Review of Udacity’s Responsive Web Design Course
When you’re learning to code it’s easy to be overwhelmed by all of the different resources out there. Where to begin? While the best way to start learning to code is to just start coding, having a program centered around completing projects that slowly builds up your skills can be helpful. I chose Udacity when learning to code because the courses focus not only on programming, but on the mindset, skills and traits of a successful web developer. I recently took the Responsive Web Design Fundamentals course and throughout this review of it, I’ve touched on these mindsets and skills that get emphasized. This is what sets Udacity apart from any other online program and makes it the best resource to use when learning to code.
Lesson 1: Why responsive?
Learn by doing
Within the first fifteen minutes of Lesson One of the course, it’s made clear that we’ll learn why responsive web design solves a problem you’ll face as a web developer, and how to use different responsive web design skills to solve this problem. We’re shown the tools to get started. The key emphasis in this course is to learn by doing. Instead of the way it’s done in traditional classrooms when you’re memorizing seemingly random information to perhaps use in some distant future, the lesson starts by almost immediately having you learn by doing. Instructors Cameron Pittman and Pete LePage lay out this course for us by essentially saying: here’s this problem you’ll run into when creating your websites. Here’s some ways to combat this problem. Go experiment.
Why learn responsive web design? The mobile market is taking over. Instructor Pete LePage puts it bluntly: “If you’re a web developer and you’re not building for mobile devices, you’re going to lose all your users.” Cameron Pittman made me laugh as he demonstrates how horrible it can be when you’re accessing a website from your phone and you have to pinch and zoom just to read anything. Nothing on your website matters if the website isn’t responsive on different devices.
How to solve your problem. In the lesson before this one, I built a website. Yet I quickly noticed that when my site is on my iPhone or Android, it looks terrible. Lesson one of the course dives into the various ways I can fix this problem. I experiment with using simulators and emulators, learn to use these dev tools to see how my site looks on different devices. I learn how to make my website responsive on any kind of device. Instead of listening to long lectures on things that I someday will regurgitate onto a test, I’m fixing a real problem within something I created. Udacity presents one or two minutes of new material before you’re back to fixing or doing something. Create something and learn as you experiment with your creation. Learn by doing.
Lessons 2 & 3: Starting small and building up
Hard work and enthusiasm trump all
In Lessons Two and Three, the instructors show us that starting small is the first step when designing a responsive site. Don’t start big and design down. Prioritize content and work up by planning what you want a mobile user to see first. Throughout this lesson, the instructors are enthusiastic and supportive. They leave you with the impression that you can learn to code no matter who you are, all you need is to work hard and take small steps to build your skills.
Instead of a professor or authority figure who knows all and must be revered, Udacity instructors often talk about how they’ve struggled with the same problems that you have, or bring up examples of how they’ve messed up. Udacity’s instructors are usually asking each other questions that I’ll be asking myself at the same time. One instructor often breaks down a concept for the other. When I took a traditional computer science class in college, it struck me that the professor seemed to purposefully present content in a difficult way. In school there is a myth that “hard” skills like coding are difficult, stressful, and tedious to learn.
Udacity shatters this myth. This is what sets Udacity apart. Everything in their curriculum is based on the idea that Udacians learn best by playing, creating, and experimenting. Yes, it can be difficult and stressful, yet it’s the kind of stress you feel when you can’t get your Lego house to look exactly how you want it. It’s not a question of acing a test or getting through ‘grunt work’. It’s a question of how you can make your creation better.
As a Udacian, you’re not a student so much as you are a creator. And no matter what background you have, you can start creating.
Lessons 4 & 5: Common Responsive Patterns and Optimizations
Develop the Web Developer’s mindset by teaching yourself
Lessons 4 and 5 get harder. We’ve learned about breakpoints, different kinds of pixels, and how to optimize your page. There are many different ways to do all of this. Here is something that took a second to get my mind around: a pixel is not a pixel anymore. Then we’re talking about tech specs and then we’re talking about CSS pixels and then… “What!?!” (Pittman says this to the other instructor, accurately describing what I’m thinking.)
I saw that another student had asked, “Why didn’t Udacity explain further about this?” when it came to learning about pixels. The answer is that Udacity intentionally chose not to dive deeper into this subject. As Udacity describes in their course ‘Establishing a Web Developer’s Mindset’, a web developer spends a ton of time every day googling and finding the solution on their own. While the more passive version of me in college may have gone to ask the professor or a classmate for help with the answer, now I seek it out for myself.
The creators of Udacity have recognized that as a web developer (and in any career!) your success depends on how much you can teach yourself. In the real world, you can’t go to your boss and say that the test was unfair because he didn’t prepare you for what would be on it. In the real world you have to search for your own answers. Udacity doesn’t ‘teach’ you so much as nudge you towards learning things on your own. In doing so, they nudge you towards becoming a better web developer.
