Purchase a beginner's web design book from an online retailer, such as Book Closeouts or Amazon or a standard store, such as Borders or Barnes & Noble. Look for introductory texts such as "The Principles of Beautiful Web Design" by Jason Beaird, "Web Design All-in-One For Dummies" by Sue Jenkins, "Web Design in a Nutshell" by Jennifer Niederst and "Build Your Own Website" by Ian Lloyd.
Enroll in an online degree program on web design, such as Westwood College's bachelor's program in web design and multimedia. You'll take courses, such as web page design, audio/video technologies for multimedia, digital illustration, interactive scripting, web technologies and advanced interactive authoring from home. Some colleges have self-paced programs, others may require you to log in at specific times during the program to interact with professors and classmates.
Work through a computer-based training program, available via CD-ROM, download or online seminar, from web design training companies. The Mr. Excel's web design program offers a 975-slide package that is estimated to take three days to complete, with interactive quiz scenarios teaching the structure of a website, web page text and links, page layout, home pages, forms and action script, styles, loops, validation, cookies and debugging.
Spend time surfing the Internet and jotting down your thoughts about your favorite websites, especially ones you visit the most. Review collections of "bad website design" and read other viewers' comments about the poor use of color, text and images, then analyze whether you agree and what you think could improve the pages.
Download free trial programs of web design software, such as Adobe Dreamweaver and Microsoft Front Page; each of these programs also has online forums, knowledge bases and instructional books you can use as a reference while you learn the products.