Learning web design is not a particularly easy thing to do. At the same time, it’s not particularly easy to teach either. In fact, finding an efficient way to teach web design is pretty difficult. That’s because technical information can be difficult to focus on with enthusiasm, even if the people learning about it are passionate. Some things just aren’t that fun to learn in a strictly academic manner, and for most people, web design is one of those things.
Lauren Bradshaw, an essay writer from CustomWritings, has a pretty good take on how to best teach this type of thing. “No matter how tedious or technical the lesson, it can be made much more palatable by an activity that distracts the pupil from the reality of the material.” In other words, if you need to teach something that doesn’t inherently spark enthusiasm and excitement, come up with some interesting activities that disguise the tedium as something more fun. Here are some great web design activities you can try to achieve!
Creating an “About Me” Page
Everyone likes self-expression to some extent. A good way to teach aspects of web design is to have students experiment with those aspects in the creation of a webpage that is all about them. Not only is the topic pretty likely to interest them, but it will give them the means to experiment with page layout, text formatting, use of graphics, and a lot more. It’s also a very simple project for students who need to learn the ins and outs of HTML coding.
Designing for the School Community
Some students don’t like to talk about themselves that much. Talking about others is an easy way to get around this, especially if you can tie it to the school at large. Most groups, be they clubs, organizations, sororities, or others have a web page of their own these days since the internet is how most people choose to communicate. Reach out to these organizations in your school to see if they are either lacking a webpage or need to have theirs renovated. If so, these can become web design projects for your students, giving them a chance to practice the creation of web pages for other groups. Communication and the writing of clear and direct copy will be key, both of which are crucial in a web design career.
The Power of Persuasive Publishing
Want to take something inherently tedious and make it more interesting for the people learning it? Tie it into issues that they themselves care about. Webpages are often used to take a stance on a matter and persuade other people to change their opinion. You could allow students to do this as well, creating web pages that focus on issues they care about. This type of project requires a strong web copy that presents information in a non-aggressive manner, as well as citations and sources. All valuable skills to have.
Creating a Fan Page
Once again, tying a difficult subject to the passions of the students is one of the best ways to garner and maintain their interest in it. Naturally, most students have an interest in some sort of art: music, games, books, movies, or something of that nature. Having students design a webpage about their favorite media is also a great idea for a web project.
Such projects would likely include links to music files, video clips, and the like, so it would allow students to practice the usage of clear links in their web pages, among other things.
Consider Implementing Competitions
Nothing stokes the fires of inspiration and passion like a good competition. After teaching a practical lesson, competitions can be a good way to have students test their understanding of it, and their ability to apply it to actual work. Competitions also force students to demonstrate independent skills and their ability to quickly solve problems, provided you establish a deadline for the competition in the first place.
Build a Tribute Page
Tribute pages are a real thing, and if you Google it, you can even find plenty of resources on how to make one. A tribute page is pretty much just a webpage made in honor of someone or something that is beloved. Naturally, this is a great way for students to get invested in the web design process, as they have free rein to make the tribute page about whatever they want: friend, family member, celebrity, pet, you name it.
Create a Survey Form
Survey forms are relatively easy to make, but it still makes for a good project. Once again, it’s something where students can take a personal interest, assuming the professor allows them to take the survey about something that they care about. Simple though this task may be, creating surveys is very important, as many companies use them online to do market research, and many web designers will find themselves dealing with it at one point or another.
Create Your Own Website
Well, where else could any of this lead? The point of web design is to make websites, after all. All the activities before this have been relatively simple, but if you feel that the students are ready for the biggest project of all, which could incorporate all the previous projects and more, this is pretty much the way to go, since it deals with all aspects of web design and offers a great deal of versatility. Student interest would probably be dependent on whether they have the freedom to determine what the website is about, within reason.
Ultimately, there are dozens, maybe even hundreds of web design activities out there that you can present to your students. You can have them design almost anything that you can find online: landing pages, exit plugins, surveys, graphics, tribute pages, and much more.
At the end of the day, the most important thing is to make sure that you design these activities in a way that actually spurs excitement for them. Allow your students to actually have some creative freedom with the projects, and they will be far more invested in them!
