I have been a professional web designer for five years. I developed an interest in graphic and interactive design as a journalist covering technology issues when I had to design my own website seven years ago. Since then, I have been hooked and have designed dozens of websites for other people over the years.
I also teach web design to other journalists. Last week I had the opportunity to instruct a multimedia design for media development class in New York City for a group of journaIists from the developing world during UN Week. Many were very excited to be in the class, as it is often difficult to receive this kind of training in their home countries. They asked me how I got my training. I told them that I took some traditional web and graphic design classes in the past, but I am mostly self taught from just taking in all the free resources online.
Technology is always changing, so I have to stay up to date with the latest news and innovations. The students in the media development class asked me to share my resources on my blog. The following is a short list of online resources for design training:
Smashing Magazine: This is the most popular online magazine for web designers and developers with useful resources in their blog and ebook series.
A List Apart: Another must-read website for web professionals. They have great articles about the politics of web design, like this piece on making web design events more inclusive for young designers. Their sister company, A Book Apart, also sells a great selection of design ebooks.
Awwwards: This is a pretty cool website to go to see some of the most innovative websites from around the world. You can even vote on the ones you like.
CSS Zen Garden: HTML and CSS go together like peanut butter and jelly (wait a minute…) You can learn how to design better style sheets straight from the pros.
W3Schools: If you ever Google any HTML code, most likely a link from this website will pop at the top of the search list. A great website for basic explanations and tutorials on regularly used coding.
Khan Academy: Good place to learn JavaScript through an interactive experience.
Graphic Design Blender: If you have any interest in freelancing, this is a great place to hear from other self employed designers talk shop and inside baseball on running your own business.
YouTube: When in doubt, most likely someone already thought of doing a video tutorial about whatever web design question you have.
Graphic Design School: If I had to recommend one book you should read, it’s this one. It gives you a basic foundation of graphic design principles that are useful for print and web.
Do you have other recommendations? Leave a comment or email me directly.
We all know the price for internet access in the United States is getting out of control. But this issue really came close to home a couple of months ago when a good friend of mine and longtime neighbor was laid off from her job. She told me that in order for her to cut down on expenses, one of the first things she did was cancel her internet and cable TV package with her provider.
I can understand getting rid of cable TV, which mostly shows useless programming these days, but the internet seemed like an ironic decision. She can’t afford to have internet access anymore because she lost her job; however, she needs internet access to search for her next job. Of course, being a good friend, I offered to let her use my computer if she needed it.
However, even I wonder how much longer I will be able to afford my combo package. I have a internet and land line phone package that costs roughly US$115 a month. I considered dropping the phone and just getting an internet subscription recently. When I contacted my provider, I was told it would cost US$39 just for the internet, but that doesn’t include all the other taxes and “hidden fees”, which jumps the price up to near US$90 a month. So I ended up keeping my phone and internet package.
My friend is a single mother with two small children. When she was working, she was barely making above minimum wage. Not having internet access in her home is a burden for her in other ways too. She has a desktop computer, so she doesn’t have the luxury of taking a portable computer to the local Starbucks or library to use the free WiFi.
She could use the computers for free at the library, but that comes with problems sometimes. There is always a line of people waiting to use the computers. Users are only given 30 minutes and can extend their time by another 30 minutes if there isn’t another person waiting, which is not very often. Sometimes there is no guarantee that you will even get to use a computer before the library closes.
Even if you do get a computer, 30 minutes to do a job search is not enough time. Most of the time, the connection speed is slow. There are only four computers in the adult area for use, and two of them are either broken or down because of a virus most of the time. There is no IT support guy in the library to fix the problem, and the staff librarians don’t know what to do with broken computers.
Luckily, there are programs like Technology Goes Home and other government subsidized programs she may qualify for, but even this is just a small band aid on a gushing wound.
My friend is like millions of other Americans who are being impacted by a new kind of digital divide.
I did a little research to see how other countries line up with the United States regarding cost and speed, and let me tell you, if more Americans knew what people in other countries pay for their internet service, there would be riots in the streets.
As you can see in the top images, South Korea leads the world in both low cost and high broadband speeds. Unlike in the United States, South Korea recognizes that internet access is a basic utility and not a luxury item. Interestingly enough, this was the same exact conversation Americans were having 100 years ago; just replace internet with electricity. Yes, there was a time in this country’s history when only rich people could afford to have electricity in their homes, while the rest of the country was price gouged. Eventually, this country came to the realization that it was in society’s best interest that everyone have access to electricity.
Today we take electricity access for granted; we just expect it to be there when we switch on a light or recharge our mobiles. At this time in our history internet access should also be seen as essential for our lives too. There are not many things in life you can do anymore without internet access. It is time to better regulate how private companies provide their internet service so people like my friend are not left behind in the new digital age.
Lately there has been all this talk about the lack of racial and gender diversity in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) careers. This was spurred on by Google revealing a breakdown of their employees by race and gender. And to no one’s surprise, the tech giant’s workforce is largely white and male. Yahoo and LinkedIn followed suit with their own diversity reporting with similar findings.
I’ve been a web designer for about five years, and I interact with people on projects with a wide variety of computer programming skills, ranging from talented web developers who build databases to hardcore programmers who can build with C++ and Java in their sleep. When I go to tech conferences or networking events, I am almost always the only black female in the room.
I recently went back to school to get more formal programming training, and, again, there were very few women and minorities in those classes. Interestingly enough, the few women and minorities in my classes were all foreigners from India, Russia and Nigeria.
So I wasn’t actually surprised about the lack of workforce diversity at these companies. Many people have insinuated that racism and sexism has caused this problem. I’ve never worked for any of these companies, nor do I know anyone who currently works for Google, Yahoo or LinkedIn, so I don’t have any real insight into what is really going on in these respective human resources departments. I also don’t have any solid proof that there is hiring discrimination.
I just don’t know.
But my initial guess is that there aren’t that many women and people of color working for these companies because there aren’t enough qualified applicants in the job pool because there aren’t enough women and people of color pursuing STEM careers in the first place. Only 18 percent of women and less than 10 percent of African-Americans and Latinos pursue computer science college degrees.
Before there can be a serious discussion about STEM workforce diversity, we have to look at the state of STEM education in the United States. From my vantage point, there are many reasons for the lack of non-white guys in STEM industries. While these apply to all science, engineering and mathematics careers, for the purposes of this article, I will focus on technology education and careers.
1. Lack of role models and mentors – Simply if you don’t see anyone who looks like you working in that field, you are more likely to not want to consider a career in that field.
2. Gender stereotyping – As far as women are concerned, there has been this longstanding stereotype that computer science is a guy thing, geeky and not “feminine.”
3. Lack of training opportunities – Most people working in computer sciences are first introduced to the field while in K-12 schooling. If you are a girl of color or a low income girl of any color, you most likely attend a crappy public school that probably doesn’t have computers, let alone computer science classes. Even if you are lucky to have access to computer science classes at your school, most likely those classes don’t count towards your graduation requirements, so there is no incentive to take the classes in the first place.
I remember I had to take a computer science class in high school, and I really hated it because the teacher was an old guy who fell asleep in class and it seemed really hard with all that math. I never had any real interest in technology until I was already into my journalism career. By the time I started my career, the writing was on the wall and journalism was being turned upside down by the Internet. I first got interested in technology when I started to see how the Internet was democratizing the media and making it possible to be your own publisher.
In my spare time, I mentor a couple of 15-year-old African-American girls – Cynthia and Keyshia – and I asked them the other day specifically if they had any interest in STEM classes or careers. Cynthia attends an public school in Boston. She says she has to take a computer class at her school, but she hates it because her teacher is “soooooo borriiiiing.” Keyshia attends a suburban public school outside of Boston that offers AP computer science. She said she doesn’t want to take the class because it seems too hard, too much math and they’re only boys in the class.
Coincidentally, Cynthia and Keyshia are very tech savvy, as their eyes are always glued to their iPhones either texting or posting pictures on Instagram. However, their tech consumption doesn’t seem to translate to any interest in pursuing a tech career or even finding out how the Instagram mobile app was built.
I recently showed Cynthia and Keyshia how I designed my new website Women Talking, and they were fascinated not only by the design, but how easy and fun it was to design it. I showed them a little HTML and CSS and how they worked together. I then helped them to create a slideshow using jQuery for a different website. Both girls said they were really interested in these web design techniques because they could instantly see the results of their coding in a browser.
“Why don’t they teach stuff like this in my school?” Keyshia said.
Maybe schools should teach computer science in a way that makes it relevant with things we do and use in our daily lives. Teenagers love to text, maybe there should be classes on how to develop mobile apps for texting. Video games? How about a class that not only teaches JavaScript and other game design tools, but also require students to design their own video game by the end of the semester.
Considering the fact that not many American high school students – regardless of race or gender – are taking AP computer science classes anymore, schools need to get more creative about how they teach technology. This would not only expose more kids to possible STEM careers, but also to other traditionally non-STEM careers that now heavily rely on technology (like journalism). I know if I had learned how to design and develop a website in high school, my career trajectory probably would have been different.
I know there is a lot more to making STEM education and careers more inclusive than I can discuss in this piece, but at least we are starting to have that conversation.
