A lot of people ask me how to make a website. I tell them that they are asking a very broad question and I try to narrow down what they are trying to do. Eventually they ‘learn’ html and css, but rather than going and making that website they wanted to do in the first place. They say to me “Okay Shane, I know how to make a website… but I cannot make anything nice like you and everyone else can!” and I remember once saying “Well, errmm… you just like, Do it”. What an answer is that? Terrible I know. I never manage to actually help them much without just directing them to places like w3schools which is where I “learned” html and css.

The problem with that though is that I am not actually being very helpful at all. I am not teaching them anything. So I sat down for a very long time the other night trying to figure out the reasons as to why I cannot teach it. I decided that (as with art, music, poetry et cetera), in my opinion, the ability to create good websites is not something that can be taught. The best, and possibly only, way to learn is by looking at other people’s websites, practising by using what you see there and editing it.

So from that I can see that some things cannot be taught completely, people must just learn for themselves. But how can you tell somebody they just need to learn it for themselves? You can’t obviously. Now, I do not know if you have been in this situation or whether you are just a better teacher than me! However, unless that is the case then we need to find a way to help without actually teaching.

An idea I have had is, put together a list of tutorials, inspiration and resources. From there they can learn and practise… then come back if they have any trouble. From there I, and you if you do this too, will be able to teach them how to fix their problem instead of doing all of their work for them.

What do you do when you come to where you are about to say “Well, you just… do it.” or “I don’t know, it seems second nature.”?