Wanna Do Web Design?
Lately, I’ve had a handful of younger people ask for advice on pursuing a career in design. With a blind inefficiency, I hammered out numerous lengthy emails, realizing only afterward that I have this fabulous forum here, where I can share my amazing genius with the entire world! Mwah ha ha!!
This article is mostly geared towards the high school or early undergraduate college student who is starting to feel the pressure to choose a direction for their studies. While I think it’s crazy to expect a 17 to 20-year-old to know what they want to do with their life, the reality is you’re going to hear those questions from the adults around you.
It’s hard to know what you want to do when you haven’t done it yet. But one approach is to think about the types of moments when you really enjoy yourself, when you feel like you really shine. Think about those moments where you did or made something that you think turned out great, and you really enjoyed the process of doing it. Maybe you’re thinking of an assignment, or maybe some after-school activity you pursued on your own. You might find that there are some common themes to those moments.
Below, I’m going to lay out some general themes that I think relate closely to the work that I do as a web designer. As you read the rest of the article, think about if you feel a connection to any of these themes. If you don’t feel any strong connections, that’s ok too. Maybe after you read this article, some of these things will pop back into your head later on like a light bulb going off. And none of these qualities are requirements for this career, these are just hints that you might enjoy doing web design.
Storytelling
Questions: Do you love telling your friends a funny story? Are you a story collector? For example, if a friend tells you a crazy story, do you tell it someone else, second-hand, maybe even exaggerate it a bit? When you’re telling these stories, do you get really into it and really enjoy yourself?
Storytelling is a big component of what we do as web designers. We don’t just make a web site and throw it on the internet. We think a lot about the people that are going to use the site. We try to think of a typical day in this person’s life and how our product fits into that day. Before we begin building a web site, we might even make something like a mini comic book about that person and their life. If we get confused or lose track of what we’re supposed to be doing while we’re building the site, we can look back to that story and it will help us stay on the right track.
Observation
Questions: Do you like people-watching? Do you like observing all the weird, random things strangers are doing when they walk down the street ? When you see someone you don’t know, do you make up stories in your head about who they are, what they’re like, what their lives are like? Are you sometimes the quiet one in the group that’s just taking it all in?
One of the ways that we figure out who uses our sites and what they need is by observing real people using technology. Sometimes it’s really formal, we might bring real people into our office to watch them trying to use our site and see when they get frustrated. Sometimes it’s informal and we learn something important about our work by watching people out in the world. For example, maybe there’s a guy standing on the bus fiddling with his mp3 player and holding onto a briefcase with the other hand. You can see that because of the way the player is designed, he can’t change songs with one only hand. From this observation, you might learn that it’s important to design something like an iPod so that you can operate it one-handed.
Empathy
Questions: Are you pretty good at knowing how someone is feeling without them having to tell you? Can you tell what someone close to you needs without them saying so? Can you get kind of worked up over a sad movie?
Because we observe the people that use our sites, we start to feel a connection to them. We start to learn what aspects of our products they enjoy, and which ones frustrate them. We want to make their lives better and reduce frustration for them. And when we create something that improves their lives, it feels really good! If we didn’t care about them, it would be harder to make something to improve their lives.
Creativity and Imagination
Questions: Do you daydream a lot? Have you been thought of as one of the kids at your school that’s good at art? Do you enjoy class projects that aren’t too structured, that let you be creative?
Personally, I think that everyone is creative. It’s part of being human. I think that each person’s creativity is expressed in a different way. Maybe it’s drawing, or cooking, or sports — practically any activity can be an outlet for creative expression. Doing web design is creative, and it requires imagination — and that’s a good thing! It makes the job really fun.
Puzzle-solving
Questions: Do you have fun doing brain teasers, logic puzzles, Sudoku, that type of thing? Do you enjoy, or excel, at math or languages? Do you like playing video games?
I don’t want the math thing one to bum anyone out. If you’re like, “no, I suck at math,” that doesn’t mean you can’t be a great web designer. I only bring up puzzle-solving because web designers sometimes write code, and language and math seem to have a relationship with the part of your brain that writes code. Don’t be intimidated when you think about learning to write code — you can do it. Just because it sounds hard doesn’t mean it is, so don’t syke yourself out. Shoot, maybe you’re already teaching yourself some coding. If so, you’re awesome.
Sketching
Questions: Do you doodle all during class? Does doodling help you listen better when the teacher is talking? Have you thought about becoming an artist, but you’re feeling pressure from your parents to choose a career path that is (in their mind) safer?
Drawing is a super fun part of my job and I do it pretty much every day. Now, this doesn’t mean you have to be great at drawing. But if you enjoy drawing, you’re going to be stoked to do web design. You might jump up and do a sketch on a whiteboard during a meeting to make sure everyone is imagining the same thing — and it’s fine if it’s just stick figures. When you’re a web designer, you work out a lot of your ideas on paper in rough sketches before you even touch a computer. Drawing is fun, everybody drew when they were kids, why do people ever stop?! Kids stop drawing at a certain age because they start to feel self-conscious that they’re not good at it. Stupid social pressure! I wish everyone just kept drawing forever, we could all enjoy it like when we were 5. Keep drawing guys.
Alright so, this list of qualities outlines some general characteristics that you might find in a web designer. All of the tools, the software, the code, the actual techniques of creating web sites, those are things that you can be taught. What’s important is to think about when you shine. When are those moments in your life that you really feel like yourself, and feel like you’re doing something great? It’s a great thing when you find a job that brings out those moments in you.
I hope this helped!