It is reasonable to state that one of the more broadly interpreted & poorly defined definitions in I.T. is the expression Web-Designer. In actual fact, web design does contain quite a few different areas, and so it may well help to simplify things if we go through each one. There are essentially 2 elements to web design - the 'technical' process & the creative design side. Most people believe a 'web-designer' is someone that is in charge of the visible areas of the web-site. To put it differently, they look at web-designers because artists on the whole. However, a modern web-designer will in fact be as involved with the technical element of things as much as the 'creative' element. We'll illustrate this with greater clarity if we separate web-design up into it's various parts.

Firstly, we have graphic-artists, who design & build the graphic symbols and pictures that you see on any web page. They most often bring this about by making use of graphic lay-out & animation software (like Adobe 'Flash' and Photoshop), and are generally not really site designers as such. Many have come from higher education, typically with a degree-level art qualification. Most importantly, this specific role calls for sound artistic skill.

Next, there are the site designers, that employ design environments like Adobe 'Dreamweaver' to produce the layout and feel of the web page. They use the work done by the graphic artist, & together their clients create an initial look & 'navigational' composition for the new webpage. A novice web-designer tends to start with the form of a web-site, instead of the 'function'. However, you should really begin with an understanding of the functions it's required to carry out to develop a truly productive web site. Is it primarily an e-commerce web site, which wants to be able to receive payments safely and securely, or is it perhaps an on-line product catalogue listing? Maybe you need to showcase products by means of video and a largely 'graphical' inter-face, or perhaps its mostly an informational website where the need is simple access to essential text data (like this site.) No matter what the purchaser needs from a site, the essential requirement is that it actually meets the basic needs. There is little point building a visually interesting website that's difficult for individuals to navigate! A good web-designer must basically produce a web based 'experience' that is both satisfying and instinctive for those coming to the web site - then they will visit again and again.

It's important to understand that even the most effective web design courses can only provide you with the methods & processes - none of them can actually convert you into a professional web-designer. Put together as many web sites as possible as you go through your course - the practice will be invaluable and you'll have something to show what you can do. A sport or other interest can be a very good starting point, or simply your favourite family pet, or a holiday resort you particularly loved. You might even create interactive web sites & get 'traffic' on them. This will all appear much more constructive on your Curriculum Vitae, and in your portfolio, than a qualification from 'Adobe' will!

Naturally you'll find cross-overs with many of these roles - in-fact we have contacts with several web-site designers who are proficient in a lot of them. It will take time however to acquire such a selection of commercial abilities. You need to be trained in several things on a professionally feasible web-design training program: First of all, an introductory tutorial to basic web-design, followed by teaching in Adobe Dreamweaver and a summary of the main elements of Adobe Flash. The languages of HTML and 'CSS' need to be taught next, with a level of e-commerce teaching built-in here. Some database & SEO expertise is crucial, and an awareness of the programming language PHP (instead of the more complex ASP.Net) so that you can build 'dynamic' web sites. Accomplishing these skillsets will give you a chance to start working on a good cross section of websites. Just like taking driving lessons, you have to first attain the actual physical skillsets, before you can in essence move past them and achieve an element of finesse. You would have to allow something like four hundred to five hundred hrs to study and effectively grasp a wide ranging training program like this - so if your plan is to do this along with employment it could be carried out within 1 year. A skilled advisor can help you prepare your way through this labyrinth of commercial learning, & we strongly suggest that you allow time to plan your path carefully before you begin your training.

Professional web-site designers can also enhance their offering if they branch-out into fields such as project-management & e-commerce for instance. Another field - which isn't to be underestimated - is 'SEO' (Search Engine Optimisation). This is focused on how to optimize web site indexation on search engines like 'Google' and Yahoo. And even though they typically originate from a network-administration background, we mustn't forget the valuable role of the web server administrators and installers, who keep the whole thing working in the background.

Web-developers are essentially the most technically apt of all. These people won't just understand 'HTML', 'CSS' & XML, but will have learned more official programming-languages such as 'PHP', ASP.Net, Visual Basic, C#, 'Java' and the like. They'll also generally possess a solid understanding of 'SQL' database technology, as this is one way most modern large websites store their information. A typical e-commerce web-site doesn't have a team of web-site designers who've created its thousands of web-pages in lay-out format. More commonly, after the creation of a place-holder template, the details will be extracted from a database & dynamically inserted. In addition to being hugely more efficient to build, manage and update, it also aids in the 'feel' of the website being consistent.