Hello everyone, today I’m realizing that programming is relatively comfortable for me, but the design aspect of a web page is way over my head. What makes a page look good vs amateur? If you have resources that have helped you get a better understanding of visual design, I would greatly appreciate a point in the right direction. Any tips you’ve learned would also be wonderful.
I’m no expert but as a consumer of web pages …
I think some people go too crazy these days. There is so much that JS and CSS can do and new designers try to fit every trick they can think of into every page. Sometimes it gets in the way of ease of use. It’s like that Dr. Malcolm quote from Jurassic Parl: “Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.” The trend seems to be towards cleaner lines and simple, intuitive interfaces.
To add to that, doing a google search for “award winning websites” would be a good place to get some ideas.
Here’s a good book
My take… in the end, it’s all about the User Experience.
A beautiful, avant-garde, modern website that is confusing for users is no good to anybody.
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Finally, I discovered something useful for my paper to write about. that is fascinating and helps me with more research in the future.
If you are in a time crunch, realize this is an older article, but it will still do in a pinch:
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@DWAbrego, Thanks for the link. I found it when working on my first project and I liked a lot of the ideas in there, like using textures.
@HarryDMartin, I’m glad you’ve found inspiration! I’d love to read your paper when you complete it.
@owel, This is exactly what i was hoping for! Thank you for the resource 
I really enjoyed this site Quincy shared not too long ago. It helped me understand some things.
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Guys, I was attempting something I saw in a JS book (about calling a function within itself) on that factorial exercise, and it seems I just created an endless loop. Now my browser just hangs whenever I try to open freecodecamp.com,I’ve tried everything I can. I literally have run out of ideas. Please any ideas? Anyone?
Not the thread for this, but search is your friend, and try clearing browsing data before visiting the site again:
https://forum.freecodecamp.com/t/free-code-camp-infinite-loop-protection/19550
Any web designer should have a color wheel on their desk as part of their tools. 
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Thank you very much. I’m back!
Well the good news is that on the job you more than likely won’t be asked to do design. That’s a designer’s job. Remember, you’re learning to be a web developer, not designer. In my personal opinion, if you’re interested in design, then maybe you should focus on that instead of development, but learning both at the same time seems like it would be exhausting.
Googles Material Design is also a good resource for design. Also maybe reading articles from A list apart is a good idea.
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For colors: checkout coolors They help you find color combinations for your designs.
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For User experience interaction-design They have awesome articles where you will learn good vs bad design. They also offer courses you can register for.
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For website inspiration, check out awwwards. They gather the best visually attractive websites and they classify them per category. Or just google “website inspiration” and you will find a lot of sites that provide collection of best websites from which you can learn design from.
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Also, regularly stay up to date with “UX”, “Design” trends on google or youtube.
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For web developers, after you are done with a design and it’s online, use this google tool to test for speed, accessibility, user experience and more. A similar tool is testmysite.
As a web developer, I make use of the above tools.
Hope this helps.