Written Reflection
After saying, “I should learn coding,” for about four years, this is finally my first foray into the world of attempting HTML and CSS. I don’t know about anyone else in the class, but I felt like I had a huge learning curve and it definitely took me a long time until I understood what the heck I was actually doing.
I also don’t know if anyone else did this, but for me it was very much guess-and-check. Over. And over. And over again. I have over 200 commits right now because I keep doing one minor tweak, one on top of another. It feels extremely repetitive, too. I have no idea if this is the right way to do it, but I am entirely exhausted of having to change one thing, committing, waiting five minutes, refreshing the website, and inspecting the changes (if any had even occurred). Is there an easier way to do this?
Eventually, I had to stop editing. There is only so much I can do and so much time I can dedicate towards this site. Not to say that I give up on it — more like I need a breather. I have the rest of the semester to fix it and make it prettier! And honestly, I don’t know about everyone else, but adding even the small elements took me forever to figure out how to do (like adding my photo and rounding it out). SO A PAT ON THE BACK FOR ME.
Thankfully, I have the internet. The internet is a great place. So many resources for newbies like me. I used the site “jsfiddle.net” a lot, and specifically this page helped me a ton. But there are still things I cannot figure out, like how to make the header font a better font (not like the boring one it currently is), or getting the dropdown nav to be 100% perfect (I’m super nit-picky).
Ultimately, I would love to use this website as a digital portfolio to showcase my videos. And I am a huge fan of the minimalistic style, but those elements are kind of hard to produce (at least for me it is). For example, I’d love to get the name of the website (header 1) to be on the same line as my nav and then a thin line below it—how do I do that!? Or get a contact submission going (but I think I need to understand javascript for that?).
Another thing I would love to become proficient in is Photoshop, which we will get to later on in the term. It’s just an extremely practical talent to have—employers like seeing it because it means you know something more than just Microsoft Office. And I like seeing it because it means I can make a new meme whenever I want, and not just use a generator. I’m kidding. Or am I? Anyway, using photoshop could help me add more interesting graphics, or even a logo, for myself. That would be cool. Imagine, me with my own logo...
Also, is there a way to make my website less boring? Maybe more interactive? It just… doesn’t scream “cool” and I am unsure how to go about that. I know that “cool” is a very, very vague term, but I don’t know how to describe what it is I want. Like… jenis.com is a great example of what I like. It’s simple (especially the header/nav area), but it’s bright and it pops and it attracts customers. It gives off the idea that Jeni’s Ice Cream is light but still fun and full of life. It gets people happy (but, of course, font and color play a big role). I guess I’m just trying to figure out how to become a “minimalist” website while also having parts of my personality shine through whatever little elements I am able to put in.
For now, I will continue to build upon my very basic, muted website. I still have much to learn—it’s frustrating that HTML should be a somewhat intuitive coding system since it’s not the most complicated thing ever. But the amount of time I have spent to just create the little pieces I have now is ASTOUNDING (that is to say, a lot of time). I should have been taught coding as a third-grader, I swear.