Web designing & Digital Humanities courses

Dionysus

Hi,

What course in Dublin would you recommend as the best and most comprehensive one to learn how to design really good websites? I have some experience in maintaining and developing a website but really I was copying and experimenting with scripts from other sites so just assume that for my present purposes I want to learn about web designing from scratch.

Long-term, I would like to use my knowledge of the humanities (I've just finished a PhD in History) to build really inspiring and informative cultural and educational websites. I believe- and I am certainly open to correction- that this is what has recently become known as the Digital Humanities. At any rate, that meshing of history, culture and technology in the form of establishing and building great websites to inform the public and scholarly community is what I would like to be part of in the coming years.

Where to start? I don't want to do another degree so the multimedia 3-year degree courses are out. Second, I want to be really good at web designing and at the risk of sounding bad I will not settle at some moderate or amateur level: I want to make a good career out of my passions. I want to be the best, and I want to be able to travel with these skills. I have a lot of admiration for good web designers, and I'm infuriated by bad web designers.

However, I haven't a clue about what programs and programming languages are cutting edge and therefore what skills I should be looking to develop when I am looking at the web designing and IT courses (where, for instance, can I find out more about trends in web designing?). That is my first major problem. My second is that I don't know what are the standard technical requirements for the best web designing jobs and by extension which course would be the best to do in the next year.

Thanks in advance.

herya

TBH if you're interested in cutting edge current trends you'd be much better off educating yourself. There are numerous high quality online resources available. I have tried to find a good course myself but they all seem outdated and pretty basic.

pauldiv

Sounds like you have too much education already.

Design and coding a website is a practical skill. You would be far better off spending three years practising and learning freely on your own rather than being straight-jacketed by another course.

Liam Byrne

herya wrote: »

I have tried to find a good course myself but they all seem outdated and pretty basic.

+1. I can see why it happens, but any of the "certified" courses are wayyyy out of date.

I had 4 people on one of my intro courses before Christmas, and while I covered the curriculum I also dropped in a few things they might look up to get up to speed on new standards and new technologies.

Each of them listed one of those on the evaluation form's "would you be interested in additional related training, and what would it be ?"

But those topics aren't certified by C&G, etc. So if you need a piece of paper to say you're certified, then you're out of date and little use to the current environment.

Ironic, innit ?

Make sure you have a firm grasp of all the basics (either through a "proper" course or through a reputable internet site) and then go research the newer standards and methodologies yourself, bearing in mind to dump anything from the original course that has been superceded (e.g. using tables for layout, frames, etc).

p

First of all the Digital Humanities thing is a term I've never heard before. It's an interesting goal, but Ireland is a fairly small market so it's going to tough to find work just in one particular area, though you could certainly try target it when you're further in your career.


To answer your question, you seem to want it all, but don't have the time to actually spend even 3 years studying. It's going to be very hard to achieve what you want, especially if you're teaching yourself.

If you want to be a really good at designing websites, then ideally you'd be doing a course in Graphic Design, to learn many of the core competencies like layout, contrast, colour theory, typography and generally acquiring a good eye and practicing creative design a lot. From the web side of things, there's two ey areas, in addition to teh visual design skills above. Things like user psychology, usability, accessibily, interaction design, interface design, affordance are just a few things you need to learn. From the technical side, the most important thing to learn is HTML & CSS. You don't really need to program to become a web designer but maybe knowing a little bit of Fash programming & javascript might make you more employable.

Theese are the areas you'll need to learn to become an excellent web designer. It's possible to teach yourself, but I'd recommend trying to do a night course in NCAD to start to teach yourself about design, and get into that mode of thinking. In addition, learn HTML & CSS really well. Learn about accessibility & web standards. That way you can get a job in a web design company as a juniour designer, who converts the lead designers websites into HTML & CSS. It's a really good way to get exposed to a proper web design firm, learn from a good designer, and generally earn your stripes.

Web design is a really interesting field, it's requires a great mix between psychology, creativity and technical skills. I find it really rewarding and hope you've a good time trying to get started in it. Pop here any time and ask questions.


I'd recommend strongly that you buy these books. If you read all of these and nothing else this year, you'd have an excellent foundation to start from.
http://headfirstlabs.com/books/hfhtml/
http://www.sitepoint.com/books/design1/
http://www.amazon.com/Site-Seeing-Visual-Approach-Web-Usability/dp/0764536745