EXSM 3928 - Code for Designers

This course provides an introduction to web design principles and client-side scripting. This course will introduce students to HTML5 and CSS and the fundamentals of web development and design. The course provides a foundation on web page construction, wireframing, prototyping and development. By the end, students will understand the anatomy of a web page and know how to work with developers/communicate with developers. Students will have an opportunity to design and develop a personal website.

Aimed at practising or emerging UX designers who want to gain practical experience working with code and set themselves apart by strengthening their understanding of UI design.

By the end of this course, students should be able to:

• 🗸 Practice using Glitch as an interactive development environment to build and share working web projects.
• 🗸 Compare the roles of designer and developer and answer for yourself “to what extent should designers learn code?”.
• 🗸 Understand the HTML document structure, and learn to apply common HTML tags to content as markup.
• 🗸 Understand the CSS cascade, specificity rules, and custom properties, and learn to apply CSS inorder to realize a design.
• 🗸 Understand the Document Object Model (DOM), and learn to attach an event listener to a user interaction (click event).
• 🗸 Reference and interpret popular online documentation.
• 🗸 Implement mobile-first responsive design practices through CSS media queries at multiple device width breakpoints.

• 🗸 In this hands-on class, you’ll learn through a mix of lab-like exercises, lectures, and assignments.
• 🗸Engage in online discussions and participate in content, design, and coding challenges.
• 🗸 Design, build, and deploy a responsive website that demonstrates mobile-first design principles.
• 🗸 Tools required for this course are freely available online for macOS, Windows, and Linux.
• 🗸 All required learning materials are provided through eClass at no additional cost.