Crafting a Career in Web Design
To say the world revolves around personal devices, apps and platforms wouldn’t be a wild overstatement in today’s global community. We rely on web connectivity for everything from remote work and education to everyday tasks, a trend turbocharged by pandemic lockdowns.
There isn’t much we can’t do these days with just a single smartphone. And with emerging technology like augmented reality and the looming “metaverse,” we’re on the precipice of a quantum leap in interactivity, making the role of the web designer more essential than ever.
Web designers do nothing less than create the portals that let us access this vast digital universe — the intersection of design, marketing, and technology that makes it all work. And they’re very much in demand, indispensable for any organization that needs web representation, said Carol Greenberg, Web Design instructor.
“Companies are having a tough time finding qualified web designers to fill their open roles,” she said. “They’re responsible for designing a company’s entire presence on the web, coding the website, and bringing it to life while creating the user experience (UX), screen designs, and navigation. To become a successful web designer means wearing a lot of hats, including graphic design and marketing.”
Web design involves many elements, but the first step is simply defining the problem that the site is supposed to solve. For instance, the website may be intended to encourage customers to download an app. Once that’s accomplished, the next step is to “wireframe” a solution by creating greyscale mockups of what the site will look like.
“This phase establishes the site navigation and screen layouts,” Greenberg said. “Once wireframes have been approved, the web designer will develop full-color mockups of the website that include the content that goes in it.” From there, it’s a collaborative effort, the web designer working closely with web developers and internal stakeholders in marketing and engineering to make sure that the message is not only on brand but also that the web developers can deliver on the specifications.
“The program provides a multi-faceted approach to web development, with an emphasis on user experience design that employs ‘design thinking’ to create innovative solutions.”
Carol Greenberg, Web Design instructor
A portal to the digital world
A career in web design isn’t one-size-fits-all. Once the basic skills and principles are mastered, a web designer can branch out into a number of specialized fields, such as multimedia, social media, game design, app development, and web content development, a field that focuses on a company’s messaging and branding.
“Another specialization is UX designer, a role that focuses more on cognitive psychology — understanding how people perceive and direct their attention when it comes to navigating through a website or an app,” Greenberg said.
An essential element of modern web design, UX theory is based in human behavior and perception, a set of Gestalt principles of design as well as human factors that date back decades before the computer age. The theory is the same; advanced technology simply offers a new palette of tools to work with.
“Human factors are based on extensive research on how people see and interact with the world,” Greenberg said. “It’s a user-centric approach that was devised for designing hardware. Once software came along, these principles are used for designing a successful website or app.”
Greenberg’s experience in UX dates back to the earliest days of the internet. After an initial stint at NBC, she found that companies were clamoring to stake out their own presence on the Web 1.0, leading her to find success designing screens for software applications.
“That’s where my interest in user experience design was born,” said Greenberg. “I found it fascinating understanding how the brain processes information related to how a person interacts with a software application or a website.”
Designing the future
The Web Design certificate program is structured to give participants a solid background in basic theory, learning how to design the look, layout and organization of websites, followed by hands-on projects using the latest software. Intended for beginners as well as experienced professionals, the program is a perfect fit for graphic designers, multimedia designers, marketing professionals — anyone who wants to create a robust portfolio and enter this booming field.
“The program provides a multi-faceted approach to web development, with an emphasis on user experience design that employs ‘design thinking’ to create innovative solutions,” said Greenberg. “The outlook for web designers and user experience designers is very bright.”
The Web Design certificate can open the door to this wide-ranging career by giving participants an opportunity to get hands-experience creating their own websites and mockups, finishing with a professional portfolio they can use as a calling card to potential employers.
“It’s absolutely essential to develop a good portfolio that shows off a person’s best work, and that’s a big part of the program,” Greenberg said. “Students need to show an example of websites they’ve designed, of course, but it’s also important to show the process they followed. They need to demonstrate that they understand the UX process.”
For aspiring web designers, it’s advisable to get extra training in bootcamps such as the UX/UI and coding camps offered intermittently by UCI, she added. “And when you start your job search, it pays to look for positions at large organizations, where there are more specialized roles, as well as opportunities to learn and be mentored.”
Greenberg, instructor for the Intro to UX for Web Design course, continues to share her expertise with new generations of web designers, combining the latest tech with timeless design principles. “These new web designers are a smart group of individuals who have many more tools to learn with than I did starting out,” she said. “The Web Design certificate prepares up-and-coming web designers for the real world.”
Learn more about the Web Design Certificate Program.