Sometimes all we need is a little help

 When I started this assignment I had zero knowledge about ..anything really. But I am not afraid to put the work in and I am always trying to do my best. Whatever the outcome of this assignment, I know that I feel proud how far I have come. But we all need a little help sometimes and it will be only fair  to make this blog entry. 

If I am to tell anyone that my partner is a software architect and lead developer that speaks Java better than his native language, probably they will expect that he did some of the work for me. Well, yes and no. Everything on my website is done by me, but it was difficult for me to find my way around with Bootstrap, Java script and coding in general. Before I even started with those, he send me a lot of documentation he thought I should read, showed me good and bad examples of utilising Java script, directed me to the best websites where to read and learn even more. When I started building my website with Dreamweaver, he set a local server on my laptop, using Python. This way I was able to look at my website in a real web environment and reflect any changes I make in the content immediately, not just to constantly open each page in a browser( which was also useless, once I incorporated java script as that library was online and I needed active server to make it work). 

He also showed me how to use the Inspect Tool in a browser, in order to find what is wrong and how to fix it. The reality is that I was lucky I had someone to help me do better with information and setting my working environment . It is not very likely that I was going to be ready on time if I was not able to see, in real time, how my website is coming along. While this in no way diminishes all my hard work, I think it is important to mention it. With the deadline almost here I can see a lot of people still struggling with the assignment.  And without this extra help I was going to be one of them. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Flowcharts, Wireframes and Mood board

Image
In preparation to make my Prezi presentation, that will give an idea how I am approaching this, what I am going for and how I plan to execute it, I decided to start with my flowchart, wireframes and mood board. I am using Adobe XD for that and, more or less, this part of my project is connected with my visual and content design research. I think that going through the whole process of creating those is making this one thing certain  - this is just a start. I should not expect to be able to do exactly what I will set out to do in the presentation, but if I do not set out any framework, within which I will work, then I will be all over the place. When I am doing something that requires a method, no direction is my worst enemy. Wireframes are how your pages will look like, the flowchart is how it all comes together in a website. I already have an idea, in terms of functionality, so this was kind of fun to do. I am finally able to visualise where I am going with this.   At this po...
Read more

Technical Process - how it all came together (Part I)

Image
First of all I need to make a note of something - my browser has never been abused to this extend with searches that start with 'How to...' ! There are elements that need including in this website and I had to learn how to do that. Most of the answers I found in  W3schools , but I used other sources as well. Anywhere they had an answer to my question really. I started by designing my Index page. I already knew that I did not want too much there - navigation bar, some info about me and my logo. After going through Boostrap platforms, trying to figure out how to start, I saw this web design and decided I will use some bits and pieces from it. Just to get me started and to have some frame to work with, which I can always change after to fit my vision, but also my technical abilities. First thing I realised - the split function of Dreamweaver that allows you to see what you are doing is good, but only when you are exercising. Once I started doing this I switched to code mode, as o...
Read more

Image, Text and (not) Music

Some time ago I read Roland Barthes's Image-Music-Text and I loved it. Semiotics and how our reality is created within societies and cultural norms has been something I was interested in long before I came to University. So I started thinking - what my website will be trying to say about me and about art? How to optimise the use of images and text, so it conveys a message, it creates a context? I have to admit that putting an abstract together with technology can be confusing, but big part of content design is how you engage with the users. At this point there is one thing that is clear - my website will not be text heavy, yet I will try to convey my passion for modern and contemporary art through at least some text, and showcase it with images.  From the start I had the idea of the "My life in Exhibitions" page, that I will populate with images from the best exhibitions I visited in the last two years. Text, that was different story..We all have different ways of positio...
Read more