Current mood:	informative!
Current music:	"Mockin' Bird" - The Libertines - Up the Bracket

Elaborating on a Facebook status
Process of a website design (and an overview of the many skills required, particularly in designing OmahaFeed)

1. Outline an idea in any thought-storing medium (paper, Notepad, the brain).
   • Cool idea
   • Details of cool idea
   • How cool idea will make money
   • Coolness-to-difficulty ratio (approximate)
2. Sketch a design draft on paper (not totally reflective of end result).
   • I absolutely can't draw "for reals," but conceptual stuff like this comes very naturally.
3. Lay it out and get the proportions roughly pixel-perfect:
   • Draw shapes in MS Paint, move them around an image
   • Draw shapes in GIMP, move them around an image
   • Draw shapes in MS Paint or GIMP, export to separate graphics files, and make a rough layout in HTML
   • Usually, some illogical, yet comfortable and productive combination of the three.
4. Basic HTML: Mark up sections, organized as semantically as possible, and with roughly appropriate filler text.
• OmahaFeed is the first serious site I've tried to practice semantic coding on.
• Back in the day, HTML organized content, contained content, and styled content. It was a big bright conglomerated mess.
• These days, HTML organizes and clarifies the meaning of the content it contains, and CSS styles it. HTML is intentionally plain, and thus very accessible; CSS makes the magic that counts.
• And on OmahaFeed, most of the content isn't actually set on the page, but dynamically loaded from newsfeeds via PHP code. The separation continues.
5. Now that there's a template of sorts, convert applicable bits so they can be dynamically generated with PHP.
• Example: Design and code a content box.
• Make a function in PHP to print the code out, the box being filled with whatever you put into a variable.
• Call that function when you need it.
• No more pasting the same code a million times; the script does it for you. Yay!
6. Add flashy effects and other elements of the user interface with JavaScript.
   • Example: Expandable/collapsible content boxes (a major design feature, and complication, of OF).
   • This generally includes "dynamic" features where you can't make the user wait while you refresh his or her page.
7. Find a good statistics package, and integrate it in. You ought to know just who (target market or not) appreciates your work.
8. Step back and admire things. This is akin to kicking tires on a (hopefully) pretty sports car before you actually turn the key. Take a deep breath before you turn the ignition and...
9. Test, test, test.
   • This is the unspoken, ever-necessary step that actually comes into play during all the previous steps.
   • Even if every individual component from each previous step has been proven to work on its own, or even in concert with a few other elements, some part of your site is not going to be happy with another part.
   • Heaven forbid the uncooperative spirit extends across languages, and your JavaScript hates your HTML, which your PHP refuses to spit out anyway.
10. Launch the site. This involves boring things like:
    • Obtaining a domain name
    • Selecting a cost-effective, reliable web host
    • Picking FTP software to upload and/or sync files
    • Advertising, both getting ads placed on your site, and placing ads on other sites
    • Moderating user-generated content (oh, joy)
    • Adapting the site to better fit end-user needs, desires, and expectations (sadism is usually not nice)

In short, you have to be able to think; record and sort those thoughts effectively; do graphics design; mark up HTML and CSS; program with languages such as (but not limited to) PHP and JavaScript; effectively and efficiently troubleshoot; react to outside input; and draw attention through a combination of the above.

In shorter, this is why I'm at a loss to help my parents "get into web designing" the quick and easy way.

In shortest, if this is a passion for you, grow into it, and live and breathe it.

Aaaand now it's half an hour after I planned to be asleep. :P