I encountered so many obstacles in building my website. I think one of the biggest limitations I had was the fact that I was redesigning a website that already existed. It took a long time for me to realize that I could change the content and structure of the website—not just the layout. Once I overcame that obstacle, I looked through many other Chapters’ websites to get an idea of what type of information I should keep on the site and what structures worked for them. The major goal I had in redesigning the website was to give it a more professional look that would show the Sorority in a positive light to anyone who visited the website. I feel that through a simpler layout, better navigation, and more consistency, I was able to achieve this.

Through building this website, I’ve learned so much more about XHTML, CSS, and JavaScript. I had had some previous experience with web design, but I realized that I had never truly understood it. I had just been given a link to the w3schools and a few example CSS layouts to change how I wanted. It had been more of just a trial and error process of getting things to do what I wanted them to. I started out creating this website using that same method, but through all of the lessons, I found out that I was learning more and more and actually understanding what I was doing. Soon, I was creating my own elements without relying on examples or premade code.

When I first started learning web design, I was basically banned from using any type of program to help with the coding. The only thing we were allowed to use was notepad or wordpad. I also coded my entire website using notepad because it was how I was familiar with creating web pages. Looking back, I think that it would have been a lot easier to use a program like Dreamweaver or NVU to create the website because they have features specifically to assist you with making a webpage. However, I think that by not using those resources, I had to learn to understand the actually code a lot more. I think a lot of my ability to pick up on the coding and need to understand it comes from my experience with various computer programming languages I’ve had to use in my engineering courses. At a basic level, it’s all about understating a specific coding language and just following the rules that govern it. If a student has ever had programming experience, I’d suggest that they use those basic principles to better understand the web programming as well.

I’m a huge perfectionist. I always criticize my work so much more than I probably should. However, with this project, I found that my biggest critics were actually the other members of the Sorority. At the beginning of the course, I gave them my filebox address so that they could view the website as it was being created and give their opinions, since it is their organization too. However, I soon realized that everyone has an opinion that is completely different. The good part was having every single spelling error, every missed name, and every unfinished item continually pointed out to me. But, everyone has different tastes. The hard part for me was having to listen to people’s criticism of things which were purely based on taste, and often contradicted basic web design principles which I had learned in class. It was really hard to know the long hours that I had put into a page and then to be told that it wasn’t very good or no one liked it. I feel like the usability test helped me to understand what elements of the website truly worked and what didn’t because I was actually able to see how people used the website as opposed to just what they thought of one portion of it. In the end, I realized that I just had to be confident in what I was creating and as long as it was usable and followed basic design principles, then it didn’t really matter if one person didn’t like one thing on the site.

In terms of writing on the web, I’ve learned that is a lot harder to be succinct than you would think. I tend to be a long winded person when I write, and it was hard for me to decide what to cut out. Since most of the content for my website had already been created, I had to do a lot of editing. I realized that if I had never bothered reading a long chunk of text on the website, then neither would anyone else. Therefore, I cut out a lot of the written material on the website. For many sections, I actually just rewrote information entirely to make it more pleasing on the web.

In terms of the layout design process, my major obstacle was creating the navigation. At first I had organized my website into sections. When you went to the specific section, then a side bar had links to more pages with related information. However, when I was introduced to JavaScript through the class, I was able to put all the navigation into one menu bar and didn’t need the side bar anymore. This required me to redesign many of my pages. However, I later realized that every page didn’t need to have the exact same layout to look consistent. I then ended up redesigning multiple pages to include a side bar for more links or information. For me, it was a constant battle trying to decide how to make so many different pages look uniform besides just having the same header and footer. By using similar fonts, styles, and graphics, I feel that I’ve been able to give my website a uniform appearance. One of the biggest things that I’ve learned through the design process is that you can’t always go by what looks the best. Something can look really cool, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s usable or the best fit for your website.