Price: $24.99 - $19.37
(as of Jan 23, 2025 19:01:20 UTC – Details)
This book democratizes web development for everyone. It’s a fun, clever guide that covers all of the key design principles, best practices, useful shortcuts, pro tips, real-world examples, and basic coding tutorials needed to produce a beautiful website that you’ll feel confident sharing with the world. Because you, too, can design for the web!
Hello Web Design contains everything you need to feel comfortable doing your own web development, including an abundance of real-life website examples that will inspire and motivate you. No need to spend time and money hiring an expensive graphic designer; this book will walk you through the fundamentals – and shortcuts – you need to do it all yourself, right now.
From the Publisher
Everything You Need to Know
“Think of Hello Web Design as a book of cheat codes. It’s short, to the point, and tells you everything you need to know to be a perfectly competent web designer.”
—Jeremy Keith, Author of Resilient Web Design and cofounder of Clearleft, from the Foreword
Learn the Fundamentals and Get Ahead
Using real-world examples and fun, beginner-friendly language, Hello Web Design offers everything you need to feel comfortable creating landing pages, presentation slides, online portfolios, and more, all in a beautiful package. From color theory and typography to the end user’s experience, designer and developer Tracy Osborn gives you the tools and shortcuts you need to get started—right now.
Not Your Typical Design Book
“Even if you don’t specialize in design, you will need to design at some point — whether it’s working on slide decks, creating interfaces for programs and projects, or building a personal website. If you work with designers, a bit of design experience will give you a better foundation for communicating with them and understanding their work. The purpose of Hello Web Design isn’t to make you a designer— it’s here to make you feel more comfortable doing design.”
—Tracy Osborn, from the Introduction
Author Q&A
Meet designer-developer-author-”entreprenerd” Tracy Osborn, who is program director for Tiny Seed, a year-long accelerator for bootstrapped businesses. She’s built websites and worked with startups for two decades, before launching her own (WeddingLovely.com), but eventually pivoted to helping other tech-based seed-stage businesses grow. All the while, she’s been churning out uniquely accessible “Hello” web-dev e-books for beginners (in addition to speaking about female entrepreneurship and design on the conference circuit).
Her first book with No Starch Press, Hello Web Design, comes out this month. Fortunately, she made time to talk with us about making coding tutorials more inclusive, her battles with social anxiety, finding joy in a career change, her biggest mistake, and how women need to face their fears in order to ask for the salary they deserve.
1) A decade ago you taught yourself how to code Python and Django in order to build the web platform for your former startup, WeddingLovely.com. Yet, much of the impetus for your Hello web-dev book series was the frustration you felt with all of the programming tutorials you came across in the process. What were the shortcomings that you identified, and how are the tutorials that you created in response different?
It all goes back to when I went to university — I originally majored in Computer Science. Growing up with the advent of the web, I always loved building websites (yes, those funky table layouts) and I thought my love would translate well to CSC. Unfortunately, the way that the university taught programming (and how most tutorials and resources teach programming) did not fit how my brain worked. It was very conceptual and theoretical, when I just wanted to build something and see others use it. Consequently, I thought I was terrible at programming and I switched majors to Art.
I realized later on when I learned programming in a way that worked for me (project-based, step-by-step building, reduced theory, a “win” at the end) that there was an opportunity to share how I learned with others who shared my struggle. Web development was first, but this way of teaching can apply to most beginner subjects — I believe theory can come later once you have a feel for how to do the basics.
Follow-up: Do you believe your approach to teaching design makes the craft more inclusive?
Absolutely. While my tutorials work universally, I find that folks who don’t identify as white and male are drawn to them more. And the more we can teach these beginner subjects to a wide range of folks, the more diverse these areas will be once folks get to intermediate and advanced levels.
I’m aware this might not work for others (as public speaking is a whole other set of anxiety); for anyone else, I would recommend to looking at the past and identify those pain points and those triggers, as once you have a specific action that you can pinpoint (like lack of confidence), you can better form tactics to improve that area rather than working on nebulous “anxiety.”
3) Sort of along these same lines is the fear of rejection, or of the unknown, that seems to disproportionately affect women’s career trajectories, particularly when navigating the tech industry. In your case, you spent your entire life excelling because of your technical prowess – from a kid creating websites, to getting a BFA in graphic design, to running a web-based startup and selling programming tutorials. Then you shut down WeddingLovely in 2018 and went in a completely different direction, taking on a Program Manager role at TinySeed, where you work with people not computers. What led to the departure from your wheelhouse, and how does it square with your career trajectory up to that point? More importantly, what can other women facing a major change in their career path learn from your experience?
My joy comes from helping others, and every role I’ve had has had an aspect of that in some way: WeddingLovely, my goal was to help small and local wedding vendors receive more business; with my books, I wanted to help folks learn new skills that they could apply to their career. TinySeed is yet another way I can work with folks and improve their lives, as my day-to-day role is being the main person our founders interact with and I guide the direction of the accelerator program. I find that I feel the most fulfilled when I am able to improve someone else’s life in some small way, and I love that my day job now revolves around being a people-person.
Career changes are immensely difficult but I hope that any career change comes with a better understanding of what brings a person joy. It’s scary taking on something completely new, but I find that being stuck in an unhappy role or position is even scarier. Plus, if you’re like me, something completely new can be invigorating.
4) Changing tracks (no pun intended) let’s talk about women getting paid. The gender wage gap persists, with women still earning 22% less than men for the same work more than 50 years after the Equal Pay Act. The World Economic Forum estimates it will take 217 years to close that gap – which actually went up from 170 last year. One thing women can do to affect change is simple: Ask for more money. But the vast majority don’t. You’ve directly addressed this issue, noting that the scariest moment in your career was orchestrating a 55% raise. What advice do you have for women who can’t imagine taking a bold approach to salary negotiation?
The doesn’t-feel-great-but-it’s-true answer is “what’s the worst that could happen?” Ideally, the worst that could happen is a “no.” Folks fear that the worst that could happen would be a demotion or even having an employment offer rescinded or being fired — and in that case, I would ask those folks, “Would you want to work at this company if that is their reaction to you having this conversation?” Probably not. In fact, the most likely outcome is your manager coming back with a counter-offer. So it comes down to internalizing that the worst that could happen is finding out that the company you’re working for isn’t on your side and that you should find something different, the best that could happen is that you get your raise, and the likely outcome is that you get some sort of salary increase. Breaking it down like this makes salary negotiation easier to do (but unfortunately it’ll never be easy.)
For folks already in a role and wanting a raise, there is something you can do if you have the time. It can be immensely helpful to interview at other companies while you’re in your role and before you ask for your raise, as it gives you negotiation practice, and, if you get an offer, and real number you can anchor your salary negotiations to (not to mention, if you have an offer, it gives you something to fall back to if your current role does indeed decide to let you go.) This involves a lot of juggling, but the process of interviewing for another job can be incredibly helpful for boosting your own confidence.
Publisher : No Starch Press (June 22, 2021)
Language : English
Hardcover : 160 pages
ISBN-10 : 1718501382
ISBN-13 : 978-1718501386
Item Weight : 13.6 ounces
Dimensions : 5.81 x 0.55 x 8.75 inches