Today,
we have plenty of digital and printed resources which offer
step-by-step edification on developing good websites. Development
environments are now getting smarter day to day and are catching
mistakes which the developers used to battle with. Creating a website
might seem ominous, but the challenge lies in making it usable. The
thing is most of the web designers usually forget that the websites
are not created for themselves, but to solve the needs of users.
So,
if you’re really serious about mastering in web designing, you must
definitely be having the following skills:
1.
Programming knowledge: If
programming languages were not there, we had to program computers
using the machine code (native code). Machine code is nothing but a
series of binary digits, which informs the processor about the
instructions to be executed. These languages make programming
effortless.
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There are many languages to serve different purposes, but you must
know at least a few of those languages to build a good a website. You
can select any language that you are comfortable with according to
the web development standards, universal use, the trends,
recommendations, etc.
*
For instance, HTML
is a standard language which can be used to format the contents on a
web page. HTML includes titles, headings, links and text. It is the
most common language used in web
development.
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CSS (Cascading Style
Sheets) is a language united with HTML. CSS allows a programmer to
set the style of a webpage (like layout, colours and fonts). These
elements are kept discrete from the code of main webpage.
*
JavaScript is an apt
solution for games, apps, animation and interactivity on the website.
All the dynamic effects on a site are added using this programming
language.
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There are many other
languages such as Perl, PHP, ASP.Net, Ruby, Python and more. Choose
the one which suits your requirement.
2.
Testing: Testing is a
critical part of web development process. So, a developer must also
have testing knowledge to a certain extent. In prior to the delivery
of final product (i.e. website), you must be sure that everything is
done properly. That is, checking for browser compatibility, links,
navigation menu algorithm, page loading speed, etc.
3.
Basic design knowledge: If
developers possess a little knowledge on design techniques, they will
be able to understand the requirements and explore better designs.
Designers and developers will be usually working on the same project,
but on different points of it. The outcome will be great when they
coordinate and share knowledge with each other.
As
the popularity of responsiveness is rising day-to-day, it’s good
for developers to have a brief knowledge on responsive design. This
helps them in attaining a better level of professionalism.
4.
SEO: Search engine
optimization is more concerned to a marketer or an SEO specialist
than the developer. But still, they cannot neglect the strategies and
techniques of SEO. The main factor to be considered on SEO is the
speed. Usually, developers deal with such factors the most, so they
need to understand the pivotal importance of webpage speed. This
particularly depends on the programming languages used.
5.
Understanding security risks: Security
skills are so imperative for creating a website. As a developer, you
must be ready for any security attacks and must provide an efficient
solution for it.
Major
attacks are:
*
SQL injection: It’s
an attack of data-driven software, when any malicious SQL statements
are placed into the input forms or fields.
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Cross-site scripting: This
attack usually occurs if any hacker uses a spiteful script to affect
an innocent web page.
*
Error message: This
could be a fount of information for hackers. Make sure that you don’t
disclose any important information in such messages.
6. Image
resizing: In most of
the cases, developers normally depend on designers for working on
images. But, it could be very helpful if developer has a basic
knowledge of Photoshop and other programs. So that, he could at least
manage with resizing or cropping an image, customizing the colours
and applying some effects.
Having
a brief knowledge on all the above mentioned skills, you can
definitely be a good web
developer.
