9 Tricks to Improve Your Website Design Skills

Website creation is one of the most important skills to learn and be able to apply nowadays. No matter how easy or difficult it may seem, it’s always worth improving in this field. This can be helpful at work or even for building your own business in the future. There is no way to be stagnant in one spot when it comes to web design, especially if you consider the fact that the Internet and its trends are fast-changing and constantly evolving. 

There are nearly 250 000 websites created every single day worldwide, and people will keep on needing them done more and more. At this point, it’s a must-have for every business out there. Therefore, the skills also need to evolve. School, work, business, or even as a hobby – whatever reason stands behind a person’s wish to grow their knowledge in this topic, there are multiple ways to do so. 

For a student who wants to dedicate more time to creating websites, it can be a challenge since the amount of practice this skill requires is crazy. However, using an essay writing service, for example, to minimize homework could be a piece of useful advice. A creator may not understand everything at once, and it’s alright. The task here is to not be hard on yourself. This practice is focused on gathering the resources and playing around with the design to create something you’ll enjoy.

Let’s pick 7 of the most efficient tricks for bringing every designer’s skillset to the next level.

 

1. Sharing Works On Community Websites And Asking For Feedback

An effective way to grow is by looking at how others do it. There is no need to compare one another, but engaging in a community that focuses specifically on web art would be a wonderful chance to improve. Also, even if a person works on the project for themselves, it’s important to know how the user reacts to your visuals, what emotions it awakens, and how they interact with them. At the end of the day, when a website is designed, it's made so other people can visit and look at it. 

The best thing about this method is that it is free, and it's even possible to earn some extra income from posting quality content. Same as I can pay someone to do my homework for me, a designer can pay other, more experienced creators to help with their projects on these platforms too. Examples of such platforms for sharing, selling, and buying works from creative people are DeviantArt, Dribble, and Behance. Asking for feedback and helping other designers is a useful activity that helps to brush up on the skillset. 

2. Avoiding Adding Bright Colors For The Background 

It’s now necessarily bad or unacceptable to use lots of colors for the background. However, it looks more professional when there is a sense of balance between the background and the filling of the page. It’s better to go with the black and white for the background for an instant improvement of the design. Most websites and applications use black and white so that they can implement a dark mode for user convenience. 

Color grabs attention a lot. However, using a complete background of strong colors can be hard for the eye and make things look overwhelming. Nonetheless, adding some splashes of color is a good idea if you practice how to make it visually appealing and not distracting. 

3. Editing One Of The Previous Projects 

There is always a clear evolution in a developer’s skill set. The equipment from the day they start designing can change and now include better features. If the projects don’t get better and change over time, then the designer is at risk of getting stagnant with his ideas and old knowledge. Anyone who wants to freshen up the skill should go back to the old project and try to twist it for the better. 

A person can see a big change in how they feel today compared to how they have been doing it. So now they should ask themselves what could be done differently. And then go back to the sandbox and redesign the project, adding new things and practicing them on the way.

4. Trying Out Wireframes 

For better work with a layout, it’s good to use a wireframe. It’s crucial to have a graphic representation of a website's basic structure. A wireframe sometimes referred to as a page schematic or screen blueprint, can help a lot with seeing overall results and making decisions about the design. It makes the process easier if there is a client to discuss the format with. The structure should place the most emphasis on its functionality and content, so it actually brings value to the visitors. 

To create wireframes, there are the following cost-free software to use:

• Figma

• Penpot

• InVision

• Draw.io

5. Practicing In The Sandbox

Another way a web creator can sharpen his abilities is to have some fun in the sandbox, where he can freely practice without any pressure. 

For staging websites, doing redesigns, and testing changes safely away from live sites, local development environments are helpful. However, they can also use them to test out design strategies, fashions, templates, plugins, and other things. 

To develop graphic design abilities, a person can use a sandbox like Local by Flywheel. 

Here is a great activity to try out. Take a favorite website that you have marveled at and never thought you could create on your own. Put yourself to the test after that. Try to duplicate it in your sandbox. 

6. Educating More 

Practicing with hands is the right approach to mastering a skill. But knowing the principles of effective web strategy will also help to become a better web designer. The steps a designer can take are reading or watching theory videos; refreshing their memory of fundamentals like color theory and typography. Also, keeping an eye on current topics like the newest user interface (UI) trends and user experience (UX) design ideas.

Designers can take courses on Coursera, Udemy, Skillshare, or directly from popular professionals who are sharing their tips on social media. Some of them are completely free and even include certification, which could be great for showcasing your expertise on your LinkedIn profile or resume. 

7. Keeping The Website Simple

This is the thing most new developers do: they try to use all of their knowledge and tricks in one project. Therefore, it may seem that the more you put on the website, the better. Still, the reality is the page should be easy to navigate for the user and, thus, have a simple setup that encourages the viewer to learn the information and makes it effortless. 

There is a common misconception that website design requires complex structure, tons of images, graphs, figures, colors, etc. But that’s not how it should be. The simpler and cleaner the format of the website is, the better it is for the people who visit it. After stuffing everything on one page, the end result may seem beautiful to the eye at first but can turn out user-unfriendly and take a longer time to load. Still, it’s crucial to keep it trendy and suitable for the specific audience that is going to visit the web page.

8. Prioritizing Mobile Friendliness

Some designers forget that when they prepare a website, it should be optimized for different types of devices. It's even important for search engine optimization. The website created for the desktop can end up looking horrible on the mobile and vice versa. However, more and more people are using mobile devices for searching sites nowadays, which means it should be the priority when it comes to website development. 

Whenever a person is developing a web page, the first thing they should do is check how it shows on the phone. How do the sizes of the font show up? How does the animation work on mobile? And so on. A fun fact is that it’s possible to make completely different designs for both mobile and desktop. But still, it’s always a better idea to stick to a similar theme, at least.

9. Learning How To Code

Right now, it’s a whole lot easier to make pages on the Internet, with the amount of all those helpful platforms like Squarespace, Wixx, WordPress, Elementor, etc. All these web builders already have pre-installed blocks that can be moved around and organized however a person wishes. 

But if someone wants to really grow as a website designer, they should learn a coding language. Knowing how to code will open a lot more freedom in the design space. So many diverse features can be created with coding. 

You can study the following to broaden your web creation skills:

• HTML

• CSS

• Javascript 

• PHP 

• jQuery

The places where learning coding is available for free are Codecademy, Udemy, Code.org, etc. There are also multiple applications for mobile which can help to learn to code on the go. One of the most popular and efficient ones is Mimo. 

Conclusion 

With web design being the most in-demand and high-paying skill to learn, it’s important to always improve to get ahead of your competitors. By using the advice above, a simple newbie can start growing into a professional with exceptional design skills. It’s always worth noting down the useful tricks and brushing up on the new knowledge, but only one source won’t be enough. 

It’s better to look consistently into books, specific courses, videos, creator communities, etc. Prioritizing mobile friendliness and using wireframes to evaluate the overall picture are the most useful things to mind when mastering graphic design.