Websites are very important for every business to have, and many businesses hire web designers. But do web designers need to know how to code?

Web design does not necessarily require knowledge of how to code. Many platforms have already done the necessary coding and allow a website to be designed to fit a person or business’s satisfaction without it. However, in order to create websites from scratch or with custom designs, a web designer needs to code.

This will come as a relief to many people who are thinking about creating their own websites. You won’t need to learn how to code a single line. However other skills are necessary to design a good website. Luckily, many website hosting platforms have already done the coding for you.

Web Designers & Code

It is possible to have a very successful web design career without having any experience with HTML, CSS, or JavaScript. However, it is helpful if you have some experience working with them, especially for freelance web designers. Knowledge of coding lets you make detailed adjustments and tweaks. However, it is not needed because web developers are the ones who are typically in charge of creating the coding necessary to create a website.

A great web designer needs to be creative, focused on design, and technically competent. The website must be attractive, easy to navigate and work properly. Today, most web design is being done through design platforms that have design templates for you to use.  Here the coding has already been done for you, saving you a ton of time.  Professional web designers need to take those templates and determine how best to customize and utilize them to achieve the best result for the website.

“Web Designers are creative, digital professionals who craft the overall vision and plan for a website. Web design is less about using code to bring a website to life, and more about determining a site’s layout, color palette, font sent, and visual themes.”

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CSS

Knowledge of CSS, otherwise known as Cascading Style Sheets, is helpful for anyone who is looking to start a career in web design. “CSS is the code that tells browsers how to format and style HTML for a web page.” (Source)

The CSS is basically what makes the content look good, and helps you format the content. CSS enables you to add new fonts, change colors, add backgrounds, and set the spacing between elements on the page. These sheets give web designers the ability to be creative and create original content, so it is very helpful if you know how to use them. However, it is not required to become a web designer.

The Best Web Design Platforms Without Code

WordPress

WordPress is the world’s most popular website builder. It is an open-source content management system that started as a blogging platform.

WordPress is very easy to use with tutorials on their website and YouTube videos that instruct you on how to use it. This is especially helpful if you have never used a website similar to WordPress before. They also have a support team that can help try to resolve any issues that occur.

This is besides the tons of online resources from users and experts that have built over time as the platform has grown in popularity.

WordPress is a low-cost solution that does not require you to do any coding to create a good-looking website quickly.

 WordPress is also one of the cheapest hosting platforms, especially because they have a free-to-use version.

However, there are cons to using WordPress like most other website builders. Since you are using templates to create your website, you have limited creative freedom if you do not know how to code. When you modify a theme, especially if you make a lot of changes, “it tends to create bloated code on the backend which could make your website run slower, create errors, or crash completely.” (Source)

If WordPress does not work for your needs, there are many other web design platforms available.

Squarespace

Squarespace is a website building and hosting company.

“Squarespace is known for its minimal design themes and 24/7 customer service.”

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Squarespace is similar to WordPress, but it gives you access to a support team so that you do not have to take on that expense. It also has different formats than WordPress and has a more minimalistic feel to it. However, they are constantly coming up with more themes to give you more options to choose from. However, it is more expensive than WordPress.

While Squarespace gives you a free trial, the plans range from $16-$46 a month. If you plan on adding additional capabilities, such as eCommerce, then that price will increase depending on the feature you add.

Hire A Web Developer

If you truly want creative freedom and do not want to be limited in the formatting of your website you may want to hire a web developer. A web developer knows how to use code to build websites (but they are NOT web designers).

“By partnering with a web developer, you can focus solely on the strategy, planning, wireframe layout solutions, visual design elements, and mocking up the final UI for the website. Then all you’ll need to do is have a proper handoff and a good working relationship with the developer to bring the website to life on the web.”

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Having a good relationship with the web developer that you choose to use is crucial. To create a cohesive website, you need to be able to effectively communicate with them.

If you have a good relationship with your web developer, then it is likely you will be able to hire them for multiple projects and will have to spend less time communicating with them because they already know some of your preferences and how you work.

The cost of hiring a web developer depends on the experience of that developer.  So if you have a large complex project that requires a senior web developer it can become expensive. While it makes sense for a large company to hire a web developer, it may not make sense for a small company that is just starting with a lower budget.

For most websites with simple common functionality, you can get away with intermediate web developers or designers who code that will be more affordable for smaller companies.

There are cheaper options with platforms like Fiverr and Upwork but if you do not have experience in coding yourself I highly discourage these. You need to be able to review and understand the work you get delivered to make sure it is actually good for your site.  Some problems hiring people on these platforms could just be slower code but they could also be security issues as someone could code backdoors or security flaws into your website that can cause disasters for you later on. These can range from malware to straight-up ransom of your website by hackers.

Choose A Hosting Platform

When you create a website, even if you do not write the code, you will need to choose a hosting platform that is different from the design platform. Luckily, some design platforms include that service. Companies such as Unix, Perl, and Azure Web Apps are popular website hosting platforms.

“When a hosting provider allocates space on a web server for a website to store its files, they are hosting a website. Web hosting makes the files that comprise a website (code, images, etc.) available for viewing online. Every website you’ve ever visited is hosted on a server.”

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