Being a web designer is no different from any other profession. Although it is seen as a difficult career to get into, most are sadly mistaken about it. Web design might seem to be daunting at first. But, with enough determination and willpower, you can absolutely smash your way into being a web designer in a few months of dedicated work.
Web designers are known for creating and coding pages on the internet. They design the layout and make it friendly for future users to access information inside your own website. Much like an architect, every nook and cranny of the website must have a purpose. Every position of an icon is there to attract the user to click it.
They also pattern the site according to how humans behave when confronted with a web page. Aside from that, they earn a whopping $77,000 annually, depending on experience and reliability.
How does one become a web designer?
First Step: Actually Starting
There are many stories on the internet regarding how people have made it to become web designers in many different startups. It is no secret that the most common denominator for all these successful web designers is that they started from scratch. In fact, that is the catch for most of the successful ones who struck gold. Most success stories started their careers doing something entirely different. When they got interested in developing websites, they stuck with it as a hobby. Eventually, they earned experience doing something that they were good at. The first step is to actually start doing it. You cannot learn from reading up on it. You have to begin. You have to do your own research and practice.
Second Step: Learning Ethical Web Design Theory
Ethical web design theory is no joke. Web design involves learning and making educated guesses on how human behavior will interact when faced with a web page. If you think about websites where icons are misplaced or some pictures are positioned counter-intuitively — web design theory is the accumulated experience and knowledge of those who came before you. Facebook did not land where it is right now without adapting to change. It relied heavily on web design theory.
Now, most people can’t get off it. It begs the user to return and return to the website. It has designed itself to be so addictive that Facebook validation syndrome is an actual psychosis. It stemmed from Facebook addiction. The more you use the website, the worse you feel. Learning ethical web design is the way to go nowadays. While human behavior can lean towards addiction, you can curb this by doing the exact opposite. Trying to make your website attractive but less addictive in nature is the key to a sustainable website with an ethical design.
Third Step: Learning How to Code
Learning how to code is like learning a new language. Coding is about learning how a computer program speaks and how to pattern your speech to command how it should behave. The fundamental programming languages new learners have to be aware of are HTML, CSS, Java, and JavaScript. Hypertext Markup Language or HTML is a programming language that enables documents or words to be displayed on a web page. With HTML, you can change how your words look and how it clumps together.
Cascading Style Sheets or CSS is a programming language heavily involved with HTML. It sets the stage for how the words are displayed on your webpage. Java is a programming language that most web designers and developers use to run multiple applications. It runs on a code that can run without depending heavily on the computer programming language. Lastly, JavaScript is a core programming language for web design that enables user interaction with web pages. It heavily regulates the behavior of the opposite side of web pages.
Fourth Step: Applying What You Have Learned
To get a job in network security companies, most cybersecurity experts learn multiple programming languages to bypass and learn how security threats get around normal programs. As a web designer, you should also learn how the turn your program against you to find loopholes in your website. Applying what you learned and making the program obey your every whim is important to be successful at it. Most job interviews involving web design and web development actually begin with questions regarding going around a buggy code or a problematic design. Being an expert at what you do involves a lot of learning and re-learning.
While learning web design can be difficult, it is easily executable with enough determination. Such a skill can take you anywhere, as it is a luxurious career. You can leave a mark through your web design creativity that will dictate how the internet’s face will look.
