Website design class?

[cori]

What are the possibilities to learn website design in Kelowna?

How long does it take?

What is the cost?

Thanks in advance

[zensiert]

Oh god, don't waste your money. Learn on your own. CATO is great if you want to blow 10G's on getting a piece of sheepskin that isn't really recognized anywhere, but OC is better for recognition wrt their overall computer science degree (which will teach you how to run a proper web server, btw). But web dev is pretty well stupid-easy to learn on your own. Google is your friend.

Edit: Any company who wants to hire a web dev does so on the strength of their portfolio, not on their formal education. So much in web dev is self-taught that it would exclude 90+% of developers if employers went after "formal education" before practical experience. Fire up a linux box, install a LAMP stack, learn how to secure it and start hacking away at personal sites on a domain name or two (they don't cost much... about $15/yr at GoDaddy). Once you have gotten some experience under your belt, make sure you build yourself a portfolio of your experiments. That will do more to get you into the industry than anything else you can do. Source: one of my best friends on this forum is a web dev.

[HoboJo]

Websites are ubiquitous.

HTML is simply a way to mark some letters larger than others. And connect things.

While learning all that pick up some database skills.

As has been mentioned... knowledge is free :-)

[36Drew]

Are you aiming to learn as a hobby or as a marketable skill from which to earn a living?

[cori]

Thank you for all your answers.

I am aiming to learn web design more as a hobby than as a marketable skill.

I also suspected I could learn by myself as you underline it, but as my computer knowledge is quite basic,
any info and website references on which I can find clear (simple) indications is welcome

Thank you in advance

[Logitack]

try here, online courses from

http://www.lynda.com/Web-Design-trainin ... ategory=88

not free of course....

[36Drew]

As Logitack has said - Lynda.com is a good resource for self-study if you're just trying to learn it as a hobby. "Web Design" isn't "Computer Knowledge". 99% of the web engineers at work can install the tools they need, and (of course) do web development. They know nothing of networking, systems administration, or how to practice the craft of operations.

While you're studying, there will be a few areas that you may wish to focus on:

Front-End technologies - this includes HTML and CSS. That's just the beginning. Most of the web sites you use and love today make heavy use of Javascript and are usually centered around a given JS platform. AngularJS, Ember, Backbone just to name a few. You'll perhaps want to look at the principles of how design actually works. I'm not talking about "web design" but "design" in principle. What looks good. What doesn't. What a person considers pretty. What speaks "something to do" versus "something to read" or "something to guide". This is known as material design, and if you get good at it you will be better than 90% of the frontend engineers that exist in the world today. http://www.google.com/design/ is a good launching point. A Front-End engineer is more design with some "programming" knowledge.

Back-End technologies - this is usually where the "heavy lifting" is done. Want to store data? Want to interact with a third-party service (ie., get a list of books and images from Amazon)? Authentication and user data? You need to write an app for that to be run on a webserver somewhere. This forum that you're reading, the text of this post - it exists in a database and is organized for your consumption by an application. You would need to pick and learn a programming language, understand the technologies you might be interfacing with (RDBMS, Data Caching, Message Queueinq). There are so many options for languages and frameworks that this topic just can't be easily covered off in a simple forum post.

If you want to write backend code but really would rather focus on the frontend tech - you may wish to look at NodeJS. It's javascript and your skills will be directly translatable between FE and BE tech. Python (Django) is also fairly quick and easy to pick up on. If you're into doing some real heavy lifting, then Java (really heavy lifting) or PHP (Not quite as heavy).

[cori]

Thank you for your answers and info.

After some search I have found some possibilities which seem to be at my level such as Jimdo or weebly.
I will try to ply with them.

[forum]

Start working at Google as a janitor.
While scrubbing the toilets, ask the Googles engineers lots of questions.
Best education money can buy.

[cori]

Thanks BM,

Soo funny and Usefullll!

[Thinktank]

What are the possibilities to learn website design in Kelowna?

#1 - Get photoshop somewhere. Even old copy of photoshop - works perfectly
for what you need. Learn a bit about images, file sizes, gif jpg etc.
Just NEVER put a bitmap image on your website.

#2 - Watch this video how to make wordpress website.
watch it again - and do it. Make your own wordpress website.

With wordpress - you don't need to learn so much and you get a lot more features on your website.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Jv47_VIBOQ

[36Drew]

#1 - Get photoshop somewhere. Even old copy of photoshop - works perfectly
for what you need. Learn a bit about images, file sizes, gif jpg etc.
Just NEVER put a bitmap image on your website.

#2 - Watch this video how to make wordpress website.
watch it again - and do it. Make your own wordpress website.

With wordpress - you don't need to learn so much and you get a lot more features on your website.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Jv47_VIBOQ

The problem with this statement is that neither is "Web Design". Being able to create graphics in photoshop is an entirely different skill. It's one that many web developers have, although very few are actually exceptionally good at it.

Wordpress isn't "web design" - it's a blogging platform. You may get some exposure to frontend technologies such as CSS and JavaScript - but you certainly won't be leveraging a wordpress.com-hosted website to do real web design. If the OP is simply after something to dabble with and play, then the likes of WP, Jimdo or Weebly are probably enough to satisfy that itch of somehow tinkering with a tiny facet of web design.

If somebody wants to develop something on par with (shameless self-plug) dragonage.com or thesims.com, they won't be doing that with any of the above.

[Bejvas]

The CIS program at the OK college is good, enough to keep you going with basic skills to further develop towards your interest. I wouldn't go for the bachelor program though, actual teachers aren't exactly what you would expect for the two last years.

[Thinktank]

Oh god, don't waste your money. Learn on your own.

^