For an aspiring web designer, perhaps the most difficult aspect of getting started is the overwhelming amount of learning options out there. Simply choosing a place to get started can be a daunting task in and of itself, especially without any sort of guidance. Many people make the mistake of starting with some complicated introduction that involves a detailed training course and tutorial, only to find that they’re not really retaining any applicable concepts that could be used to further their own projects.
Learning design theory can be fun and fulfilling in the long-term, but when you just want to dive right in and have something to show immediately, it’s not really the best course of action. With that said, here are three ways any newbie can get started designing their own web pages from day one:
1. Start a Blog
Most blog editing interfaces include all the tools you need to start formatting and publishing pages with literally no prior experience. For starters, you could make your own blog with StartABlog123 just to gain some comfort and experience using their design resources. Doing this will give you the opportunity to view and tweak results instantly, which is an important part of creating a sense of progress in the early stages of your web design education. If you’re looking for the fastest way from newbie to blog owner, using a blogging guide like StartABlog123 is the best place to start.
2. Take an Online Course
In addition to launching and maintaining your own basic blog, you might also want to consider the advantages of starting a free online course in web design. One of the most popular online web design courses is W3Schools.
SkilledUp has also put together a list of more than 50 educational resources you can use to learn to build websites. Go ahead and pick one of those courses to get started on while you’re in the process of building your own blog on another platform.
3. Use a WYSIWYG HTML Editor
Most blogging platforms include a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) web editing tool that lets you format and adjust the content and layout of a page using simple buttons and self-explanatory features. The benefit of using one of these when you’re learning is that you can switch into the code view to check out the inner workings of a page on the design side.
For example, you can highlight some text and change the formatting of it, and then switch to code view to see how you would perform an adjustment like that using HTML or another programming language. LifeHacker has put together a useful list of the top 5 WYSWYG HTML editors that you might want to become familiar with.
In closing, when you’re just starting out, don’t make things more complicated than they have to be in the name of learning. While it is good to understand the inner workings of your blog, be sure to take advantage of the many tools out there that can simplify your job as a new webmaster.