Hi Guys!

I hope everyone is well! I am very new to this sort of thing but wanted to get some advice/guidance from seasoned experts and thought this would be a great place to start. "its dangerous to go alone.." sorry Zelda quote there... basically I need some advice on where to start!!

A little background on me. I moved to Bristol a few years ago and have worked in healthcare and office based roles. I am a confident computer user and I have always had a keen interest in web design. I have only ever dabbled in WordPress but that was over 5 years ago now.

I am currently on Furlough from my employer. I also live with someone who is considered vulnerable which makes things very tricky at the moment!! The company I work for is at risk of, well, basically collapsing due to COVID and even if things work out, the environment potentially is not going to be safe for me to return to for quite some time. 

This has all lead me to start exploring my interest in web design and also web development. I have recently completed a beginners course on coding on the site Udemy. The course taught me to build a basic app which was really cool. I am eager to get into website design, possibly app design sometime down the line. 

The trouble I am having is that there are so many avenues to explore, so so so many courses to do, some are free others are sky high prices - I just do not know which one is the best path to go down. 

I like the idea of being able to offer freelance web design to small businesses. Where I live there are tonnes of small shops, businesses etc. that I would love to be able to approach and say "hey I could help you build an awesome modern website" except I just don't know what would be best to start with here in the UK. So many paths and choices. Any suggestions would be amazing - thank you!! 

 

Learning the fundamentals is really important, it's also the part people don't want to do and skip over.  You don't want to learn habits early on that you'll end up having to undo.

It sounds like most of what you need to learn initially would be using HTML, CSS and JavaScript. I would start with the first two, and get used to building layouts and making them responsive and mobile-friendly. Your HTML should be structured well and use good semantics. Once you're used to working with those two then you can start to add more dynamic parts with JavaScript.

I get some courses seem pricier than others but you often get what you pay for. Udemy does have some good courses, but really only a very tiny percentage of those courses are worthwhile. Initially I would start with something like https://teamtreehouse.com where you can get on a learning path. You might also be interested in https://frontendmasters.com/bootcamp as a first step, which is free and will allow you see how the three languages I mentioned above work together. Another one I have heard good things about is https://www.freecodecamp.org, which is purely text based and forces a lot of self learning onto the individual, which is a good way to learn anything.

Edited June 12, 20206 yr by Jo 90
Removed direct links

Hi Jack,

 

Thank you for this info! You mentioned about Javascript, HTML and CSS. Do you mind me asking if Python is also worth checking out? The course I took on Udemy predominately revolved around using Python. What are your thoughts on that?

I will have a look at those links you provided. Thank you so much

Welcome to the forums!

I agree with what Jack said, learning HTML/CSS is akin to an electrician learning how to use a screwdriver - without those skills you won't get far.

I'd also add learning about accessibility so you can build sites that anyone with a disability can still use. You'd be surprised at the amount of people that have some sort of disability, whether blind/partially sighted, deaf, reduced motor skills which necessitates using a keyboard to use web sites, colour blindness (1 in 12 men, 1 in 200 women), and so on.

Once you've got a good grasp of the basics, have a delve into Javascript. "Vanilla" Javascript and Jquery are pretty easy to pick up - there are dozens of other Javascript frameworks around but these tend to be more advanced so I'd say leave those until you've got a good idea of how JS works.

Python is  programming language, among many others. If that interests you then there seems to be plenty of work around for Python developers.

6 hours ago, Tokyo said:

I like the idea of being able to offer freelance web design to small businesses. Where I live there are tonnes of small shops, businesses etc. that I would love to be able to approach and say "hey I could help you build an awesome modern website" except I just don't know what would be best to start with here in the UK.

Do you know what makes an awesome website?

Most of the work happens before you write a single line of code. You need to collate and organise the content. Source and optimise images. Formulate a marketing plan for the website. Sort out calls to action, trustmarks, citations and other social signals.

Once all this is in place you can then develop the wireframe and build in all the functionality.

After the site has been fully tested you can layer on the visual components to make it look pretty.

Do you want to learn code or do you want deliver awesome websites? If it's the latter. Choose a CMS. Discover all the tricks. Set up some scripts to automate the build as much as possible. Then go knocking on doors.

Remember, businesses don't want a website. They what to make more money. You are selling profits not websites.

On 6/12/2020 at 1:12 PM, Tokyo said:

Hi Jack,

 

Thank you for this info! You mentioned about Javascript, HTML and CSS. Do you mind me asking if Python is also worth checking out? The course I took on Udemy predominately revolved around using Python. What are your thoughts on that?

I will have a look at those links you provided. Thank you so much

For now I would focus on those three because they are involved enough, you don't want to be overwhelmed by learning too much. The likelihood is you won't be using something like Python on a typical client project. Python can be used for doing server-side programming, to work with things like databases, but you can also do that in JavaScript.

Thank you Jack. Really appreciate your advice!

Thank you everyone for your advice. I’m going to investigate the ideas you have suggested. It means a lot! Cheers all and have a great Sunday

On 6/12/2020 at 6:14 PM, fisicx said:

Do you know what makes an awesome website?

Most of the work happens before you write a single line of code. You need to collate and organise the content. Source and optimise images. Formulate a marketing plan for the website. Sort out calls to action, trustmarks, citations and other social signals.

Once all this is in place you can then develop the wireframe and build in all the functionality.

After the site has been fully tested you can layer on the visual components to make it look pretty.

Do you want to learn code or do you want deliver awesome websites? If it's the latter. Choose a CMS. Discover all the tricks. Set up some scripts to automate the build as much as possible. Then go knocking on doors.

Remember, businesses don't want a website. They what to make more money. You are selling profits not websites.

This is so true, you have to decide what you really want to achieve. Is it making a profit or building website using those different languages out there. From my side, if you build something from scratch, meaning use coding to develop a website then I can say by now, you have to rethink your approach. There are countless platforms out there that will allow you to create any type of website in a jiffy. But if your passion is coding then maybe a better business for you to go is developing plugins for Wordpress, or maybe for Shopify,. Those are just example. as they already have a good number of users.
If you have some target clients and want to push it to the next level maybe we can collaborate and do a project together, just an idea though. I already have some resources and a few clients here in Central London. Being in lockdown for quiet a while really will push you to do things that you don't normally thought you will be doing before.
Anyway good luck and be safe always.