Learning Web Design Basics

I think it would help students to learn at least the basics of HTML and CSS. I don’t think everybody has to be a programr or know how to build a complete website from the ground up but some basic knowledge is useful for general online literacy.We spend so much time online each day, it makes sense to know at least a little bit about what is actually happening behind the websites we use.

I didn’t know much about web design before this class. I took intro CS, and also have used R in some of my economics classes, but most of that coding was solving a problem or working with data. I had never really played around with HTML or CSS in a browser before.

For this assignment, I completed the beginner HTML and CSS tutorials on HTML Dog. I honestly thought they were going to be more complicated than they were. My favorite part was learning to add links. In class, I messed around with HTML in JS Bin and made a page about our football team I linked to my football roster page, which was pretty basic, but it was cool to see how just a few lines of code can make something on the page interactive.

For example:

<h1>Carleton Football</h1>

<p>Check out my player profile:</p>

<a href=”https://athletics.carleton.edu/sports/football/roster/zach-ventura/3738″>

  View My Carleton Football Roster Page

</a>

<p>Check out Carleton’s win against St. Olaf:</p>

<a href=”https://athletics.carleton.edu/news/2026/9/26/football-knights-rout-st-olaf-to-keep-goat-trophy.aspx”>

  Carleton Beats St. Olaf

</a>

This outputted a page that was super cool and showed my roster profile and details on our win against St. Olaf.

Playing around with the code on JS Bin was probably what helped everything make the most sense. Instead of just reading about HTML, I could change something and immediately see what happened. CSS was similar because if I changed a font, size, or style, I could see the result right away. That felt different from some of the coding I have done in R or intro CS, where the result is not always as visual.

Cory Doctorow writes,

“When switching costs are high, services can be changed in ways that you dislike without losing your business.”

I think this connects to why having some basic understanding of the web matters. Most of us use websites and apps constantly without really knowing how they work or how much control the platforms have over what we see and create.

I definitely do not plan on becoming a web developer, but after working through the tutorials and messing around on JS Bin, I understand a little more of what is happening behind a webpage. For me, that basic understanding is enough reason for students to learn the fundamentals.