Web design in 2021

[Jenny Terstriep]

Hello everyone, I did my website in 2006 in Dreamweaver, but I am wondering what everyone uses today for web design? There was no classes on Dreamweaver in Adobe Max 2020... Is it bcomeing irrelivant? Thanks in advance 🙂 

[Nancy OShea]

Hi @Jenny Terstriep,

Welcome to the Dreamweaver community.  

Adobe Max was severely hampered by COVID.  IMO, the conference was disappointing on many levels but that's another topic.

As you know, DW is a tool for building websites.  It's a good tool, too, but it's only as good as the person using it.  Immense changes have occurred on the Internet since CS2 came out.  Far too many to list here.

The questions you should probably be asking yourself are:

1. Besides being responsive on ALL devices, what does my new site need to do exactly?  Is it a blog, an e-commerce site, a gallery, etc...?

2. What's my budget and time limit for completion?

3. How deeply immersed do I want to be in learning modern HTML, CSS, JavaScript, frameworks  and other geeky stuff like that?

4. Who will maintain the site when completed?

5. Would I be better off paying more for the convenience of an online site builder aimed at non-coders?

Answer honestly.

[Ben M]

Furthering on what was said already, the world of web design has gone in so many different directions. Code is more important than ever, so if you are looking for DW to bridge that gap it won't cut it anymore. In fact, I think as the web has become more code and database/api driven, the divide between coding and design has grown further apart with UX designers migrating to tools like Sketch or Adobe's XD, and many of the code editors going to stronger text editors.

Personally speaking I came down this road a little while back.  My primary recent use of DW has been in the marketing world where there are platforms like Adobe's own Marketo (or others like Hubspot, Eloqua, etc) where you need to design and code for those platforms and having an editor around like DW is still important in workflows whether it be for full development or piecing together snippets with platform specific code.

Taking a quick look at your own website and portfolio, I think you would be better suited going down the route of XD to stay on the design side of the web business and consider the use of a CMS (ie: Wordpress or other solutions even hosted) for your site. When it comes to existing client sites you may need to evaluate their needs and determine whether updating them yourself (whether manually or via CMS), or partnering with a web developer makes more sense for the long run.

[Jenny Terstriep]

I do know HTML and a little CSS, but I also have a web developer I work with... going to try the "learn" videos avabile and go from there 🙂 Thank you for your input Ben!