Web designers are some of the most in-demand professionals in the contemporary marketplace. Every business needs a strong online presence and an attractive website. Web designers are the experts who help them achieve that, using their knowledge of art and design principles and web development skills.

Web design incorporates a variety of technologies, programming languages, and tasks. Web design may describe only the process of creating the user interface or it could be expanded to include the actual implementation of the language with languages like HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. In this context, web designers are effectively front-end web developers and are responsible for both designing mockups and building the actual site.

The idea of trying to jump into this field without a background in a field like graphic design or computer science may be intimidating. In truth, it’s never been easier to do so. There are countless online courses to bring you up to speed on the most popular web design tools, technologies, and strategies. We at TUN have put together a comprehensive list of free and affordable online courses that will help you learn the necessary skills to work in web design, no matter your experience level.

Online Courses on Web Design

1. Web Design: Strategy and Information Architecture

When web designers begin a project, they first have to develop a strategy based on the needs of their client and the site’s users. This phase requires research, developing a strategy, setting a timetable, structuring content, and general planning. “Web Design: Strategy and Information Architecture” is designed to teach students an effective workflow for this stage of the web design process. The course, offered by CalArts via Coursera, is part of a multi-course specialization on user interface (UI) and user experience (UX) design. UI/UX may include both web development and applications development. However, this course is primarily focused on designing responsive websites. You will learn about the typical workflow, best practices, and methodology of web design, and put your knowledge to the test in a project where you build a comprehensive plan for a website.

• College credits: NO — Course Certificate only
• Price: FREE to audit, but there’s a fee to earn and buy a Course Certificate
• Financial aid or scholarship: YES
• Mobile learning: YES
• Self-paced learning: YES
• Flexible deadlines: YES
• Time needed for completion: Approx. 27 hours (2-5 hours/week for 4 weeks suggested)
• Languages: English with subtitles in English
• Vendor: Coursera

Note: Prices for all courses listed in this article are true on the date of publishing, but are subject to change.

2. Web Design: Wireframes to Prototypes

This course is the sequel to the Web Design: Strategy and Information Architecture offered by CalArts through Coursera. You will need to take it before this course if you are interested in earning a certificate. The first course covers the strategic and planning stages of building a complex website. Here, you’ll dive into the next phase: creating wireframes, building mockups, and creating clickable prototypes. The course covers a variety of practical web design topics like responsive web design and mobile web challenges, designing with a mobile-first approach, web typography, and programming web design topics and technologies such as HTML, CSS, JavaScript, server-side coding, and databases.

• College credits: NO — Course Certificate only
• Price: FREE to audit, but there’s a fee to earn and buy a Course Certificate
• Financial aid or scholarship: YES
• Mobile learning: YES
• Self-paced learning: YES
• Flexible deadlines: YES
• Time needed for completion: Approx. 34 hours (4-10 hours per week for 4 weeks suggested)
• Languages: English with subtitles in English
• Vendor: Coursera

3. Creating a Responsive Web Design

In this day and age, people access the internet through a diversity of screens and devices. As a result, web designers need to build “responsive” websites that can be accessed easily and look attractive on a variety of platforms. This course will teach you to build adaptable websites. If you are new to programming, you will learn fundamental front-end web development skills in HTML and CSS. As you build a website from scratch, you will learn about building navigation menus, formatting and positioning graphics, creating CSS animations, and importing web fonts from Google. As you move through the course, you’ll learn how to adjust your design for various screen sizes and layouts, so your website will be easily accessible from any device.

• College credits: NO — Certificate only
• Price: 10-day free trial and then $35 billed monthly or $299 billed annually for Personal plan; $449 billed annually for Premium plan
• Financial aid or scholarships: NO
• Mobile learning: YES
• Self-paced learning: YES
• Flexible deadlines: YES
• Time needed for completion: 3 hours, 48 minutes
• Languages: English
• Vendor: Pluralsight

4. Responsive Web Design

This course covers both front-end web development and pure design concepts. It starts out covering some concepts in web design theory. You’ll learn the principles of user experience and strategies for building navigable and functional websites. As you move on, you will put theory into practice and learn how to build designs using code and Bootstrap. You’ll learn to incorporate interactivity with JavaScript and learn how to add content to websites. The course also covers building basic web applications such as a photo gallery (or slider) and a search function.

• College credits: NO — Course Certificate only
• Price: FREE to audit, but there’s a fee to earn and buy a Course Certificate
• Financial aid or scholarship: YES
• Mobile learning: YES
• Self-paced learning: YES
• Flexible deadlines: YES
• Time needed for completion: Approx. 17 hours (5 hours per week suggested)
• Languages: English with subtitles in English
• Vendor: Coursera

5. Web Design for Beginners: Real World Coding for HTML and CSS

This course teaches basic front-end web development technologies and concepts, focusing primarily on HTML and CSS — the foundational languages of front-end web development. In nine hours worth of lessons, you will dive deep into these technologies, gradually building from basic styling with HTML and CSS to more advanced concepts like CSS special effects and responsive design. After taking this course, you’ll be well-grounded HTML and CSS and be ready to move on to using JavaScript to build interactive web pages.

• College credits: NO — Certificate of Completion only
• Price: $12.34 on sale ($129.99 regular price)
• Financial aid or scholarships: NO
• Mobile learning: YES
• Self-paced learning: YES
• Flexible deadlines: YES
• Time needed for completion: 9 hours
• Languages: English with subtitles in English, Indonesian, Italian, Polish, Romanian, and Thai
• Vendor: Udemy

6. Responsive Web Design Essentials – HTML5 CSS3 and Bootstrap

Designed for beginners, this course teaches HTML5, CSS3, and Bootstrap 4 from scratch — no experience with coding is necessary. The course is based around four website-building projects: a simple restaurant, a bike repair website, a responsive portfolio site, and a site for a yogurt company that utilizes Bootstrap. These projects gradually increase in complexity and difficulty as you add new features and integrate different tools and technologies. The course also covers basic tasks, including setting up a website domain.

• College credits: NO — Certificate of Completion only
• Price: $12.34 on sale ($199.99 regular price)
• Financial aid or scholarships: NO
• Mobile learning: YES
• Self-paced learning: YES
• Flexible deadlines: YES
• Time needed for completion: 16 hours, 30 minutes
• Languages: English with subtitles in English
• Vendor: Udemy

7. Hands-On Responsive Web Design

In this course, you will learn to use HTML5 to build responsible websites from scratch. The course is based around several website-building projects in which you will learn to integrate various features into your web pages, including responsive images, sprite icons, font icons, and HTML partials. You’ll also learn to effectively import with CSS preprocessors such as SASS or LESS. By the end of the course, you’ll have a few different web templates and be able to confidently build a responsive website layout.

• College credits: NO — Certificate only
• Price: 10-day free trial and then $35 billed monthly or $299 billed annually for Personal plan; $449 billed annually for Premium plan
• Financial aid or scholarships: NO
• Mobile learning: YES
• Self-paced learning: YES
• Flexible deadlines: YES
• Time needed for completion: 4 hours, 22 minutes
• Languages: English
• Vendor: Pluralsight

8. Design for Coders

This is a unique but much-needed course on design principles targeted toward “design-challenged” developers. If this describes you, look no further. You will learn about design theory concepts that you can apply directly to web and UI/UX design, such as color theory, layout design, and typography. The course is brief, lasting only about two hours in total, but still includes over 30 video lectures and multiple exercises to apply design skills quickly. In short, it’s an excellent crash course to help bring your design skills up to speed quickly.

• College credits: NO — Certificate of Completion only
• Price: $39.99 per month for a “Learn” Subscription on sale ($44.99 regular price)
• Financial aid or scholarships: NO
• Mobile learning: YES
• Self-paced learning: YES
• Flexible deadlines: YES
• Time needed for completion: 2 hours
• Languages: English
• Vendor: QuickStart

9. WordPress for Beginners: Create a Website Step by Step

If you’ve never used WordPress before, this course will show you all the basics, so you can build a website or a dynamic blog. The course requires no coding, so it is great for beginner web designers, freelancers, or entrepreneurs. At just over five hours long, the course is brief, but serves as a great first step into web development in WordPress. You’ll learn how to create a website from scratch that features an about page, a photo gallery, blog posts, comments, a contact page, and various widgets. Once you finish, you’ll confidently be able to build a basic WordPress site and will be prepared to learn to build unique themes and integrate some basic code to add more interactivity to your website.

• College credits: NO — Certificate of Completion only
• Price: $12.34 on sale ($84.99 regular price)
• Financial aid or scholarships: NO
• Mobile learning: YES
• Self-paced learning: YES
• Flexible deadlines: YES
• Time needed for completion: 5 hours
• Languages: English with subtitles in English
• Vendor: Udemy

10. Advanced CSS and Sass: Flexbox, Grid, Animations, and More!

Ready to take your CSS designs to the next level? After you’ve familiarized yourself with basic HTML and CSS, you can start unlocking new design features with advanced CSS commands extension languages like Sass. In this course, you’ll learn strategies for writing cleaner HTML and CSS. You’ll also learn how to utilize advanced CSS features, including grid layouts with CSS Grid and animations with the @keyframes, animation and transition functions. You’ll work through some higher-level responsive design concepts like integrating responsive images and videos. Finally, you’ll learn how to use the Sass extension language, which allows you to use features that don’t exist in CSS currently, such as variables, nesting, mixins, and inheritance.

• College credits: NO — Certificate of Completion only
• Price: $12.99 on sale ($199.99 regular price)
• Financial aid or scholarships: NO
• Mobile learning: YES
• Self-paced learning: YES
• Flexible deadlines: YES
• Time needed for completion: 28 hours
• Languages: English with subtitles in English, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Polish, Portuguese, and Romanian
• Vendor: Udemy

Online Program on Web Design

11. Web Design for Everybody (Basics of Web Development and Coding) Specialization

If you have zero experience with web development, this Coursera Web Design Specialization will bring you up to speed on the major concepts and technologies in front-end web development and design. The course is composed of five courses covering HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and responsive design using Bootstrap, in that order. Designed for people with no background in computer science, it teaches these languages step by step. You will start out by learning how programming works and steadily begin to code, starting with HTML. Once you cover the basics of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, you will begin to work with some advanced web design concepts, such as responsive web design, which allows web pages to render well on a variety of devices and screens. The Specialization concludes with a capstone project, in which students design and develop a professional-quality web portfolio that functions on at least three platforms.

The 5 Courses:

Course 1: Introduction to HTML5

Course 2: Introduction to CSS3 

Course 3: Interactivity with JavaScript 

Course 4: Advanced Styling with Responsive Design

Course 5: Web Design for Everybody Capstone

• College credits: NO — Specialization Certificate only
• Price: FREE to audit, but there’s a fee to earn and buy a Specialization Certificate
• Financial aid or scholarship: YES
• Mobile learning: YES
• Self-paced learning: YES
• Flexible deadlines: YES
• Time needed for completion: Approximately 3 months (7 hours per week suggested)
• Languages: English with subtitles in English and Hindi
• Vendor: Coursera

For more online courses, check TUN’s list of curated classes, or use the online classes search engine to find the best online courses in any subject.