7 necessary website design skills

In my blog on 4 methods of creating a website, it was stated that website design involved the design art of creativity, visualization and inherent graphic skills about what looks good and what does not.

Presented below are the 7 necessary website design skills that a good web designer must possess. These skills cannot be acquired overnight but the period can be shortened through studying, practicing and experience.

Thus, it is highly advisable that a web designer should keep challenging himself/herself and pushing beyond the limits of his/her comfort zone. This is definitely what makes the difference between web designers. These fundamental web design skills do not necessarily involve technical and computer know-how.

Understand what the website is and how it works

It is necessary to state that without the website there will be no website designer. A website designer must therefore know what a website it and understand how it works at least from accessibility point of view.

The website designer must know the accessibility features that should be implemented and designed. He must understand how to present and engage the visitors to the site. If the site is to be accessed by blind visitors, he must know how to present the content to them.

A good website designer must understand how the web works in regards to search engine optimization, engaging visitors and advertising, to know where to put adverts.

And be able to determine the design space for ads and how to present it in the web through rotation, sizing, popups, or other various methods for ads.

A good website designer should have base knowledge of what is possible in terms of design and programming. The web designer should also know and understand the trends of web designing in order to predict the future.

Know the Design Process

From above, it was stated that website designing involves creativity and visualization skills. These skills can only be demonstrated through some level of graphic design.

Thus a good website designer must understand the basics of graphic designing like colour and spacing.

This will help you facilitate information, attract attention and sustain the number of viewers in your work of art.

Know how to write

A good web designer should have some writing skills because you may be creating site copies for your clients. Especially if you are not working with a copywriter and your client did not supply the required pages.

For this reason, a web designer who has copy writing skills is that much more attractive to clients and can charge more.

This is not a common skill among web designers and it is not easy to learn. It is also a good asset when marketing your services as a good designer and improves your branding.

Alongside have a good writing skill is also having a good typing skill. If you type fast, you can save a lot of time and effort, however, you may not be so fast but you must accurate in your typing.

Listening skills

Most times, a web designer works with clients are difficult to work with.

Many of them may not understand why they need a website and what they want from the website and may make the web designing process un-ending.

Some of them may even be illiterates. For the illiterates, it may be easier to guide them if they want to learn and cooperate with you.

For the literates that does not know and they feel that they know, it may be difficult to work with them.

In other case, it is very good for a web designer to listen to his/her client and ask intelligent questions. Please do not ask them technical questions.

Ready to learn always

The web is on Information technology that is changing rapidly and the web designer must be prepared to change and adapt to the current technology in order to be relevant.

A web designer that refuses to adapt to the current technology will be left behind. Thus a web designer must ready to learn continuously by studying, from tutorials and visiting inspiration sites.

Basically, the new things that you learn will assist you to impress your clients, expand your creativity and skills and generally improve your passion for design.

Understand HTML very well

If the web designer’s strategy is to code it, definitely, the web designer must understand HTML, the programming language and database management systems.

Even if the web designer is only interested in using Content Management Systems (like WordPress) to develop website,

the basic knowledge of HTML can also assist one to be more creative and one’s design be with more usability and purpose because HTML is the basic framework of all pages on the Web.

Know what to look for and where to get it

Most times, web designers are face with some error messages that are uncommon during test that have to be corrected.

Some of them can be from errors in the code or mistakes due to the misunderstanding of the working of the themes and plugins by the designer.

Whether the bug is in the code or with the design itself or with the logistics of how it’s done, a web designer must be able to troubleshoot the problem and find the solution for almost every problem he encounters.

If he/she could not resolve the problem, a web designer must know where to find solutions.

Conclusion

From the skills listed above, it is not easy to be a good web designer because one may not have all these skills at the time of starting to be a web designer.

Acquiring all these skills will take some time if you are aiming at being a top web designer. If you have passion for web designing, you will get there with determination and continuous self-improvement.

Over time, with experiences and patience, you can improve the skills and speed up the process. As you acquire more experience, you will learn how to work around some situations.

Thank you

Augustus Zekaryah

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About the author

Augustus is a management, banking and business computing professional with over 20 years of documented success in the field. Augustus is recognized for the application of software to solving business problems, Software Project Management, Enterprise Architecture Strategy, and Delivery of learning solutions with focus on adaptability, Development and execution of business plans, General management and administration, Operations management and Best practice development. Augustus founded and manages FirstPlus Integrated Business Solutions (https://firstplus-ibs.com.ng) as a Software and Business Consulting outfit that specializes in Software development and integration, E-Learning development, Business and Marketing Planning, Consulting and training.Augustus brings to his work a high level of energy, passion, commitment and humour. He is married with children.