As you might have heard back in school, math is everywhere, and you’ll need it for everything. While that might be true for any number of jobs, from construction to finance to management, is it something you might need in every field? A few people might assume that to be the case when it comes to web design in particular.
It’s a fairly common question to ask, “Does web design require math.” To many observers, it’s easy to assume that math skills are a must for website development. Many people often perceive that getting ahead in the tech industry requires some skill in the math department, and consequently fear that lacking those skills may impact their ability to work in that field.
Do You Really Need Math for Web Design?
While some people might think they need advanced math skills to thrive in web design, the simple truth is that the situation is more hopeful than they believe. The truth is that the actual amount of high-level math needed for web design is usually overblown.
One thing that good web designers understand is that most web development projects typically require only a basic understanding of math. The basic math skills practically everyone has are the only real mathematical qualities you need for this line of work. Once you’ve figured out the ins and outs of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, you’ll have all the mathematical qualities you’ll need to start with basic web design.
That said, while you may not necessarily need math to be a developer, it does help to have some skill with math. A large segment of development work revolves around working with large data sets and understanding complex algorithms. Developed math skills make this part of the work considerably easier, but again, advanced math skills are not necessarily a must. There are a plethora of web development tools you can use to make the job easier.
Do Front- and Back-end Development Need Math?
Front- and back-end development are also integral to proper web design. First is front-end development. A front-end developer’s job is to create a high-quality user experience across a website. Your main tools for this task are HTML, Javascript, and CSS, none of which really need advanced math to work with. Rather than strong math skills, what matters more for front-end development are a strong understanding of how the human mind works, a good grasp of how users interact with various devices, and how to arrange visual elements in your space. The math skills you may need for front-end development are basic arithmetic to divide web pages and an understanding of decimals, fractions, and percentages (particularly for CSS styling). Web design can have major effects on any business, and every little bit that improves the customer experience is a must for making your design work.
In contrast, back-end development’s usual plethora of tools includes programming languages like Javascript, Python, Java, and Ruby so you can construct APIs. When writing the code for these disciplines, there isn’t a particular need for complex equations. In fact, there are also a number of tools and databases available to make the job easier. For example, Python’s sklearn library is one of the most widely used open-source libraries available. However, when it comes to developing projects that do involve a fair number of calculations (e.g. math revision, banking apps, or complex conversion APIs), you may have to perform some advanced calculations, which would necessitate some decent math skills.
To make a long story short, advanced math skills typically aren’t necessary for basic web design, but they don’t hurt either. For the most part, most web development work requires only the basics of math, which almost everyone has. But for more complex work, more advanced math skills can only help. If you want to get into more complex disciplines like artificial intelligence, machine learning, and virtual reality, you’ll need more complex math skills to qualify. Think of polishing your math skills as a chance to expand your horizons and branch out into a wider range of projects. After all, the more you bring to the table, the more opportunities you can capitalize on.
