should designers know how to code?
TRANSCRIPT
3/27/2017 Should Designers Know How To Code?
https://blog.designveloper.com/2017/03/24/coding-designers/ 1/6
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Should Designers Know How To Code?
Recently, I’ve kept coming across tons of discussions about the web design industry. One of the most
heated debates I read is that whether designers should code or not. Some say they’re designer
(obviously, the title already told it all), they just do design, let the coders code. On the contrary, others
assume that designers should be familiar with the development process cause most job openings
nowadays have called for designers to be proficient in several programming languages.
Ok, I know it’s a never-ending argument. Everyone has their own points. But, wait a minute. Maybe we
did put the question in the wrong meaning. It shouldn’t be, “should designers code?” but rather, “Should
designers know how to code” and “How much code should they know?”.
W E B S I T E D E S I G N ( H T T P S : / / B L O G . D E S I G N V E L O P E R . C O M / C A T E G O R Y / W E B S I T E -D E S I G N / )
B y V a n D o ( h t t p s : // b l o g . d e s i g n v e l o p e r . c o m / a u t h o r / v a n d o / ) o n M a r c h 2 4 , 2 0 1 7
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3/27/2017 Should Designers Know How To Code?
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Imagine you are doing a project but you can’t communicate clearly and effectively with your
developers, how can your design become more realistic and less subject to changes? By equipping
yourself with a solid foundation in coding, you and your programmers can speak a common language
and be able to understand each other. Knowing how to code not only broadens your knowledge, but
also can go a very long way.
3/27/2017 Should Designers Know How To Code?
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Related: The Most Useful Tools For Web Designers
(https://blog.designveloper.com/2016/11/23/tools-for-web-designers/)
Believe it or not, if you are not ahead of the times, you are behind them. While you’re reading this
article, tech employers out there are already looking for unicorns who are designers knowing how to
code.
With that in mind, the following is some “a piece of cake” guidelines that can help you to “know code
enough to be awesome”.
Get famil iar with basic HTML, CSS
When it comes to building a website, you can’t avoid mentioning HTML and CSS.
HTML is the main language used to write webpages and used by your browser to display your site to
the user. In short, it allows the system to know what is supposed to be an image, and what is supposed
to be text copy.
CSS is used to format the look and feel of a website, separate from the actual content of the web
page. It allows for things like color of text, the background, the shape, size and position of all different
parts of a page to be set.
If you master HTML and CSS, you’ll be able to code up any web design you can dream of. How
wonderful! There are plenty of online resources to learn HTML and CSS. I recommend you to start your
coding journey with these great sites: Khan Academy
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(https://www.khanacademy.org/computing/computer-programming/html-css) and Codecademy
(https://www.codecademy.com/learn/web). Both sites provide free, interactive and highly structured
courses on HTML and CSS.
Besides, you can find out more resources at here (https://blog.designveloper.com/2016/09/23/html5-
resources-for-beginners/).
Learn JavaScriptIf you want to be the coolest kid in the web world, do not ignore JavaScript!
Speaking of the web, we can avoid mentioning the browsers and the browsers mean running the
JavaScript. Pages without JavaScript are rather bland, whereas JavaScript laced sites allow for
animation and better control over the web interface. Mastering at least basic JavaScript so that you
understand the way the language works.
There are a lot of great JavaScript resources out there. Lucky for you, I have pulled together a huge list
of resources (https://blog.designveloper.com/2016/11/25/javascript-learning-resources/) that will
help you get started with JavaScript.
To step your game up a little bit, here are 5 JavaScript Frameworks To Watch In 2017
(https://blog.designveloper.com/2017/03/15/javascript-frameworks-in-2017/)
Give it a shot. Why not?
What next?It’s time to get your hands dirty! As I always said before, you will be the best solider when you’re
fighting with the real world enemy. Watching or reading the course won’t help you learn the most but
taking the time to try it out, practice it in real code will do. So create a website. Maybe a couple. Make
them look nice.
If you fail, oh dear everybody fail at the first time, just do it again. Failure isn’t permanent, quitting is.
3/27/2017 Should Designers Know How To Code?
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Final WordsTo be honest, coding isn’t for everyone. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that designers should never
learn code. If you can’t code, that’s totally fine. You are a designer, just go back to doing the stuff you
are good at. But, if you are thinking of giving coding a try (I presume you are here for that reason), then
don’t hesitate to go for it. It will give you a chance to dominate the web world.
A f t e r a l l , y o u h a v e n o t h i n g t o l o s e b u t a c h a n c e t o w i n .
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