10 Skills that every successful Web Designer requires in Dubai

Like many other roles in technology, being a web designer necessitates the use of both the creative and analytical sides of your brain. And web design is a versatile career with numerous opportunities to specialize or pivot once you've discovered exactly what you're passionate about. A Web Designer in Dubai can expect to earn around 18,300 AED per month. Salaries range from 8,400 AED (the lowest) to 29,000 AED (the highest). This is the average monthly salary, which includes housing, transportation, and other perks.

In this article, we'll go over the essential skills you'll need to know to land a job as a web designer, as well as the soft skills that will help you stand out. 

Let's start with the technical aspects of becoming a web designer. All of those strange acronyms and terms can be intimidating at first, but they're quite simple once you get to know them.

It may appear obvious that design knowledge is required to be a web designer, but what exactly does this imply? Because web design is a subset of the larger field of visual design, it makes sense to begin there. Learning visual design teaches you the fundamental design principles required to become a web designer. The look and feel of a website are determined by design principles. They can include proportions, typography, grid systems, and color theory. Creating mood boards and type hierarchy and experimenting with web fonts and color palettes are all part of learning visual design.

UX stands for user experience, or how people feel when they use a website (calm, frustrated, etc.). Above all, UX is about approaching your designs from the perspective of the user — how can you design a website that allows them to get exactly what they need?

To accomplish this, you will conduct user research and develop "personas" (profiles of imaginary ideal users). A site map will be used to organize the pages and content. In user flows, you'll figure out the path users take on your site. (For instance, do they always go straight to social media? Or are they just looking for a way to contact you?) You'll also create wireframes to sketch out the key components of each.  Or are they just looking for a way to contact you?) You'll also create wireframes to sketch out the key elements of each webpage. All of these elements are required for effective user experience design.

To do your job properly, you'll need the right tools, just like any other craftsperson. Knowing your way around industry standards will be beneficial in all cases and critical in many. While designing a website can be done in a web browser, tools like Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, and Sketch are used by almost all designers for important aspects of their job such as creating mockups, designing assets (think logos and images), and, of course, modifying and enhancing photos. You should learn how to use them (though if you're just starting, try out a few free Photoshop alternatives instead).

You may not have expected a web designer to need to know how to code. However, it is now a required skill for the majority of design jobs. HTML is an abbreviation for HyperText Markup Language, which is the coding language used to structure and place content on a web page. That is, it is the process of converting a collection of words into headlines, paragraphs, and footers. It's also how you get "cool" content on a website, such as photos, videos, and graphics.

Then there's CSS, or Cascading Style Sheets, HTML's partner. CSS is the code that instructs browsers on how to format and style HTML for web pages. In other words, it is responsible for making all of the text and other content look good. With CSS, you can change the colors, fonts, and add a beautiful background — and so much more! This is where your design sense shines and where you can put your creative stamp on every site you create.

While you can code your designs using only HTML and CSS, knowing how to program in JavaScript will give you a huge advantage over the competition. JavaScript is a scripting language for creating dynamically updating content, controlling multimedia, animating images, and pretty much anything else.

To be a standout web designer in Dubai, whether you want to learn web design to go freelance or work for a company, you'll need to stay on top of your schedule and projects. This could entail learning productivity apps like task lists or calendars, or learning project management tools like Trello or JIRA, especially if you work in a large organization. Whatever tools you use, mastering the art of prioritizing and tracking your work is critical to your success in the fast-paced world of web design in Dubai.

A web designer's ability to stay in touch and communicate effectively is also essential. You can't make living by building websites in Dubai unless you have excellent communication skills. You'll have to keep clients informed about their projects' status and pitch ideas and explain your creations. If you run your one-person shop, you might even be asked to do some copywriting or editing for websites. So work on your writing and presentation skills, and you'll have no trouble getting your message across to clients and coworkers in Dubai.

SEO (search engine optimization), digital marketing, and social media skills may appear to be more appropriate for a marketer or salesperson than for a web designer in Dubai. But, because the Internet is how so many businesses sell these days, you should be familiar with it as well. Knowing the fundamentals of each and remembering them for both client and personal sites will take you a long way in your web design career in Dubai.

Understanding the bottom line will also help you ensure that you or your company is profitable and sustainable, whether you are an employee or a freelancer. You should have a good understanding of your employer's or your own company's goals and finances so that you can use them to direct your work. If you work directly with clients, you should have a strategy in place to ensure that your cash flow and project backlog are both healthy and manageable in the short and long term.

You can always rely on The Watchtower, Dubai's best and award-winning Website Development Company, for more information on your online shopping, website development, digital marketing, and SEO.