The Must Have Qualities of A Web Designer

I bet that a significant part of our readers enjoys the posts using a smartphone or a tablet. In the last two-three years, technology evolved amazingly fast but we instantly adapted to this situation and everything seems normal.

Fortunately, the revolution of handheld devices influenced a profound shift regarding the mentality of Internet users about web design and web designers. Let’s be honest, until few years ago a web designer was considered a guy wearing glasses having computers as his single passion.

Usually, he was a solitary person and his friendship wasn’t something interesting. Nowadays, the situation is different: geek is the new cool. A web designer is highly appreciated and everyone is interested in his opinions- definitely when buying a new tablet or smartphone the opinion of a web designer is important.

As a result, being a web designer is nice and interesting! Well, is it the truth? In my humble opinion, yes, it is the truth, but it is only the full half of the glass.

A web designer doesn’t only receive praises and recognition of the people, he must work hard in order to create stunning functional websites and many times the pressure of the deadlines is overwhelming. As every job, being a web designer has advantages and disadvantages.

As advantages we may mention the professional satisfaction- seeing how your work is appreciated is a great reward. Being engaged into a competitive community is another advantage- there are very few activity domains to have a bigger rate of growing.

Altogether, staying updated requires self-preparation and sacrifices, therefore being a web designer has its downsides. Anyway, for the ones that have a passion for design all the disadvantages are unimportant and nothing can be compared to the satisfaction of a new wonderful website.

If you are unsure about becoming a web designer, then it’s highly recommended to think twice and take a decision. We want to help you solve this dilemma and we established a list of human traits that are defining for a web designer.

Much more, by daily checking OmahPSD you will find many useful articles about how to become a web designer. From the start, it must be mentioned that nothing, but nothing can replace your endeavours

A good designer spends tons of hours sketching and designing layouts. Nothing is achieved using a magical formula!

The next traits are very important or even mandatory for a designer. On the other hand, you shouldn’t be bothered if you miss some of them…hard work and the infinite passion for design are the single entities that are irreplaceable!

#1. Aesthetic Sense

Metaphorically speaking, the aesthetic sense is the gun of a web designer. I doubt that someone met a good web designer lacking aesthetic sense. The ones that feel that they are lacking it, shouldn’t be disappointed- it may be trained.

Definitely, some people are born with this sense, but across time any “genetic disadvantage” may be corrected. Briefly, the beginner web designer should be attracted by aesthetics!

#2. Creativity

Creativity is another trait that must be present into the “arsenal” of a web designer. The web is full of amazing websites and the only chance for a new online presence to be successful is to stay apart from the competitors.

Under these circumstances it is obvious that originality is the key of a good website. The same as the aesthetic sense, people are more or less creative, but everything is improved by practice. Even if it sounds impossible, creativity may be trained!

#3. Learning Capacity

It is another must have human trait! The Internet evolves very fast and many designers can’t keep the same rhythm. Right now, the responsive design is a good challenge for the entire web design community.

Many aspects are resolved, but there are still bugs and issues that need to be fixed and only the ones that want and may learn new techniques are capable of creating good websites.

The bad news is that even if any issue regarding responsive design would be solved, new and newer challenges will still appear daily. The conclusion is that a web designer will have every time something new to learn!

#4. Practical and Analytical Thinking

Making websites is both art and science. This fact implies that a web designer should be an artist but also a pragmatic software specialist. This combination is extremely hard to achieve but no one was born web designer!

Anyway, this situation requires a web designer to plan every detail of a website. Of course, the web designer needs to make a strong analysis that should take into account many factors in order to satisfy all the tastes.

#5. Flexibility and Patience

Every position that supposes working with people requires flexibility and patience, but a web designer is a special case. Usually, clients need websites to gain money (every website is launched to bring money except the non-profit ones).

From this perspective a website is equivalent with an affair and under these circumstances, the behaviour of many clients is very understandable. A bad website may be equivalent with bankruptcy and no one will be happy with this. To conclude, a web designer needs to be flexible and patient with the clients!

#6. Communication Skills

Theoretically, a web designer creates websites and it means that he/she doesn’t interact too much with other people…the team members and nothing more.

Practically, it’s possible to discuss during a week with the clients more than a half from the working time! Nowadays the technology evolved and it influenced the development of a more specialised vocabulary.

A web designer may be defined as the interface between very general requirements of the client- “I like red, I want to have a bright red website” and the rules of beautiful design & specific terminology (HTML, CSS, responsive, WordPress).

But the vocabulary is not the only one that creates problems in the relationship designer-client! Every client considers that his project is the most important and any delay is very similar with the end of world.

The designer has the ingrate role of explain that a website is a complex entity and it can’t be realised with just few clicks. I believe that you can see the big picture and understand how important it is to have good communication skills!

Conclusion

By reading this post I am sure that you already have doubts about being a web designer. It was previously mentioned, but it’s too important not to it add here once again: these human traits may be trained and there are many good designers that simply miss some of them.

What do you think, are you morally prepared to become a web designer star? Keep in touch with us- we will continue with many posts about how to turn into a good website creator!

Featured Image Credit: Illustration by Alex Lacobus via Dribbble

– Written by Daniel –