Developing a website requires a variety of skills.
Web designers should be able to deliver a website that meets the needs for the end user.
As such, web designers need to be equipped with specific technical skills to create visually appealing websites, including user personas, page layouts and using a site map for content to understand how users navigate through the site.
In other words, web designers must have the ability to understand what users are looking for.
Let’s take a look into 5 of the technical skills needed to become a web designer.
Visual Design
As obvious as it seems, web designers need to have some kind of design knowledge.
After all, web design is a subset of the larger field of visual design; and design principles are what determines the overall look and feel of a website.
For instance, the design principles range from typography, web font, grid systems and colour palettes.
UX (User Experience)
User experience, or known in the tech world as UX, means how people feel when they use a website.
Therefore, UX is all about designing a website from a user-first perspective.
At the end of the day, what’s the point in designing a website if it doesn’t satisfy the user?
To achieve this, web designers will typically research their users and create personas, before laying out pages and content with a site map.
Along the way, web designers will be able to figure out the path users take when they’re on the site, and build wireframes to map out key parts of each page; essential practice for UX design.
Design Software
It’s a given really – every web designer must know how to use the right tools in their work.
For instance, web designers are usually familiar with different design software such as Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator.
Essentially, having skills in design software allows web designers to meet industry standards and fulfil the needs of the end user.
Now you may be wondering, well can’t designing a website be done directly on the web browser?
In short – yes.
But, having design software skills will give web designers the ability to create assets, like logos, and mockups; keeping you miles ahead in the quality of your design overall.
HTML
HTML stands for HyperText Markup Language, and a good web designer should know how to code; an expected skill for most design jobs today.
Basically, HTML is the coding language that allows you to put content to a webpage and give it structure.
By which we mean, the ability to add headlines, footers, paragraphs and graphics to a page – the cool stuff!
So, having skills in HTML will go a long way in helping web designers complete projects.
CSS
CSS stands for Cascading Style Sheets and is the code which informs web browsers how to style HTML for a webpage.
Moreover, CSS can enhance the look of a website and allow you to adjust colours or change fonts in the webpage – and so much more!
Simply put, this is when a web designer can truly run wild with their creativity!
Final Remarks
So there we have it, 5 of many skills needed to be a good web designer.
Overall, being a web designer involves harmoniously combining visuals and content to create a website that meets the needs of the user.
In the meantime, check our web design services in Leicester.
