Your site is a reflection of your business
Your site is much more than a web app you've built for your customers. It's a window into your company, brand, and values. It reflects what you're all about and how you want others to see you. That means both the look and feel of your site and the code that powers it. Harmful code can make your site feel cheap, slow, and subpar. It can make your customers feel like they're being treated like second-class citizens. It can even make your business look like a poor investment. If your code is a mess, your site can suffer. That's why it's so important to get good at coding. Not only will it improve the quality of your site, but it can also open up a world of design possibilities. You can use your coding skills to redesign your site or add new features.
Great code is the foundation for great design
Design is just a fancy word for how you make something look. Deciding what colors to use, what typefaces to use, what images to include, and so on are all aspects of design that you'll need to consider. But you can't make a beautiful site if your code is messy. The foundation of great design is good code. If your site functions well, you can make all the pretty graphics you want and use the nicest fonts and creative images. If your code is a mess, all those stunning graphics and fancy fonts can come to a halt.
The quality of content is often overlooked
A site is more than just its look and feel. It's also the content we include on our site that matters. And while the design is essential, it's often overlooked. Bad composition can be forgiven, but lousy content wreaks havoc on how your visitors experience your site. It makes them feel frustrated and annoyed. It can make them click away, never to return. That's why it's essential to ensure the content you include on your site is of the highest quality. You want to ensure it's relevant to your brand and customers, accurate, and written with the best words and grammar. You only hurt your site's potential if you skip these essential steps.
Good user experience can only happen when all the dots connect
A site can be beautiful and functional, but it can't be great if it's doing anything wrong. For example, if your site is full of broken links and 404 errors, then all the work you put into designing and coding your site will be for naught. Your visitors will leave, and you'll lose potential business. Bad user experience is a result of poor design and sloppy code. For example, your sign-up form isn't working. Or your links aren't working. Or your site takes too long to load.
A good user experience can't exist if your site is full of these problems. To make your site great, you need to fix those problems first. You need to make sure your links work. You need to make sure your sign-up form works. And you need to make sure your site loads quickly.
So, why should you care about code?
No matter how good your design skills are, they're useless if you don't have code skills. This is especially true when it comes to designing for the web. To make sites that work, you need to know how to code. This will help you create a better experience for your customers and potential clients, to build new features and applications, and to redesign your whole site. You might think you're doing your design a disservice by diving into the code side of things, but you must remember that great design starts with great code.
We've shown you why it's essential to design your site correctly and the impact terrible design can have on your visitors. Now, we'll show you why it's crucial to get good at coding. We'll also show you how to start with some helpful code basics, such as installing a code editor, building an essential website, and how to use HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Once you've got the basic skills, you can take your design skills to the next level by creating more advanced designs, integrating new features and functionality with your site, and improving your code. Good web design starts with good code. And that can only happen if you learn how to code.
