Anyone who has tinkered in web design, or even made a career of it, knows how fun and rewarding web design can be. Web design involves a combination of artistic perspective and programming knowledge in order to produce websites that are not only functional, but also aesthetically appealing to visitors. When visitors find a website that they like, whether it is because the site looks good or has an easy-to-use layout, they are more likely to purchase a product or service and/or share the website with people that they know. In order to create a successful website, however, web designers must learn to be fluent in several programming languages.

1. HTML

HTML, or Hypertext Markup Language, is a programming language that forms the basic structure of all other programming languages. HTML is, by far, one of the easiest programming languages to learn and should be studied before any other language. HTML is used to create and structure the layout of a website, including color schemes, positioning, the organization of content, linkage, font types, and much more.

2. CSS

CSS, or Cascading Style Sheets, is a programming language that is used to enhance HTML by making quick references to a wide variety of content. While HTML must be specified in each page of a website in order to function properly, CSS can be located in one document and applied to all other pages of a website by including a reference to the CSS inside other scripts.

3. PHP

PHP, or PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor, is a programming language that provides the actual functionality of a webpage. While HTML and CSS control the layout and appearance of a website, PHP can be used to actually make things happen. For example, PHP can be used to create a payment gateway, user interface, or form generator. For this reason, virtually all plugins in WordPress and other CMS (Content Management Software) platforms depend on PHP.

4. JavaScript

JavaScript is a programming language that essentially combines the abilities of HTML and PHP in order to create graphical user interfaces and other interactive objects. JavaScript is a very powerful programming language that may be difficult to learn for many amateur web designers, so it would be wise to learn the other programming languages on this list before studying JavaScript. JavaScript can be used to create things like slideshows, tabbed webpages, and according-style navigational menus.

5. Jquery

Jquery is similar to JavaScript and depends on the JavaScript programming language, but is considered to be its own language. Jquery can be used to create many of the same objects as JavaScript, such as accordion menus and tabbed webpages, but is most often used as a development framework for building user interfaces and other interactive platforms. Because of its complexity and the fact that it depends on the JavaScript programming language, web designers need to learn JavaScript before studying Jquery.

About Author

Brandon is a professional web designer and a part time blogger who writes interesting articles on how to create a website using the latest web standards.