How
Do I Get Into Web Design or Web Development?
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© 2000, Mark Adornetto |
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If you are thinking about getting into web development and design but you don't know what to do or how to go about it, here are some pointers to get you started. 1. First, it would take several pages to explain all the technology involved in web development and we don't have the time or space here so I will only touch on some high points. Also, I don't want to inundate you with acronyms so I will minimize the technical terms. I can give you some general guidelines but to gain a clear understanding of the technology and the field, check out the books I list in the book area on IT Careers to get a sense of what technology is involved. Also, check back on the book area regularly because I am continually adding books as I learn about them. If you know of any great books on these topics, please let me know. 2. The terms "web design" and "web development" are very broad, generic categories and there are many areas of expertise and many technologies fall into these categories. While you don't need to be an expert, you do need to understand the fundamentals if you want to make an intelligent decision about entering the field. This means that you should understand the subspecialties and then consider your own personal interest, inclinations, and talents so that you can make an educated decision about where you fit into the web development picture.
3. What do you need to learn and/or know to do web design? Again, the
answer varies depending on the specialty you want to focus on. To give
you a taste of what you might need to know, here's a sample of some
languages, web terms, technologies, development applications, and web
applications. You don't have to be an expert on all of these but you
should know what most of them are and/or what they mean. To accomplish
this task, you need to do some reading. Do you know these terms? Don't
worry if you don't know because now you know what you need to learn.
Also keep in mind that some employers will require certification in
some of these technologies. I cover the top of Certification in the
Certification FAQ.
3. How do you know where to fit in? This question is answered by narrowing down your focus to the types of positions that suit your experience, personality, and other factors. For example, if you are a visual person with an artistic sense then you might want to focus on the design specialty where you focus on grahpics and working on the attractiveness of web sites. If you are more interested in code and happen to like working with databases then you might want to focus on the specialty of managing web databases with an applications like Oracle. If you are interested in the "mechanics" of managing a web site then you would study the related languages and/or server technologies. 4. Take a look at job sites as well as corporate sites that list jobs related to web development and see what they require in terms of education and experience. When you see jobs that look interesting to you and look like they represent where you want to focus your career, you can see what you need to learn in order to accomplish this transition. |