A year ago, I’d barely seen any code in my life. Just the term computer science felt foreign to me, and if there was one thing I did know, it was this:
I didn’t know much, but I wanted to learn more—a lot more.
In particular, I wanted to learn about Web Development, and have both the skills and technical know-how to make my own websites and web apps. It felt ambitious, but somehow, that only made me want to learn more because at the end of the day, I knew I could if I put my mind to it.
One of the first things I learned when learning Web Development is that when people make websites or web apps, a lot of creativity and design is involved. After all, you’ve got to make your website look modern (not like it’s from the 80s), have a nice balance of colors, and be easy on the eyes. You want people to stay on your website, scroll through its pages, and if it’s ugly or the text is too hard to read, they’re not going to.
From the font to the colors to the most seemingly insignificant features, like changing the color of a link when a user hovers over it—are key.
That’s why most web apps typically start out with a “wireframe”—a loose sketch of how the client (which in some cases, might be you) wants it to look. How are things laid out? Do we place a picture on the left or the right? Change the font to make it bigger, or smaller? There’s a million questions, and after lots of trial and error, eventually, one or many Front End Developers can build the web app to your specification.
It’s a heck of a journey, but in my mind, it’s not too different from the projects we’ve made in this class. Web app design has become its own art, so much so that there’s even websites like this one where people will share website designs they’re proud of. Go check it out!
