Once you master the basics of authoring HTML, you’ll need focus on what your next steps will be. If you’re an aspiring web designer, you’ll need to dive deeper into HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. If you’re maintaining a corporate or personal site through a CMS, you’ll need to focus on how the CMS works, and the most efficient ways to edit and maintain content. On this page I’ll give you some basic advice on how to approach learning web design and point you towards additional resources that can help you along the way.

Learning Web Design

“Web design” is a pretty open-ended term. Often people who are new to web design feel overwhelmed at everything there is to learn. That’s understandable, but just remember that it’s like any other discipline; with proper dedication and focus you’ll progress quickly. Here’s my favorite advice to new web designers on learning web design:

Learn how the web works.
Without understanding how web servers, protocols, browsers, and other related web technology works, you’ll never really understand the context behind why you do the things you do, and what makes one practice better than another.

Determine an area of focus, and start there.
There are many areas of web design you could specialize in. Learn as much about them as you can to determine which interest you, then dive deeper into that area before branching out.

Never stop learning.
The web is constantly evolving. Even if you become highly skilled, new techniques and approaches will come along quickly. Being a good web designer means embracing change.

Break things!
Experimentation is the best teacher. Build and test constantly, ask yourself “what if...?”, and learn from both successes and failures.

Web Design Resources