Hi all. I know absolutely nothing about web design/development so am having a nightmare trying to identify suitable training. Ive always been really interested in the subject but never had the time to do anything about it. I am currently not working due to health reasons so now have plenty of time to study!!

 

My intention is to initially work part time making and maintaining websites for myself and trying to drum up business through friends and family. If Im enjoying it then I could aim to go freelance or work for a company. So I will need to be able to do both aspects of design and development.

 

Ive spent hours researching training suppliers but its a minefield! Ive even contacted website companies and they either do not want to advise (they may see me as future competition) or say that they tend to take people on and train them in house.

 

I have the time so I want to be able to learn quickly and to that end have seen what appears to be a decent online distance learning course with Pitman but it is £1500!! Course details:

- Project Management fundamentals - helping you understand how to put together a project with trackable

milestones

- Website Design (70 Guided Learning Hours)

- HTML (12 GLH)

- HTML 5 (20 GLH)

- Dreamweaver or Wordpress (18 GLH)

- Photoshop (18 GLH)

- SEO for Business (8 GLH)

 

I have looked at free sites like Lynda.com but because I know nothing about the subject I don't know where to start.

 

Alternatively I can do a days course in Wordpress for £145.

 

Do I need to learn how to code for example or is Wordpress or Drupal a better fit for me? I have so many questions but am trying to keep this message as short as possible. I am happy to answer any questions if that helps to provide me with the right advice.

 

You have no idea how grateful I would be for any help as I have completely no clue where to go from here.

 

Thank you in advance.

 

Jo

Edited November 5, 201510 yr by Jo_Jo

Hi Jo_Jo,

 

A few of us here use TeamTreeHouse for learning they have a large library of courses.

 

Certainly worth checking out.

 

@@rbrtsmith spent 7 months working through the courses and managed to walk himself straight into a job

 

Here's the article

Edited November 5, 201510 yr by richardmountain

Bear in mind my 7 months I was doing 60+ hours a week of study. be prepared to put in the effort, but in the long run its worth it..

 

Don't try to learn everything. I got where I did quickly because I focused on one area (Front-end) and studied like hell. If you choose to study design and backend too expect things to take a hell of a lot longer.

Edited November 5, 201510 yr by rbrtsmith

I actually teach front-end and back-end development and I am decent at design. So if you would like me to teach you I'd be happy to. I have taught 3 people so far who are now quite fluent in HTML 5,CSS3,JAVASCRIPT and PHP/MYSQL and I give the first 2 lessons free. But if you rather not go with me I would have to say tree house is a great place to start.

Bear in mind my 7 months I was doing 60+ hours a week of study. be prepared to put in the effort, but in the long run its worth it..

 

Don't try to learn everything. I got where I did quickly because I focused on one area (Front-end) and studied like hell. If you choose to study design and backend too expect things to take a hell of a lot longer.

 

Sorry to correct you but the article says 70 hrs

 

Sorry to correct you but the article says 70 hrs

 

Should have been 80 haha!

 

of course it varied but was in the region of 60-70

Thanks Guys, much appreciated. I have a few more questions:

Am I correct in assuming that if I want to be able to design and display my own websites, I need to understand the front and back end of the process? If so, in your experience rbrtsmith, am I potentially taking on too much?

If so, would it be better to learn Wordpress or Drupal? If I have it right, these programs take you through the whole process without the need to understand the back end functionality?

Are the Treehouse lessons really easy to follow as I am literally a complete novice?

I certainly don’t mind the hard work and putting in the hours but I need to make sure Im learning the right things for what I'm trying to achieve.

Thanks for your offer of help webdesigner93. Whereabouts are you located?

 

Thanks Guys, much appreciated. I have a few more questions:

Am I correct in assuming that if I want to be able to design and display my own websites, I need to understand the front and back end of the process? If so, in your experience rbrtsmith, am I potentially taking on too much?

If so, would it be better to learn Wordpress or Drupal? If I have it right, these programs take you through the whole process without the need to understand the back end functionality?

Are the Treehouse lessons really easy to follow as I am literally a complete novice?

I certainly don’t mind the hard work and putting in the hours but I need to make sure Im learning the right things for what I'm trying to achieve.

Thanks for your offer of help webdesigner93. Whereabouts are you located?

 

I'm in the USA I would start with you creating a basic static responsive website using HTML 5/CSS 3 with no more then 5 pages and then we would work our way to adding in some JavaScript etc... so by the 5th or 6th lesson you will have a pretty decent first website. Then if you like the lessons enough we can go from there

 

Thanks Guys, much appreciated. I have a few more questions:

Am I correct in assuming that if I want to be able to design and display my own websites, I need to understand the front and back end of the process? If so, in your experience rbrtsmith, am I potentially taking on too much?

If so, would it be better to learn Wordpress or Drupal? If I have it right, these programs take you through the whole process without the need to understand the back end functionality?

Are the Treehouse lessons really easy to follow as I am literally a complete novice?

I certainly don’t mind the hard work and putting in the hours but I need to make sure Im learning the right things for what I'm trying to achieve.

Thanks for your offer of help webdesigner93. Whereabouts are you located?

 

 

Treehouse assumes you know literally nothing, it's the most beginner friendly resource out there. If you just wanna do this to release a site, then at a minimum you need a design and a front-end.

if only you are maintaining it then you don't have to go to the trouble of a CMS system. You can just put your content directly in the HTML or preferably using a static site generator - My blog works in this way, and it loads infinitely faster than a CMS that has to query a Database.

 

If you are learning to get a job in the industry then follow one of the paths on TreeHouse, for me I just followed the front-end path and made sure I didnt distract myself trying to learn other things or from other resources, there's so many resources out there, many of them not so good that you don't know where to go or what to learn. So choose a path and stick with it. They teach modern and upto date things as well as fundamentals.

There's no point in learning CSS transitions for example before you know how selector specificity, the cascade and how the box model works - You start with the theory and eventually move onto building pretty things.

Learning all this is a fairly long process, try and rush it or do a course that offers to teach you in week and you'll have massive gaps in your knowledge. Like I say TreeHouse covers everything you need to know to get that first role as a Junior.

 

Of course Treehouse being aimed at beginners there are better choices for intermediate to advanced folk. CodeSchool and Frontend Masters are great. Frontend Masters teaching stuff you'd need for a senior position.

Edited November 5, 201510 yr by rbrtsmith

rbrtsmith- Thanks particularly for all of your advice. Unfortunately I didn't understand any of the technical stuff you mentioned in your last post, but I guess the main thing to take away from what you said with the Treehouse route is to choose a path and stick to it.

 

webdesigner93- Thanks also for your offer of help. In the first instance I'm going to try Treehouse but if I get stuck Ill get in touch.

Yes, I knew nothing when I began that path so it taught me well! Just decide what you wanna do and they give you a very clear path of what to do

Hi again rbrtsmith- Ive been using Treehouse for a couple of days now and Im really enjoying it, although Im really struggling with the order and format of the code. Ive started taking notes but this is taking a hell of a long time.

 

I just wondered having completed the course yourself, did you make notes and do you think they're necessary?

 

Many thanks

 

Jo

I didn't take any notes really, are you starting out with the real basic courses?

 

I watched and did some of the modules multiple times - repetition at least in my case really helps things sink in. Just keep repeating them until you fully understand the material. Perhaps taking notes is a good idea too, certainly can't do any harm!

Also code their examples up in something like codepen, experiment and play around. Try to deepen your knowledge on every topic they teach you.

 

In my opinion a few days isn't a hell of a long time. Coding is hard, it's normal that it takes a lot of time to grasp the core concepts. If you're doing this for around 50 hours a week expect it to take a minimum of 6 months to become job ready.

 

Most of all have fun with what you're learning. You never stop learning in this industry and I still dedicate around 20-25 hours a week of study outside of work, I can see this continuing for a long time. Of course that all depends on how far you want to go...

Thanks for that. Im really loving it but I am struggling a little.

 

The way Nick Pettit describes things, I get the feeling that either I'm extremely thick or there's some fundamental learning that Ive missed as Im struggling to understand it. I can't get to grips with the individual bits of code and where they fit into the structure. I have checked though and I am doing the beginners How to Make a Website.

 

Anyway I think Ill try what you did by going over each part again and hopefully it'll star to sink in!

 

Thanks again

Are you on the front-end path? Before you wanna start making a website do HTML CSS paths first. I didn't make my first website until after 3 1/2 months of HTML and CSS study.

I'm not sure what Im doing wrong then because Ive clicked on the 'front end web development' track and the first course of that track is 'how to make a website'. The description of what you learn is:

If you’ve never built a website before and you have no coding or design experience, this is the place to start. In this project, we learn how to build a modern portfolio website for desktops, tablets, and mobile devices. We start with basic HTML and CSS syntax. Next, we learn how to build custom web pages with an image gallery and contact page. Finally, we walk through how to share a website live on the web

 

I do wonder whether Ive somehow missed out a step?? Any ideas.

 

I really appreciate you taking the time to help me!!

Ok that sounds about right to me. Just keep going over the materials until they sink in. note down things that you don't understand and google them.

 

Learning to program properly is hard. There will be many moments where you feel like you don't understand anything but you have to persevere. My main pain point was terminology that I didn't know and was assumed buy Treehouse / Codeschool, but Googling them helped me overcome those pain points.

OK thanks again. I am really enjoying it.... so hopefully it'll sink in eventually!!

Very, very early days yet. Give it time