Design Your Own Website for Beginners

About the course

Whether you want to design websites for fun, as a hobby, as a career, as a skill or as part of your job, this 10-week short course provides a broad, supportive, fun, friendly and reasonably fast paced environment.

This course will include tutor led teaching, open discussions, self-paced activities, group based challenges and supported with handouts, individual help, guidance and feedback.

What will I study?

Learner hours: 25

In addition to embarking on a journey of website design, development and publishing you will also have the opportunity to design and build your own site using a range of industry standard tools and systems.  For those students who would like to improve their technical knowledge we will also be dipping into wider topics such as, ‘what the Internet and World-Wide-Web is’, ‘how search engines work’, ‘what search engine optimisation is and why it is important’ and for example, ‘how domain names work’, etc.

The course will cover:

  • Anatomy of Web Pages
  • Tools of the Trade
  • Design Principles
  • HTML & CSS
  • Building Content
  • Publishing and Accessing Sites
  • Designing Your Site
  • Building Your Site
  • Testing Your Site
  • Site Review & Expanding Your New Skills

In addition to embarking on a journey of website design, development and publishing you will also have the opportunity to design and build your own site using a range of industry standard tools and systems.  For those students who would like to improve their technical knowledge we will also be dipping into wider topics such as, ‘what the Internet and World-Wide-Web is’, ‘how search engines work’, ‘what search engine optimisation is and why it is important’ and for example, ‘how domain names work’, etc.

The course will cover:

  • Anatomy of Web Pages
  • Tools of the Trade
  • Design Principles
  • HTML & CSS
  • Building Content
  • Publishing and Accessing Sites
  • Designing Your Site
  • Building Your Site
  • Testing Your Site
  • Site Review & Expanding Your New Skills

Teaching methods and course structure

WeekTopicLesson aims
Week 1Anatomy of Web PagesIntroduce the principle components, structures and systems associated with the setup and design of websites and pages
Week 2Tools of the TradeInvestigate the tools and techniques associated with the creation, design and management of web pages and sites
Week 3HTML & CSSExplore and use HTML construction elements and CSS styling techniques to build a web page
Week 4Design PrinciplesDiscuss and explore important design principles associated with the creation of engaging web pages
Week 5Building ContentExplore and review the impact of website content on website design
Week 6Publishing and Accessing SitesExplore the methods, services and techniques associated with publishing and promoting a website
Week 7Designing Your SiteUse appropriate tools and techniques to create a design mock-up for a personal, multipage website
Week 8Topic: Building Your SiteUse appropriate tools and techniques to build a designed, multipage website
Week 9Complete & Test Your SitePlan and test the functionality of a completed, individually designed, multipage website
Week 10Topic: Site Review & Expanding Your New SkillsDiscuss, present and peer-review a multipage website

Where will I study?

Mode of delivery: Face to face

Our address is The School of Creative Arts, College Lane Campus, Hatfield, Herts AL10 9AB.

For Maps and Directions please visit our helpful  ‘Where to Find Us’  page. Further details are sent by email when you have booked.

Materials

As you will be on campus for this course, the Adobe software is pre-installed on the univerisities PC's and Macs. We recommend purchasing the trial version no earlier than two weeks before the course starts for your home PC or Mac.

Prerequisites

To be able to maintain the pace of this course you should:

  • Have PC skills that are above a basic level
  • Have some experience using programs such as Word or Photoshop.
  • Be expected to navigate files and folders on a computer and understand how to use Googles Search Engine

Key Staff

Course Tutor

Mike Watkins

Booking deadlines

Bookings for all Creative Arts Short Courses will be reviewed two weeks before the start date of each course. This will allow the Short Course team to determine whether a course has met the minimum number of students needed for the class to run. If a class has failed to recruit, the class will be re-scheduled and you will be informed. Where relevant you will be offered an alternative class. If the course has met minimum numbers, bookings will stay open to the course start date or until it has met maximum numbers.

We encourage you to book early before the deadline to avoid disappointment.

Bookings for all short courses need to be made online through our online booking system, before a course commences. You cannot enroll or attend a class on the day the course starts, without prior arrangement.

Cancellations

If for any reason you change your mind about joining us after you have accepted the offer, you have a legal right to cancel your contract to study with us within 14 days. This cancellation period therefore ends at the end of 14 days after the day on which you accepted our offer. Find further details of our cancellation terms here.

How to apply?

Start DateEnd DateDayDay and TimeCostLink
TBCTBCWednesday19.00 - 21.30£300.00Apply

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Contact us

If you wish to discuss this or any other creative art short course please contact the Short Course team on 01707 285327 or complete our short course enquiry form.

ContactEmail
Nick Thomas, Short Course Coordinator,
School of Creative Arts
ad-shortcourses@herts.ac.uk