A currated list of alternatives ressources on learning the web in sensible ways.
In an alienated internet, this list of ressources, adressed to both designers who want to learn web-specificities and amateurs who practices the web, tries to tell a multiplicity of bright opportinities websites can be, suscitate wonder, and think about website as something that impact us outside of the space of our screens.
On a post-it like note inside of that website, I wrote the following text.
Webdesign as a misconception (a post-it note from Wonderful Websites Pedagogy)
What lead to the desire of creating this page is mostly a feeling of misunderstanding that came through conversations about websites.
In my daily working life i see designers who sometimes consider webdesign as an applied form of others part of design, such as typography or print-design. They dream of shapes, concepts, layouts and want to make them a reality on the web, according to their usual designer experiences, without taking in account the context and materiality of the web. Some websites show they were designed without sensibility to the web: trying to be smart or elegant looking-wise while going against the grain of the web. This create good-looking but uncomfortable spaces that can easily lack of meaning. Like a book made with no thinking of its printing techniques, or how the format holds in your hands, or how it's distributed. The web has become its own environment that goes beyond applying the knowledge you get through other fields of design.
There are forces causing such situations: lots of designers are shifting from print to website because of demand, in their own precariousness, and web is associated with coding which is mystified and depicted as inaccessible. Not everybody has the time and passion required to learn the web. Certain designers actually don't use the web a lot outside of mainstream social networks. As architects are inspired by their walks, or musicians by the sound they ear, a webdesigner need to walk and listen to the web.
The first and most simple step in learning websites is to browse them. Bookmark the one you like or don't like, make list of them, screenshot them, have conversation about them, be curious and inspect them.
Designing a website is possible without a webdesigner
It's important to remember that most websites were/are not made by designers.
Unlike print design which requiere access to specific machines and distributions in order to reach a large audience, websites were thought from the start as being easily craftable by individuals and not only by person of a certain profession. Lots of such websites, blogs, internet communities, etc, have/had big audiences, recognitions and perfect accessibility, without any webdesigner-as-a-job involved. And the web worked all fine like that for dozens of years, creating whole dimension of internet subcultures and communities.
Developing a website is possible without a webdesigner
There is this false self-maintaining narration that people depends on technical abilities that only you posses, as a webdesigner, to have a website.
However history showed it's fake, and it can not be of any good for people technological autonomy to continue to make it a reality. At the same time, today, multiple ready-made services and platforms exist, from social networks to easy website-builders, (and as much as i despise them in term of process) it is a reality that they can give a good autonomy to any group or indivial wanting a website, by bypassing the need of development or writing code themselves.
What does it means to be a webdesigner if it's not really about applying good-looking design to the web or coding for someone else?
In my opinion, it doesn't mean that webdesigner-as-a-job is meaningless or only of capitalistist interest.
As internet has become an important territory of ideas and practices, it is essential that some people specialises themselves in pushing for radicality, alternatives, wonder and poetry, in order for it to not become an homogenous corporations-driven landscape.
Then the question is yours: as a webdesigner what is your web-specific-purpose?
Outside from applying shapes of design, and knowing a certain technical expertise what are you doing? Are you a guide, a fighter, a therapist, an artisan, an historian, an archivist, a maintainer? How are you participating in an impactfull and meaningfull way on communities, on institution, on culture, by designing websites?
This list of ressources is the one that inspired me personnally and hope to inspire you.