The Website Experience

As part of my Information Technology course at the University of Alabama, I was required to design my own personal website. Having used HTML coding in the past and having had assisted with the development of our city and library websites, I felt confident approaching the task. I also love puzzles and finding that one little needle - or error - in the haystack. So I was excited rather than fearful when I embarked on the task. However, the project proved more difficult than I ever thought it would for several reasons.

First, I needed to conceptualize the website. Its purpose was clear; I wanted an "A". I always want an "A". Although the assignment was clear and the elements were determined for me, I still needed to decide how I wanted to convey - well - me. This was the challenging part. There are many facets of me; I have lots of friends, family, interests, etc. How do I narrow down all of me to one or two pages? Looking around at other students' websites and other personal websites helped. I googled "best personal websites" for examples and reviewed my classmates' pages for inspiration. Using books as background because of my deep love of reading, I put pictures of me and family in the foreground and used the about me page to share more.

The second challenge was choosing the necessary software and programs for building the website. We had suggestions from class, and we were all getting suggestions from each other as to other programs that might work better. As I felt myself being overwhelmed with the possibilities, I chose simplicity. I downloaded the programs suggested in the videos we had watched in class and crossed my fingers that they would work. Fortunately, for me, they did.

Another challenge was the actual coding. Finding the dash where an equal sign needed to be or the missing quotation mark at the end of a phrase was fun for me. However, the perfectionist lurking under the surface kept trying to interfere with the fun. Fortunately, I had given myself enough time at the outset that I was able to step away when the frustration set in. Again, the help of classmates came in handy at this point as well. Our cohort is strong, and so many people shared their frustrations and problems which helped find those little errors along the way.

The main lesson learned for me was not the coding or the transferring of files or uploading to the server. This experience reminded me of the importance of planning and of allowing yourself sufficient time to see a project through. Knowing what you want to achieve and giving yourself the time and space with which to do it is key to designing a website, whether it's for yourself, for school, or for your job.