizes and interface directly with their instructors, even in the digital classroom space. The drawback is that these courses can be just as expensive as their in-person counterparts, and with minimal tech support, students will need to find ways to acquire their own software. This won’t be a problem for development students, but anyone wanting to learn things like the Adobe Creative Cloud design tools may find that cost adding up quickly.

Students who need more flexibility in their learning will want to prioritize the self-paced nature of on-demand training. These courses give students a chance to work at their own pace, making them ideal for anyone with work or life obligations that limit their ability to attend a regularly scheduled class. These courses also let students target specific skills they want to learn quickly or skills they need to prioritize for specific projects. The drawback is that these classes lack live instructors, so novice students may find it easy to become overwhelmed at the start of their lessons. Plus, for visual design students, learning without a live instructor means not receiving important creative feedback on their work.

Why Learn Web Design?

In the modern digital landscape, it is more important than ever for companies and organizations to develop a strong web presence. They will want to hire employees who can design, develop, maintain, and upgrade those web pages to ensure they are putting their best possible presence online. This means that web design and development skills are in high demand across almost every professional industry. Plus, the public and nonprofit sectors also need to maintain millions of web pages, so anyone interested in working in more advocacy or community-focused environment can also find gainful employment opportunities.

In addition, learning web design skills may also be helpful for your own creative and commercial ambitions. If you have a project that you are working on, whether it is a new product that you are releasing on an e-store or you just want to create a personal website for collecting job materials, learning web design skills will help make sure that those web pages are functional and visually evocative. Whether or not you know how to code, even just learning the design aspect of the process can be incredibly professionally rewarding, as more and more web pages are running on platforms such as WordPress.

Read more about why you should learn web design.

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.

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

• Students interested in learning web design skills can find professional quality training both at in-person training centers and online through both live instruction and asynchronous on-demand classes.
• Students looking to learn in person will benefit from a dedicated classroom space to train and a live instructor who can provide them with the necessary feedback and assistance.
• Students learning in live online classes can access a live instructor and won’t be restricted to only the training courses they can physically attend.
• Students learning in on-demand classes can benefit from the added flexibility of scheduling their own lessons and doing the work in sporadic bursts of free time.
• Students looking for immersive web design courses, offered in person and online, should consider the options available to them through Noble Desktop.