There was a time when “web designer” meant you designed and coded. It was an unspoken expectation...

There was a time when “web designer” meant you designed and coded. It was an unspoken expectation...There was a time when “web designer” meant you designed and coded. It was an unspoken expectation...

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Anmol Nandha

• Dec 24

There was a time when “web designer” meant you designed and coded.

It was an unspoken expectation — and when I couldn’t keep up with the coding side in the same way, I didn’t question the expectation. I questioned myself.

For years, I quietly believed I was bad at the coding part.

Not because I couldn’t learn. But because every attempt felt exhausting, demoralising, and personal.

HTML and CSS? Fine. Design systems, complex flows, enterprise UX? No problem.

JavaScript? My brain would short-circuit.

Design gives you instant visual payoff. JavaScript gives you nothing until it works.

That mismatch alone explains years of frustration.

I wrote about how ADHD, design thinking, and the way we’re taught to code collide: https://anmolnandha.medium.com/designers-arent-bad-at-javascript-we-re-just-taught-it-backwards-fe8d2a683264

Medium adhd coding

anmolnandha.medium.com

Designers Aren’t Bad at JavaScript — We’re Just Taught It Backwards

Why senior designers, ADHD brains, and “smart people” keep hitting the same wall

Razvan (Alex) Grigoriciuc

• Dec 25

Design gives you instant visual payoff, JS gives you nothing until it works” is such an underrated truth. It’s wild how many of us internalised that as “I suck” instead of “this is taught backwards

Anmol Nandha

• Dec 25

Definitely. In all honesty, this article was the result of me being frustrated with yet another attempt at learning modern JavaScript and feeling overwhelmed…so I simply asked ChatGPT if my ADHD is a reason it so difficult.

I’m very happy I found I’m not the only one 😊 🔥