Design Loom

The art of teaching web design

After reading a friends blog post on weather or not people in the web design/development profession needed degrees, I thought that a couple of important questions needed to be asked. First and foremost; If the nature of our business is clearly represented by and eternal changing playing field, then is the auto didactic nature of most of its professionals a necessity to keep up with the change and be part of the industry?, or is the bigger question that schools are not keeping up with the right type of education that meets the needs of those who wish to learn?

Recently i was asked by a good friend and former professor or mine to come back to my alma mater and teach a section of a class on web standard compliant design. The class, whose main goal is to bring in professionals to the class environment, who set projects up for a 3-4 week period, was an opportunity i had long been waiting for. Aside form the eagerness of teaching which is something that has always had a great appeal to me. The whole thing was also a great chance to finally make my school, a very well respected institution i might add, stand up and take notice of the prevalence and importance of the web professional.

Alas my heart was very broken when I had to turn it down, as i no longer live anywhere close to my former school, and was left to find someone who could possibly deliver the type of clarity on the subject matter and who carried with them, the correct amount of gravitas that would make students think that web design is a viable and exciting part of design not just a side thing you do if you happen to know a little bit of HTML and have some photoshop skills.

The biggest issue was that this was going to be a good introduction to teaching web design at MICA in a more structured way. We have had classes there that start to tap the subject, but this was going to be leaps and bounds from intro HTML classes and things along those lines. The other issue is that realistically you can’t possibly teach everything you need to know about web standards and design in 3 to 4 weeks. I started asking around to see if any of my friends from DC were up to the challenge, and i got interest from a couple.

I eventually found a person, and I am so excited that he agreed to teach the section. If it goes well maybe we can convince him for longer stint!

The best part about it is, maybe now that we have people who are not only in the know, but are actively keeping up with the field, they can speak accurately about design and its importance on the web. If anything is achieved, perhaps while MICA may not indulge its students with classes that will provide a more in depth background, this one section might just spark the right amount of motivation for students to get involved in the study and practice of web design.

With that I guess what can be concluded is that the education of a web designer is a thorough as the individual chooses to make it. The benefit of having institutions provide the foundations, lets you explore other things more while you learn the basics. It is however not up to an institution to teach you what you want to learn.

Going back to martin’s article, some of the comments posted, suggest that the nature of the person who chooses to learn on his own accord is the only person who in any field will likely succeed. But it never hurts to get a head a start! thats why education is there, because like martin said, in time he will learn as much as the person who attains an MBA, but the difference is the time it will take. Being in school affords us not only the resources but the ever valuable time we designers seem to lack. I am still in the process of trying to teach myself php, and its not going great! As far as desires go, i too want a secondary degree, and i too question its validity in times where you learn as fast as the change occurs.

And i don’t think having either degree will make me a better designer than those who don’t get any education on the subject matter. But I do think knowing the right things about the field your in puts you in a better place, and its clear that right now most education institutions are far too behind when it comes to web design.