Is web design dying? originally appeared on Quora: the place to gain and share knowledge, empowering people to learn from others and better understand the world. Answer by Quincy Larson, Teacher at FreeCodeCamp.com, on Quora: Web design isn’t dying. It’s just being folded into full stack development. There are several design specializations that are relevant to web development, such as user experience design and visual design. Web design is no such specialization - it’s a more general term that’s traditionally associated with building static websites, or dynamic websites built on top of an off-the-shelf content management system like WordPress or Drupal. But web applications are becoming more complicated. This complexity requires additional skills. Hence the rise of the full stack developer, who is comfortable with front end development tools (like React) and back end development tools (like Node.js). Also, the term “web design” has generally fallen out of favor - at least here in San Francisco. Plenty of laypeople still refer to the act of building websites as “web design” but far fewer practitioners refer to themselves as “web designers.”
I believe that there are many templates out there that may be helpful for webmasters who are wanting a static website. However, some may want additional dynamic features incorporated and custom features developed. This is where the skills of a professional webdesigner comes in. Please also keep in mind that there are many who don't know how to setup a website (purchasing hosting/domain, configure the DNS, allowing public access, etc). A strong example that can be seen for this is with business owners. Others simply don't have the time to figure it all out and may decide to hire a web developer who can design a website tailored to their needs.
I don't think web design is dying so much as it turning back into being ACTUAL DESIGN. For too long artists who know nothing about semantic markup, logical document structure, the underlying professional writing norms on which HTML was based, much less ACTUAL accessibility norms like the quirks of emissive colourspace have ruled the web by sleazing out PSD's in complete ignorance and DELUDING themselves into THINKING that was design. ... but when I say automotive design, or electrical design, or architectural design, that means the "design" has to meet specifications, guidelines, and requirements. That's the difference between design and art. Without that knowledge of accessibility norms (like the WCAG), underlying specifications (HTML, CSS, why they're SEPERATE), graceful degradation (for people who might not even see or have access to your visual layout), and underlying semantic markup with document structure, the lions share of sleazy scam artists and ignorant twaddles slopping out PSD's are NOT designers, no matter how much they might have the unmitigated gall to call themselves such. ... and it's really been an easy scam to run, since most "Sophisticated investor, will give money for vague promises" types will always go gaga over hot and flashy, even if there is zero substance underneath. That's how the various template whorehouses like Themeforest and Templatemonster have been scamming people with complete broken inaccessible slow loading TRASH for over a decade. You look at EVERYTHING on those sites and NONE of them even approach sane and rational gracefully degrading markup assuming they are even coded -- and visually crap all over accessibility from orbit by declaring font sizes in pixels, using fixed width and even fixed height containers, with illegible colour contrasts and equally illegible goofy webfonts. With laws like the UK's 2010 Equality Act resulting in fines for certain types of sites, and many jurisdictions allowing for lawsuits against essential site types (banks, medical, government) for failing to meet accessibility minimums, there is an increasing backlash by site owners against the ALLEGED "designers" who lack those underlying UI, UX, and accessibility chops. A lot of the things you could ONLY do with images are now being increasingly done in the code too. CSS3 makes simple but effective effects easier, and design aesthetics have followed suit. From Google's "Materials design" to the trend of the past couple years towards "Flat 2.0" undoing the "false simplification" of overly flattened interfaces, it is increasingly becoming more about user experience (UX) and accessibility, not "who can spank out the most artistic picture in Photoshop?" So it's not that web design is "dying", it's that the camel-mannered tunic-wearing molllycoddles preying on the ignorance of those who don't know any better, deluding themselves into thinking that art -- and art alone -- is "design" are slowly but surely getting their asses handed to them by an industry sick of their bullshit. If anything, web design is becoming about ACTUAL DESIGN, instead of just "ooh pretty" artsy-fartsy nonsense! ... and actual DESIGN means you start with the content or a reasonable facsimile of future content written in a flat text editor as if HTML didn't even exist, mark it up semantically to say what things are and create the logical accessible document structure, then bend that markup to your will with CSS and semantically neutral containers (DIV and SPAN) to create your layoutS -- yes, PLURAL. (for screen, for screens of different sizes, for print...) so that non-CSS users on braille or screen readers (software that reads it aloud to you) will have a useful page. So that search has some huffing clue what your content is since search engines don't have eyeballs! Then once you have the FULLY working page you further enhance it with your JavaScript if desired. THAT IS DESIGN! Dicking around drawing pretty pictures in Photoshop is not, no matter how many halfwit artists who know jack about shit claim otherwise! ... and why I pity the poor sods who don't know enough to realize that when some artist hands them a PSD and calls it a design, what's actually happened is they've been conned, bamboozled, and otherwise led astray. In fact if you think a PSD is a web design, you've been packed so full of sand you should change your name to Sahara.
I think it's status of buying them are a little absurd but people still buy that neat gamer ones because there so high efficient and tough to comeby.... Other than that I still do it.. It's not dead.
With the net still EXPANDING, there is no way that web design could be dying. If anything, there is greater need of DESIGN to replace the RUBBISH crapped all over the internet in the last decade or so.
I like what Deathshadow said, but your question really begs a qualifying question: What is web design? At its core, web design is programming HTML code (or PHP, scripting etc.). What you see when you pull a website is a combination of web design and graphic design, and possibly scripting. Web design will never die. It will transform, which is why we have HTML 5, CSS3, etc. now, and it will get easier as programs like Dreamweaver get more sophisticated, but it won't die. As Deathshadow said, what is happening is simply that people who don't know how to actually do web design are being found out for what they are; graphic designers. As the industry gets more mature, there will be a lot more titles for what people do, and it could easily morph into something way beyond what it is now, but I don't think it's going away.
Lol it's not. It may seems that now everyone can do that with wordpress and other utilities, but we not talking about some pesky healthy eating blogs, don't we? In order to make solid company web page. like these guys do in their design studio, you have to be well taught professional, not some kind of Indian web design entrepreneur.
Web design is not dying. It is just transforming with time. With each transformation, it becomes easier.
Today's templates rely heavily on bloated jquery and css and as a result are slow as hell. Who has time for slow sites? I certainly don't.
The sad part being that properly leveraged CSS is supposed to make websites FASTER, but these dumbass ignorant "frameworks" like bootcrap only encourage broken bloated practices... such as <broken record>endless pointless DIV for nothing, endless pointless classes for nothing, non-semantic markup and presentational class names.</broken> It's really stupid that something which when leveraged properly can result in fast first-loads and faster sub-pages is so poorly misused and abused it has the exact opposite effect of what it was designed for. That the practices these systems use also flip the bird at accessibility, usability, and the ENTIRE reason HTML exists in the first place and why CSS is separate from it? Pathetic... It is part of why whenever I see <broken record>100k of markup for 5k of plaintext and a dozen or less content images (16k or less' job), or websites loading half a megabyte of CSS crapped out over dozens of separate files when there is ZERO reason for any legitimate site to be wasting more than 48k of CSS in one file per media target -- on websites there there are no media targets set or some derp set media="all", I just assume the developer -- or whoever made whatever dipshit framework they are using -- doesn't know enough about HTML or CSS to be building websites!</broken> I am always disturbed by the number of allegedly "expert" developers who see nothing wrong with classes like "w3-red", "text-center", "col-5-s", "clearfix" or any of the other presentational mental huffing midgetry that leads to the ridiculous code bloat. Said cranial enfeeblement only exacerbated by truly dumbass trash like <td class="table-heading"> or <form role="form">. In that way, even the bloody specifications -- the new HTML 5 "structural tags" and that fat bloated aria role bullshit -- are headed down the road of throwing more code at non-issues instead of just tightening the semantic meanings of the huffing tags and putting more emphasis on that. Rather than fixing broken education, incomplete specifications, and obtuse language meaning normal people cannot even understand the specs, they decide to just throw more crap on top for people to never learn to use properly. Hardly a shock the boat we're in when it comes to website bloat. Megabytes of code doing kilobytes job, then these framework, SCSS, and "Semantics, what's that" turds making their wild unfounded claims that their bullshit is somehow "faster" or "simpler" or "easier" or "makes you more productive" Because when I think faster, easier, simpler, and more productive, I think writing 10 to 100 times the code I need to do the job; AFTER having started out with two to ten times the code I should need to do the job in the first place!
As we all know that we are living in 21st century where almost everyone know the usage of internet. They live their lives online and every digital user experiences will proof to be a wall of rocks where every big organisation is built. But it all depends upon the website design as well. The more engaging and user friendly design will be, there'll be a lot of chance to get the most ROI from your users. This is the reason why most of the startup owners looks for affordable website design services in order to have error-free website for their business.
No, it's not dying. It just changes. Pretty much like SEO. It hasn't died, just became a lot more complicated.
Since Tilda appeared I thought that Web design is really dying, but take a look at personal work of web designers. None machine or software won't be so dedicated to create something really outstanding.
It's surely not dying. It is just more and more about design. Earlier, it was only one person working on the website, just a developer. And now, there is a website designer, developer, maybe even a website builder/editor, animator...