For beginners: next steps

Now, assuming you've already read “Designing Web Usability: The Practice of Simplicity” and studied all of HTML Dog tutorials and examples. Assuming that you've read at least 30% of what is available at Web Design From Scratch (by the way, it's been beautifully redesigned since the last time I linked to it), these are the next things you ought to do:

Read “Prioritizing Web Usability” (by Jakob Nielsen and Hoa Loranger) and “Don't Make Me Think - A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability” (by Steve Krug).

Learn to touch-type, it will pay off before you notice! There are plenty of tools around that will help you to learn it in no time, some are even web based!

Study these resources that will help you to master CSS layout techniques and other key web concepts and technologies:

• Dev.Opera lovely Introduction to The Web Standards Curriculum - It's a comprehensive course on the basics and a definitive can't miss for beginners.
• CSS TRICKS All about Floats - Read it and you'll "get it".
• Matthew James Taylor wonderful Website layouts - Those are pure gold, study them with care, take them apart, build them again.
• BlueRobot's Layout Reservoir - Those are a bit old, but they are great nonetheless, study them and feel free to ignore the references to browsers no-longer used.
• Alessandro's Layout Gala - Old too, study them, don't forget to test them with care in newer browsers before using one of them.
• Blueprint.CSS and 960.gs CSS Frameworks - Take your time to study those two very carefully, even if you don't plan to use them at all, since you can learn a lot by figuring out how they work. I'll be posting a list of the best available CSS Frameworks along with some commentary about each one of them, I just don't know yet when I'll do it, so keep an eye out!
• Dave Shea famous CSS Zen Garden - There's a lot to learn here!

Don't simply copy & paste from the layout galleries and tutorials! Study them thoroughly and then try to redo them without looking at their code! Be careful with the temptation to keep using pre-made CSS Frameworks indefinitely, you'll never be a pro if you don't bite the bullet and go all the way through CSS layout techniques learning curve!

Study these resources about design principles and start learning to use a Vector Imaging tool, I recommend Inkscape and it's on-line tutorials are an excellent place to start! Inkscape is available for Mac OS X, Linux and Windows!

Have fun with what you're doing! If you should become bored then probably this area is not for you, since you'll be competing against lots of people which are very enthusiastic about what they are doing.

And don't forget to come back here (preferably subscribe to my feed) to discover what to do once you have completed these steps!

For beginners: self-education

You might be wandering, if you've read my latest post, how and where are you supposed to learn all that?

Here are the answers:

Web Design From Scratch, by Ben Hunt. This should be your start point. You can't have read enough if you didn't read it all.

HTML Dog, by Patrick Griffiths. Read it all, from the beginners tutorials, even if it seems too easy at times, don't jump the basics! You'll regret that later on.

And, of course, my blog, where you'll be getting tips like these and even more links to excellent learning resources!

For beginners: my number one tip

People often come to me with these questions:

1. How do I become a web designer/developer?
2. Do I need to have a Computer Science degree, or perhaps one in Design (as in design for printed media), or even both?
3. What should be my first step?

My answers:

1. To become a successful designer/developer, one needs to study the right stuff a lot, and practice it a lot, there is not much more into it.
2. No, see some of the reasons why here.
3. Read Jakob Nielsen's “Designing Web Usability: The Practice of Simplicity”.

The number one tip I mentioned in the title of this post?

Begin by concerning yourself with what you should do, only tackle the how part once it's clear to you what your clients need from you.

What to do? Create usable, accessible and compatible websites that are both visually appealing and engaging to its users. The keywords that should be roaming your head are Return On Investment, Conversion Rate, Optimization, and others alike!

How to do that? By learning and applying XHTML, CSS, Javascript, PHP and MySQL first. Other technologies (such as Ruby, Python, etc...) should come later and only when you have weighted their pros and cons for the type of services you'll be doing by then.

There are some details you should be aware of during this process but I'll leave them for other posts.

Good luck!