I’m a designer. So why did I just learn to code?
Let’s start with a question. Do you need to be able to code if you’re involved in the user experience field? My answer to that is a simple ‘no’. But is it worth learning? In my experience as a designer, learning how to code has helped me get a deeper understanding of how components perform and work on a particular page. It has also given me a better understanding of design requirements and what type of modifications can be made on any page. So, coding has given me a unique perspective on both worlds. Which, in the end, can make the developers lives easier as well.
Learning to code is an optional choice for every designer, as it doesn’t directly impact their day-to-day work. Designers are still capable of providing high- quality mock-ups for developers to implement without prior knowledge of coding. Whether designers decide to start this path or not it’s entirely up to them. I believe there are advantages to understating what’s happening in the background when looking at a screen, but it is not an easy journey.
Let me tell you why I’ve decided to learn how to code. I wanted to understand what software developers mean when they’re talking about development of functionality around me. I found myself a little frustrated at times when participating in meetings from being unable to understand some of the technical terms used by developers when discussing my designs. I wanted to share my thoughts or understand difficulties of my designs from a technical perspective, but at the time, I couldn’t. I felt that my active contribution could bring more benefit to these meetings and maybe solve issues quicker. More importantly, I really wanted to bring life to my designs, by making them more interactive and making them behave and feel like real functioning websites. It’s not only something you would be able to play around with but also a great resource and a ‘source of truth’ for developers. From my personal experience I can tell that implementing the correct margin, shade of a colour or width from a static design can be a struggle. If you create an HTML prototype and pass it to developers, you know they will notice all these little important details in the code without even asking you. Of course, there is nothing wrong with the traditional way of designing, but it would make everyone’s life easier.
Don’t worry if programming sounds interesting to you, but you don’t know where to start. I’ve been there! From what I’ve learned, these are some of the more important steps to follow when you start your journey:
• The first thing you should do is dedicate some of your free time. Coding is not easy, trust me. One night, one week is not enough to grasp even the most basic programming rules for a beginner. It should become part of your life — well, to some extent of course — as long as you don’t feel overwhelmed with the amount of information you’d be trying to absorb at once.
• Another thing is to focus on one thing at a time. Either a specific element or a framework first rather than learning all the possible technologies all at once. Do you want to become a CSS master? Make sure you spend enough time learning that first, don’t start with JavaScript before you feel confident with the basics. You might be surprised with what you can achieve on a page with some simple CSS, without even touching JavaScript! Is there a specific framework your team uses to implement a product? Although each framework has some valuable features, earning more about a specific type of framework your colleagues deal with every day makes more sense. You can always join in on their technical discussions, understand the structure of the component and help them with modifications (if you need any)!
• What type of student are you? Do you prefer to learn in your own way, alone? Or do you prefer to work as a part of a group where you can solve problems together? Lots of Universities and websites offer both short and long courses: they’re not cheap but give you the opportunity to meet other students, work together and talk to teachers. They can answer your questions, even very specific ones! On the other hand, number of online resources are endless! Starting with random articles and blogs and ending up on YouTube videos. Lots of people spend their time providing easy to follow tutorials. You can’t always ask specific questions to find the answers you’re looking for when watching a video or reading a blog, but all of it is completely free! Figure out what type of learning works best for you and go with it.
• Don’t give up if it takes time to understand a new concept or a different way of doing things in a technology/framework. Coding is hard, but as designers, we learn it for our own benefit, most of the time, it’s not a mandatory requirement for our usual day to day work, so take it easy and pace yourself.
And remember, the key is to enjoy what you do. If you force yourself to do it, it’s probably not going to work in the long term. But otherwise, it will give you so much fun and satisfaction. And best of all, you’ll be able to bring your designs to life by yourself!
