JavaScript is a scripting language for making dynamic web pages and so much more. As a beginner, you may be wondering what JavaScript can do.
A good way to learn its capabilities is to practice by building projects. Here are 15 JavaScript projects for beginners to help you develop your JavaScript abilities and propel you to an intermediate skill level.
1. Master the navbar
Learning how to build modern web page navigation with JavaScript is a time-worthy and skill-building task — especially if you anticipate working on web pages in the future. JavaScript can create slide menus, interactive tabs, modals, and the three-barred hamburger menu.
Hamburger menus are handy on smaller screens. They allow the web browser’s navigation tabs to be hidden away but viewable with just a click or tap. To get started on this, you’ll want to use event listeners to trigger certain actions on the webpage.
2. Create inventory
Building and managing an inventory is another great beginner-friendly project. If you don’t know what to keep track of, start small with an imaginary list of items. For example, if you were selling a product line and housing it as inventory, what would your items be, and how would you want to keep track of them?
This is an excellent project to understand arrays. Within an array, you can create product classes to set the properties for your products, such as name and a value stat. Then, to keep track of certain aspects of those products, you can create subclasses.
3. Make a responsive image gallery
Programming a responsive image gallery allows you to practice with looping and event handlers. Whether you want images to enlarge with mouse rollover effects or create a flip image, scripting is the way to do it.
4. Create interactive elements
Interactive elements are fun and simple to practice different JavaScript techniques with. They’ll get you up to speed with implementing variables and if/else conditionals. Some common elements that beginner programmers can make are calendars, calculators, and any other responsive widget-like tools you can think of.
Projects like these can help you grow quickly, so don’t skip them because they sound simple. Building a foundation of skills is essential in taking on larger, complex application builds.
5. Interact with HTML lists
These are sometimes called CRUD (Create, Read, Update, and Delete) applications. For this project, you’ll assign functions that allow users to add or delete items in lists. It’ll also involve implementing event listeners and grabbing elements by their CSS ID selectors.
6. Create a responsive questionnaire
HTML forms are a commonly used tool on web pages to collect data from site visitors. You can also use forms with booleans and conditionals to interact with a visitor’s answers right in the browser.
You’ll use conditional expressions that respond depending on the answer to specific questions. Another option is to create a quiz or test that displays results after all the questions have been answered.
7. Make a music player
A lot of fun things can be done with audio in JavaScript. Making a personal music player is one of them. At its core, this project utilizes functions to play, pause, and load the next or previous track. You can also create a playlist of your all-time favorite songs.
8. Get creative with the canvas API
Another JavaScript project is using Canvas to create graphics, which is also a good introduction to Application Programming Interfaces (APIs). Canvas is an HTML element and beginner-friendly API. Even though you may have never used a programming interface before and don’t understand what they’re all about, don’t worry. Taking on this project is a great way to add APIs to your coding repertoire.
Note, APIs usually require intermediate coding skills to incorporate, but we think you can handle the Canvas API because it’s more of a creative tool. Have fun layering to create something awesome!
9. Build a 2D/3D game
Everyone loves games! Today, it seems like there’s an endless variety of web games coded in JavaScript. Canvas API is a tool often used for game graphics (mainly 2D). So, once you get comfortable with the basics of implementing your first API, you can start putting your new skills to the test.
Making 2D games is more straightforward than making 3D games, so maybe start with 2D. When it comes to game ideas, creativity is encouraged! Maybe try to recreate your favorite Atari game or create something new, like Neptune Cows versus Plutonian Droids (working title).
10. Build a simple front-facing social platform
Creating a basic social platform isn’t as complicated as it seems. All you need to do is add a text box, allow a log of chat history, and maybe some emoticon-like buttons. Don’t worry about setting up a server just yet since we’re building the foundation for JavaScript.
11. Automate tasks
A popular chore to automate is repetitive, monotonous spreadsheet tasks. This is possible with help from Excel JavaScript API.
This one is a bit more advanced, but it’s a good project to take the time to learn because it has various applicable uses. Take it one step at a time. The first part of this project could be simply loading a worksheet.
12. Data science
Do you want to take spreadsheet tasks a bit further? Maybe you want to get comfortable with working with a lot of data. Or perhaps you want to be able to compute some statistics from said data. This is possible with JavaScript.
If you’re a Data Analyst or prospective analyst, you can program an application that’ll calculate the significance of a given data set.
13. Generate things
This one partly falls into the interactive element’s project column, but we included it as a separate project because it’s an enjoyable way to learn about arrays. What you generate is up to you, but here are some ideas: jokes, usernames, or maybe images.
Essentially, you’re scripting an application that will pull an item from a list when a button is pressed in the browser. Some websites are solely dedicated to this, so if you pick a niche enough topic, you could get some decent web traffic from folks who need help deciding on something.
14. Play with algorithms
Once you’ve mastered the fundamentals of variables, arrays, loops, and functions, you’ll be ready to take on algorithms. Programming algorithms is a robust skill set that teaches problem-solving techniques.
To get started with JavaScript algorithms, you’ll want to identify a simple problem that you can solve with code. Then, build your algorithm to solve the problem one step at a time.
15. Create a single page application (SPA)
SPAs give users a smooth navigation experience by loading all web pages’ contents onto a single page. The page updates the document with the help of JavaScript APIs.
This one is for JavaScripters ready to advance to the intermediate level. If you decide to take on this project, you’ll want to look into which JavaScript framework is best for you. Good luck coding, and don’t forget about your vanilla JavaScript foundation.
Continue building your JavaScript skills
Finding the right project to devote your time to can be difficult. If this list doesn’t quite do it for you, we have more project ideas in our forums.
Or maybe you’re interested in building a more complex project that’s tailored toward your career path? Take a look at the new Portfolio Projects in our Career Center. And, if you still need help brushing up on your JavaScript fundamentals, check out our Learn JavaScript course.
JavaScript Courses & Tutorials | Codecademy
JavaScript is a fun and flexible programming language. It’s one of the core technologies of web development and can be used on both the front-end and the back-end.
