Want to learn how to design a complicated website.

Caryatnid

Hi.
Sorry if this is a boring question.

Basically I have a business idea. To do it I need a website, where people can register, search, have their own accounts, take payments, etc.

I have absolutely minimal website design experience. Let's call it none. And I want to do it myself.

My question is - where's the best place to start learning?

Should I self-learn? Or start with an evening course (maybe by FÁS) and then continue by self-learning?

If I should start with an evening course, can anyone recommend one?

If I should start with self-learning, what should I be learning? Any links greatly appreciated.

Also, should I be focusing on Dreamweaver or Frontpage, which do you recommend? Is Dreamweaver better for complicated webdesign?

Thanks so much for any advice.

ron_darrell

Unfortunately for what you are looking for there are no easy answers. Simple web (HTML/XHTML) can be picked up quickly but for account and logins etc you will need to learn a programming language.

If you have no prior programming experience this may take some time, even if you have depending on the experience you have it may still take some time. At the moment the scripting languages which dominate are ASP and PERL. ASP is being superceded by ASP.NET so even after you learn ASP it may be necessary to learn it's .NET counterpart.

You will also, if you are serious about this, have to learn SQL and how to manage a database. This in itself can take a serious amount of time though with a DB program like ACCESS you can be up and running in a relatively short space of time.

If you are serious about your project it may make more sense to sub-contract it out to a web-design team. If you really want to do it yourself you can learn everything you need to program from the web (for free) provided you are willing to put in the time and effort. [link]http://www.w3schools.com/ [/link] have tutorials on all the main web technologies (though they are a bit sketchy and assume a certain amount of prior experience they are the best I have come across).

If you would feel happier doing a course there are night courses on web design offered by most of the main 3rd level institutions. Check with your local university or IT for more details. FAS do offer an online college service ([link]http://www.e-college.ie/[/link]) however I have never taken one of these courses so I do not know how relevent or useful these courses are. Prices start at €150.

As for dreamweaver; it is used in the industry, however I have only ever found it to create 'lazy' programmers and worse programmers who without the dreamweaver program are unable to create even basic sites. That said it drastically reduces development time. So there are pluses and minuses. In the end it's your choice. Personally I would avoid it.

The only other technology you might want to have a look at is Flash which is used to create the animation effects on some of the more upmarket websites. I have not gone to the bother of learning it as my work is mainly with intranet sites and back-end development.

I hope this has been of some help and not sounded too negative. It is always tempting to try and do things yourself but sometimes, if you step back from it all, it can make more sense to farm it out to others with more experience. Good luck whatever you choose to do and if I can be of any help feel free to PM me.

-RD

Kudos

ron_darrell wrote:

At the moment the scripting languages which dominate are ASP and PERL. ASP is being superceded by ASP.NET so even after you learn ASP it may be necessary to learn it's .NET counterpart.

ron_darrell: your information is pretty outdated, at this point learning ASP.NET and PHP makes more sense (PHP being more important with better community support). Perl hasn't dominated in a long time and ASP.NET is already widely supported.

Surion

Ron,
good info thanks.

colm_c

All the technical and programming stuff is very important but even more important is sound principles of design including usability, accessibility, interaction design, information design, information architecture etc.

These skills are harder to pickup, and they don't exactly run FAS courses on them either!

smcelhinney

Agreed with colm_c.

And Java is widely used to. And very portable.

Are you planning on generating a LOT of revenue with this website? If so, then even if you do get all the constituent (how apt!) parts working individually, bringing them all into a fully functioning website that's easy on the eyes is quite an ordeal.

Also, look at solutions that are already in place. Look at
* Joomla (for content management)
* osCommerce or Zen-cart (for eCommerce)

Im sure there's even a CRM PHP module somewhere (anyone?) If you try to at least understand the structure of these programs, then you can understand how to make them interact.

Dont reinvent the wheel, greatest form of flattery and all that.

Start with a basic HTML course first though, one that teaches accessiblity and usability principles. Im sure you'll find one on google easily enough.

roomwithaskew

I agree with colm too.

Personally I would recommend the following books:

• A basic HTML Book: eg HTML Dog
• A CSS Book: eg Beginning CSS Web Development
• A Usability Book: eg Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach To Web Usability

These should give you a good grounding on how to design standards based, accessible and usable websites.

After you get to grips with those you could look into programming languages like PHP, frameworks like Ruby on Rails and the whizz bang effects of Ajax etc.

A great resource for learning a lot of the technologies used in web development is Lynda.com. You pay $25 a month for unlimited access to their training videos. It's probably the best money I've spent when it comes to learning web development and design.

Don't be scared off by all the php/asp/java/ruby on rails/asp.net/sql etc talk. Once you've become competent at HTML and CSS you can do a great deal by just having a basic understanding of a language like php, for example, and using a CMS like Expression Engine.

Other books I'd recommend are Making and Breaking The Grid by Timothy Samara and CSS Mastery by Andy Budd.

I'm not claiming to be an expert, far from it, I'm still learning but these resources have helped me a great deal.

Eoin

colm_c wrote:

All the technical and programming stuff is very important but even more important is sound principles of design including usability, accessibility, interaction design, information design, information architecture etc.

These skills are harder to pickup, and they don't exactly run FAS courses on them either!

For those reasons, I really think the OP should let the professionals do it. While I'm sure anyone computer literate could learn how to insert and get data from a database using asp.net / php / whatever in a short amount of time, it does not mean that they are ready to put together a site that can handle payments and user accounts properly.

Also, while there are a lot of open-source products out there, integrating them is not an easy task at the best of times.

DonkeyStyle \o/

Caryatnid wrote:

Basically I have a business idea.

[...]

And I want to do it myself.

If it's such a good business idea, why don't you put some money behind it?
Get it done properly by experts.

I think it's cool having a pet project that spurs you on to learn new things, but if I had an actual business idea with potential to make a fair bit of money (instead of an interesting pet-project) I wouldn't dream of doing it all myself.
I think if there's a business hinging on it; it's better to have it done by professional graphic designers, coders, etc.

my 2c anyway

DJB

Have a look at picking up a book or two from www.sitepoint.com/books

There is a steep learning curve to get your head around and as RD said, you'll have to learn a couple of languages, standards and programs to get there. You'll need at least the following to have a really good site:

- ASP, ASP.NET, or PHP
- SQL and either MS SQL or MySQL
- XHTML and CSS
- Some Javascript and DHTML (at least how to implement them)
- CSS layouts, accessibile designs, seo techniques, valid markup, etc.

All this takes time to learn. If you idea is a good one, I'd suggest approaching someone who knows this stuff and seeing if they would be willing to partner with you and develop the site. It's a tough approach doing it all yourself.

It's better to have 50% of a 1-100 million euro website, then 100% of a 50 quid site

Regarding Dreamweaver and Frontpage --- DON'T TOUCH FRONTPAGE!!! The products nearly dead anyway, thank god. If you are determined to learn yourself, pick up a copy of dreamweaver, experiment with code and use the split screen view to see what code does what. After awhile you'll get used to how code renders and will begin writing it manually yourself. I still use Dreamweaver to this day (I started with DW3 all those years ago) and I hand write everything myself. I still like the code colouring, predictive code, integrated ftp, etc. I wouldn't regard myself as a lazy programmer RD but I know where you are coming from. Use DW as a learning tool but get into hand writing your code as soon as possible. You'll learn it much quicker that way.

These are great books from sitepoint that I've read:
http://www.sitepoint.com/books/cssdesign1/
http://www.sitepoint.com/books/design1/
http://www.sitepoint.com/books/aspnet2/
http://www.sitepoint.com/books/css2/

and there's loads more for the picking.

I'd seriously recommned asking someone in the field some advice (other than this forum) before proceeding with learning it all yourself.

Rgds, Dave

roomwithaskew

Not everyone has thousands (tens of thousands?) to pay developers and desgners to make a site for them. I'm sure the guy know's he could hire someone to build the site but he said he wants to do it himself.

If this was a Motoring forum and i'd asked where's the best place to learn about maintaining an engine I'd hope to receive better replies than "don't bother, take it to a mechanic".

roomwithaskew

DJB's suggestion to partner with someone else is a good compromise.

DJB

roomwithaskew wrote:

Not everyone has thousands (tens of thousands?) to pay developers and desgners to make a site for them. I'm sure the guy know's he could hire someone to build the site but he said he wants to do it himself.

If this was a Motoring forum and i'd asked where's the best place to learn about maintaining an engine I'd hope to receive better replies than "don't bother, take it to a mechanic".

If I went on to a motoring forum and said I wanted to learn how to maintain my car's engine myself and I had absolutely minimum experience (in that I only drive a car but never even lifted the hood)... I'd hope someone would tell me to go to a garage and save me all the time, energy and money I'd potentially waste doing it myself.

I think the TS has gotten some good information in the replies about how and where to learn but also to look at getting someone to do it themselves. A good business idea will have a better chance of success with the right people behind it (be it investors, techies, entrepreneurs, marketeers, etc) than someone trying to do it all on their own.

Eoin

roomwithaskew wrote:

Not everyone has thousands (tens of thousands?) to pay developers and desgners to make a site for them. I'm sure the guy know's he could hire someone to build the site but he said he wants to do it himself.

If this was a Motoring forum and i'd asked where's the best place to learn about maintaining an engine I'd hope to receive better replies than "don't bother, take it to a mechanic".

That isn't a good comparison to make. A better comparison would be asking how you would build a van that you need for your job. A lot of people don't realise that developing a robust web-based application is not a quick thing to learn. As DonkeyStyle \o/ said; it's great to do it as a pet project, but when it's a commerical concern, corners shouldn't be cut. Especially when you are handling payments and customers' information.

roomwithaskew

eoin_s wrote:

That isn't a good comparison to make. A better comparison would be asking how you would build a van that you need for your job. A lot of people don't realise that developing a robust web-based application is not a quick thing to learn. As DonkeyStyle \o/ said; it's great to do it as a pet project, but when it's a commerical concern, corners shouldn't be cut. Especially when you are handling payments and customers' information.

Point well made. I probably should have put more thought into my analogy

I guess it depends whether is a serious development with a strong and well thought out business model or whether its a more personal project with potential to make money.

When it comes to handling payments there are plenty of pre made solutions already out there, so you don't necessarily have to be able to code that side of things. Just enough to be able to implement the solutions. That's my understanding of it anyway.

heggie

i agree with the others that it's a lot to learn. on the development site you would need to learn a significant skillset, and on the design side you would need to learn a significant skillset, both of which are different jobs/careers. Back to the analogy, not only are you asking to build a van, but also construct the road it travels on!

Eoin

roomwithaskew wrote:

Point well made. I probably should have put more thought into my analogy

I guess it depends whether is a serious development with a strong and well thought out business model or whether its a more personal project with potential to make money.

This is true, a business idea could be something that the OP has the time to look into in his or her spare time, or it may be something that they need up and running asap and will be a full-time commercial interest.

roomwithaskew wrote:

When it comes to handling payments there are plenty of pre made solutions already out there, so you don't necessarily have to be able to code that side of things. Just enough to be able to implement the solutions. That's my understanding of it anyway.

There are a lot of off the shelf solutions out there - for instance, my hosting package provides a php forum, shopping cart and a load of other free tools - all for under €50 a year. But integrating them altogether can be very tricky, not to mention trying to ensure that the site doesn't look like (funnily enough) it has been cobbled together from several different packages!

My main point really is that this kind of thing is a profession in its own right, but a lot of people seem to think that because it's viewed in a web-browser, anyone can do it properly. I think the same goes for graphic design - a lot of people must think it's as easy to buy some "brochure plus pro" type package, but will soon find out they're better off going to a graphic designer.

brinepacer

Lads, yer analogies are terrible. I'd offer this one: The op's walked into a mechanics forum and said "i'd love to race at mondello next year, can ye tell me how to build a car"? It's not impossible, but unless you're going to love the work, it's a hell of a lot of learning to get from A to B.

ron_darrell

Kudos wrote:

ron_darrell: your information is pretty outdated, at this point learning ASP.NET and PHP makes more sense (PHP being more important with better community support). Perl hasn't dominated in a long time and ASP.NET is already widely supported.

Apologies was scripting in PERL for exisiting system while blogging; meant PHP. I have scripted in .NET but can't see what all the fuss is about. There isn't anything I can do in .NET that I couldn't do in ASP vanilla and quite a few things I can do in vanilla that I can't do in .NET. I'll admit there are several nifty function built in to .NET but over the years I have already developed classes to do all of these things (login, user creation, authentication, data manipulation, data grids etc.) But as you say it is widely accepted and so probably the way to go.

-RD

matt-dublin

also have a look at www.lynda.com

they have excellent videos and guides on design, sql, php, asp/.net and dreamweaver and flash tutorials.

think its about $45 for a month subscription

BlackWizard

Another vote for www.lynda.com coupled with a few books. Lynda is nice for starting out, but I always end up picking up a book then. Dreamweaver is nice to use also.

But it's a steep learning curve. But it's fun and rewarding even if your idea doesn't get off the ground. Padding for the C.V too

Laslo

I'd have to agree with most other people here. If you want it done properly, get professionals to do it. Saying that 'not everyone can afford tens of thousands for designers and developers' is ridiculous. If you can't afford to set up a business then you can't afford to set up a business and that's that. If you think you can learn graphic and Web design and programming with absolutely no experience whatsoever then 1) it's slightly insulting to people who do it professionally and 2) good luck to you - you'll need it.

roomwithaskew

Laslo wrote:

Saying that 'not everyone can afford tens of thousands for designers and developers' is ridiculous.

I don't think it's a ridiculous thing to say at all.

Laslo wrote:

If you can't afford to set up a business then you can't afford to set up a business and that's that

Inspiring stuff. I'm sure there are success stories out there where people have started businesses on a shoestring budget. We don't know the details of the business he wants to set up so there may be a way of doing it without the need to invest tens of thousands of euros into it.

He may have a flair for design already, coding may come easily to him, who knows? Maybe he's in no mad rush to get this done. A certain type of person could learn a lot over a year or so if they put their mind to it. The fact that he's wondering about courses suggests that he's willing to put in a lot of his free time into learning what he needs to do.

My gripe with some of the replies in this thread is simply down to the fact that the key question the original poster asked was "where's the best place to start learning?" and only a handful of people answered this.

DonkeyStyle \o/

roomwithaskew wrote:

My gripe with some of the replies in this thread is simply down to the fact that the key question the original poster asked was "where's the best place to start learning?" and only a handful of people answered this.

People are only giving their honest advice... trying to be helpful from a different angle... I don't see anything there worth griping about.
You had already posted some great starting points by the time I saw this thread, so I considered that angle covered.


Anyway, I agree in principle, so I'll share some starting points of my own:

http://www.w3schools.com
The basics of (x)html and various other related things.

http://www.alvit.de/handbook/
An index of sites with interesting info/tutorials/articles on CSS.

http://3dbuzz.com
Upon (free) registration, you can access video tutorials covering a wealth of topics... of relevance here would be their PHP/MySQL tutorial, which takes you through download/install/setup of apache/php/mysql and creating a basic counter script.
This was my first intro to PHP/MySQL and I found it all made perfect sense... very clear and easy to understand.

http://ie.php.net
For when/if you start coding in PHP ... an excellent reference once you get going.

http://www.pantz.org/database/mysql/mysqlcommands.shtml
A MySQL quick reference / cheat-sheet, very handy.

http://www.amazon.com/PHP5-MySQL-Bible-Tim-Converse/dp/0764557467
A book on PHP & MySQL which I found great... it covers the programming basics and has primers for those coming from other languages... the book takes you up to a level where you can create some very cool things.

And last but not least, there's a sticky on this very forum with lots of handy links.


RE: Frontpage/Dreamweaver
I'd say, (as I always do) to use a text editor with syntax highlighting... Notepad++ is my personal favourite.
You'll want to know how to hand-code things eventually, so why not cut right to the chase?
Though for an absolute beginner, the likes of frontpage or dreamweaver will certainly give you a feel for html... what's possible... what's tricky... managing pages etc.
Not that you can't hand-code in dreamweaver mind.

The Corinthian

roomwithaskew wrote:

Inspiring stuff. I'm sure there are success stories out there where people have started businesses on a shoestring budget. We don't know the details of the business he wants to set up so there may be a way of doing it without the need to invest tens of thousands of euros into it.

I think the question here is how much time is he willing to invest into learning the necessary skills. If he's hoping to do it in a few weeks or even months then there's a serious limit to the level he'll be at - he'll be able to put together something, all right, but his knowledge will still be too superficial for it to be particularly complex and certainly would be nowhere near what would be considered professional. Any implementation of his 'idea' will be limited at best.

So, I would suggest that if he wants to learn for himself and his own interest, then DonkeyStyle and others have supplied some good links to get started. If, on the other hand he's primerally doing this for his business idea, he's better off either taking on a partner who has the skills or paying a professional.

roomwithaskew

DonkeyStyle \o/ wrote:

http://3dbuzz.com
Upon (free) registration, you can access video tutorials covering a wealth of topics... of relevance here would be their PHP/MySQL tutorial, which takes you through download/install/setup of apache/php/mysql and creating a basic counter script.
This was my first intro to PHP/MySQL and I found it all made perfect sense... very clear and easy to understand.

Must check that out when I get the chance. Thanks.

ron_darrell

roomwithaskew wrote:

I don't think it's a ridiculous thing to say at all.



Inspiring stuff. I'm sure there are success stories out there where people have started businesses on a shoestring budget. We don't know the details of the business he wants to set up so there may be a way of doing it without the need to invest tens of thousands of euros into it.

He may have a flair for design already, coding may come easily to him, who knows? Maybe he's in no mad rush to get this done. A certain type of person could learn a lot over a year or so if they put their mind to it. The fact that he's wondering about courses suggests that he's willing to put in a lot of his free time into learning what he needs to do.

My gripe with some of the replies in this thread is simply down to the fact that the key question the original poster asked was "where's the best place to start learning?" and only a handful of people answered this.

While it is true that companies have been set up on a shoestring budget with little experience I think you'll find the majority of those that have have gone under in a very short time.

The problem isn't so much the leaning curve (which as has been pointed out is steep especially as the poster is looking to specialise in all areas of web-design and not just in one discipline) as the amount of work involved in just setting up a business (never mind coding the project or designing it) is astounding. The forms to fill out, accounting that needs to be done, returns that need to be filed, bills that need to be paid, and new business to be generated is a job in itself.

I think it is only right that this be pointed out so that the poster isn't working under any false assumptions. Ignoring this point won't benefit him/her in any way.

And where is this budget of thousands coming from? If the budget really is that tight a lot of work could be outsourced to countries where the costs are much lower (not ideal and in general I advise against this, not only from the point of view of needlessly undercutting irish workers but a certain amount of control of project is lost if you cannot oversee it easily) or shop around. Not every web design company is out there to 'scr*w' the customer. Depending on the size of the project a budget of hundreds is more likely (which is likely to cost less than going on courses and trying to do it yourself).

What's the best place to learn? Sometimes the best place to learn is where you can see that getting professionals to do it will in the long run be better that going it alone.

-RD

CoNfOuNd

I'd recommend PHP and XHTML with a MySQL backend.

It's better to get the site professionally designed, and you can spend time on other parts of the business. Webdesign takes up a lot of time, and in the time spent doing it, you could be doing something else and making money to pay for a professional designer.

Caryatnid

Hi all. I'm delighted with the massive amount of advice that had been provided. I did expect some of the sentiment would be that I should just get someone else to do it. But as Roomwithaskew pointed out that's not really the question I was asking. I will take all advice on board, and I do understand that it's a massive learning curve and would be very difficult.
However I want to at least try.

Laslo wrote:

If you think you can learn graphic and Web design and programming with absolutely no experience whatsoever then 1) it's slightly insulting to people who do it professionally

This post caught my eye as I wonder where 'people who do it professionally' start? I'm an engineer by profession so have some programming experience. I do think I have the capability to do it, and I think that if you can do it, why can't I? Or why can't I at least try. If you told me you wanted to be an engineer, I wouldn't take it as an insult at all - if you have the brains, then surely you can achieve it??

I do understand from the posts that it's a huge amount of work and effort and time. But I've been given what looks like great advice on where to start. If anyone's interested I can post back in a while and tell you how I'm getting on, or how difficult I found it.

Just wanted to thank EVERYBODY here for your advice and input whether negative or postive.