HYGEN

3 Newbie Mistakes - Web Design / Development Myths

October 21st, 2009 | by admin |

Newbies beware the web design myths!

Here is a quick look at three different myths that can land budding newbie web designers / developers in hot water later down the line.  If these myths are busted earlier on newbies can graduate on to producing excellent results faster without suffering the painful learning curves.  Web design is not a new job - it’s tried, tested and mature so wheels don’t need re-inventing and mistakes don’t need repeating.  Newbies - read and enjoy!

Web Design Myth #1:  You Need Specialist Software To Build A Website

Web design and development is 100% plain text.  All you need is a plain text editor.  There are bits and bobs you can add to a website such as images and multimedia however these are all optional and have their own job descriptions.  Graphic designers take care of images and multimedia developers take care of multimedia.  If web design is 100% plain text then how can the design be attractive?  Well, using CSS (which is plain text) there are unlimited possibilities for great layout and design.  If you wish to add any server side code to make a dynamic website or web application then you will need specialist software to execute the code, however the code itself is still plain text and server-side coding is still optional when building a website.  Client-side code such as JavaScript is also just plain text.  All of this plain text editing can be done with the most simple of text editing tools on a variety of platforms.

Another important point when addressing this myth is that one could spend a few hundred dollars on specialist software (the most hyped up one being Dreamweaver) for building a website or one could spend nothing - remember, no specialist software is needed and if you do want to use specialist software to make tasks easier then there are many free, open source programs that are brilliant web design aids.

The first resource to check out for any new web designer is the W3c - these guys make the rules and you must obey them - the rules are what we call web standards.  Follow web standards and web accessibility recommendations and you will find it hard to go wrong.

Web Design Myth #2:  The Best Web Designs Are In Flash

You will be forgiven for falling for this myth as many people really don’t know that Flash is not a web page or a form of web design.  Flash in fact is it’s own cup of tea all together and falls in the multimedia category.  Flash can be used in a wide variety of situations - many of which can be embeded in a web page.  Flash and web design are however two very different things entirely.  Remember that web design is all open source as it is plain text and the code is easily viewable and that Flash is a closed source proprietry software.  In order to view Flash content a Flash player or Flash plugin is required.  For these reasons alone - Flash is not for everybody.

Web Design Myth #3:  I can Save A Page As HTML In MS Word, FrontPage Or Dreamweaver So I Am A Web Designer

If you think you are making web pages in MS Word then you are mistaken, because Word is auto-generating reams of rubbish code on your behalf - much of it proprietary code it has just made up.  Also any web page made in MS Word will be terribly limited.  It is not designed to be creating web pages.  Don’t use it and don’t fool yourself.  FrontPage, I believe is now discontinued or renamed in later versions and also Dreamweaver are two more ***tragedies.  If you code in code view and they have not interfeared with your bespoke code then you could output fine websites, however if you work in “design” view you are delusional.  By using Dreamweaver in code view you are wasting money and trying to shoot a fly with a cannon because all you benefit from is syntax highlighting, maybe some code completion and code folding - all of which you can get for free in countless other faster, more light-weight products.

*** Note On “Tragedy” For Non-Brits

Tragedy is a form of art based on human suffering that, paradoxically, offers its audience pleasure.