Liza Curtis
Posts: 1

Hi,

I have been combing through the forums to find answers to a few questions. I found some helpful information but thought I would just ask!

I have my undergraduate BS in Fine Art, and have been staying at home with my kids for a few years. I would like to begin learning web design and development software so I can begin a career creating and designing websites. I have been searching high and low on the internet for programs and am totally at a loss for where to actually start...

-Are Certificate programs a good start? or a waste of time/money?
-Is there an online certificate program you would recommend? I have found some but have no way of knowing how good they are...
-Tutorials online are everywhere, is this a better way to go?
-Which sites/tutorials would you recommend?
-knowing what you know now about what you do, if you were going to hypothetically start from scratch where would you start?

Thank you in advance for your input!

Mike Crone
Posts: 25

In my opinion, most of the schools that offer web design programs are useless. There is no official certificate for web design (doesn't exist).
You will need to know HTML & CSS for starters. After that you should learn a server side language such as PHP/MYsql.
As for learning, it is probably better to go to a bookstore and pick up a few books to learn from. As a beginner, the Dummy series of books are quite good (HTML for Dummies etc.)

Don't rush out and buy a lot of software. You really don't need much. A good text editor is all you really need, but if you want a good HTML editor, I would suggest the CoffeeCup HTML editor.
Once you figure out what it all means, then you can check out some of the online tutorials as then you will know a bit more of what you are looking for.

And as always, come back here with any questions...

Mike...

WPDFD Forum Moderator

Davies Thomas
Posts: 7

This is a very good website. I've been back a couple of times over the past week and wish to subscribe to your feed using Google but cannot learn the right way to do it very well. Do you know of any tutorials?

Brown Erik
Posts: 8

I would have to agree with what Mike Crone has said here. Indeed, there is no point in going to any school for the purpose of learning web designing programs. The best bet for you would be to learn the basic editions of HTML and CSS! You can find lots of books pertaining to it from the internet or you could learn directly from the Internet itself. Make sure you get the Coffee Cup HTML editor for the purpose of text editing!

Linda Johnson
Posts: 9

This may sound silly but, depending on your level of current knowledge using wordpress to build a site and practicing there allowed me to learn a lot of what I know now, it's a decent starting point. You can view the page source and see how a lot of the HTML is made. I also got a few good books from the library.

Website Designerss
Posts: 37

Please dont go for certificate programs. Simlpy they are waste of time and money only. Even there is no use with that certificate also. Now we have a lot of opportunities to learn thro' search engines. Many tutorials are available in the net. You can search and easily find out the solution.

Rachit Arora
Posts: 12

i agree with what Mike Crone statement there is no need to go anywhere.

Rachit Arora
Posts: 12

certificate programs are waste of time and money only. Even there is no use with that certificate also.we should have dedication and learn through books and online.