Thoughts on Learning HTML — Copywriting, Design and Strategic Thinking.
I just started the web development course (read here), and I hacked through the very basics of HTML. I enjoyed it because it was simple and straight forward.
💭 I have a few thoughts that I want to write down.
It’s easier for me to think about websites now that I have been a designer before and stayed on the other side of web development- web design. I can totally understand why websites were ever invented, why people learn to develop websites, and why this is such a huge part of the economy.
Because these languages are basically how you display the information to the world, some skills that are very important include, copy writing, design and strategic thinking. If you have fantastic compelling copy, you know exactly what needs to end up on your page, you can go ahead and design a simple ui that communicates this vision.
Why design and copywriting matters.
Think about a blank page. If you are an editorial designer or copy writer, you basically have a blank page to input text and design in. You have the options of having your copy and your image just laid out on the page without any form of hierarchy or design. Basically, words on a white page. This is HTML for you.
Web design marries web development where you have to get these pages looking pretty, and actually working the way we want it to work. As I am now learning web development, I see how I can take the basic concepts of a language and use it in a compelling manner in a website. That is the main reason for it.
My Visual Design Thinking Roots
I got this thinking from working through Grid systems, a graphic design, layout book. While I was working through this, I got the impression that, it’s possible to have a boring page, with words and text just put on the page. Design is having a system of how these information gets published on a page in a pretty and compelling way.
Strategic Thinking.
The end justifies the means.
If you want to develop a website that is a static page, your vision would justify the tools that you use in the project, therefore, you don’t have to use all the language that you have learned. This also means that your website might have limited functionality or complex functionality, and it matters to approach web development from the end towards what you need to do.
A product roadmap.
In web development, Strategic thinking looks like, a product roadmap; this shows the features required to be built into this functional website. Web Development is not an art. When you begin, you know exactly what you want to achieve, you can then work backwards.
I’m excited to be on this journey of learning web development. Follow me on Twitter for more tips and hot takes.
