Andy Budd sparked off an interesting discussion yesterday about the sorry state of current web design education. As a student currently studying MA Multidisciplinary Design, and having just graduated from BSc Hons Interactive Multimedia Design, this is a topic that I couldn’t help but comment on.
Andy raises some relevant points and I feel he hit the nail on the head when stating:
“We need to create students that are connected to the medium and have an understanding of the provenance of their craft; students who are schooled in critical thinking, who can deconstruct ideas, analyse briefs, solve problems and critique solutions.
Interactive Multimedia Design
The Interactive Multimedia Design (IMD) framework encompasses an array of practices, including video-editing and production, photography, flash, programming and web design. The course is taught jointly by staff from the Faculty of Computing and Engineering, and from the Faculty of Art, Design and the Built Environment — and herein lies the problem.
Course Structure
The course is split into two parts; computing and design. The design classes are taught by Chris Murphy, Nik Persson (of Web Standardistas fame) and a host of other lecturers who are all working and actively engaging within the web design industry. This part of the course teaches “design fundamentals like grid layouts, typography and colour theory” as well as a web standards approach to web design.
The computing and engineering side of the course is quite different. In these modules we were taught JavaScript, PHP and MySQL but also Visual Basic, Director & Lingo. It was often felt that some of these modules were simply in place as a way of assessing us, rather than equipping us with the necessary skills for employment.
A large part of IMD was very much focused on tools and technologies (though the current programme has changed from when I was on the course — I know this from working and demonstrating with the current students). We need a course that focuses purely on equipping students with the fundamentals and principles of design. The technical skills a student learns today are out-of-date tomorrow but design principles are something that will stay with a designer for life.
Moving Forward
I agree with Andy that there’s a need for a web design course, taught by web designers. Here in Northern Ireland The Standardistas are doing a great job at promoting web standards, engaging with the web community and participating in events, such as FOWD and Build.
Belfast is slowly becoming a serious contender in the web design industry with a host of talks, conferences and workshops over the last 12 months – Build, the monthly Refresh events and a series of talks held at UUJ to name a few – I feel Belfast would be a great location for a web design course.
I agree with everything you have said. I think Belfast would be a great location. To back up what you’ve said above – Belfast’s Web Design industry has exploded all of a sudden! The city has gone from been a “nobody” to somewhere that’s now really popular on the map, with events and meet-up’s occurring quite a lot…
In 2000 when I finished secondary school there was no complete Computer programming or Web Design & Development courses in Ireland. The course’s that were available at the time either included Business or electronics modules. In the end I eventually enrolled on a Computing course at the Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen in 2002 which cut out 90% all of this “crap” in my humble opinion… I studied Computing for Internet & Multimedia and there was only one “business module” and this was called Professional Issues and covered legal aspects such as Copyright’s and so on.
However, getting back to having a Web Design course based in Belfast – I’d back it all the way and I’d even consider enrolled on it myself. When I graduated from RGU in 2006 I came out as a “Java Programmer” with very little Web Design skills and its only in the last 3 years I’ve taught myself Web Design (HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP etc). Notice I didn’t mention any graphic design or photography, typography or color awareness and this is why I think a course covering all area’s in Web Design would be good!
A great article Jonny! I agree with a lot of things you said, and I think Andy Budd summed it up for me — “We need design courses to be taught by web designers. It’s as simple as that.”
As a fellow Masters student and who also studied on the IMD course, it was the influence of lecturers, Chris & Nick (Standardistas), that made me aware of the fundamentals of design such as web standards, colour theory, grids and layouts and typography. These fundamental skills are crucial, and have aided in me developing my skills further as a designer on the Multidisciplinary Design course.
As the other half of the course was more technical such as JavaScript, Lingo & Visual Basic. More students seem to struggle with this side of the course as they were taught “out of date” content, but it is great to see that the course is now evolving with the industry and the course content has been updated.
With the success of Build, FOWD and Refresh, Belfast web community is certainly growing, and I agree with Jonny Belfast would be a great place to have a web design course.
I agree with both Jonny and Andy. Also having graduated from IMD I had a split view about the course. On the one had we had the design modules that were taught with passion and got us excited about web design. Then we had the modules in VB and Lingo that were really no use to us at all.
A course that taught web design purely and nothing else would be a great help to the future web designers and to the industry. There are to many courses out there touching on web design but not going indepth enough.
The main issues that I’ve encountered with web design education in the past are mainly to do with the course being up to date. Most courses will be course book and software led and the books / software are usually 3 years old at best. 3 years is a life time in this industry and the only way that you can keep up to date is to be constantly getting hands on experience. The other main missing element in web design courses (IMHO) is that there is precious little consumer led marketing tuition. Without this a web designer is just turning out pretty pictures and, although stunning, these designs will not sell widgets
All the very best
Col