What I found extremely interesting during this week’s discussions was how much thought needs to go into creating a visually appealing and functional blog, or any website for that matter. When visiting a website for daily use, we rarely notice anything about it unless something is not working correctly. For example, when we first reach the homepage and are easily able to transition between various topics on the site, it is nothing out of the ordinary. On the other hand, if we reach a website and struggle to find the links to reach different pages or see minor mistakes in functionality, we are quick to judge. As we have been creating our Halal Carts website and collaborating with one another, it has become more and more clear to me that such a project is no easy task. In order to have the format of the blog look as we wanted it to, we needed to communicate with all of the members of the class and come to a consensus. After we figured out the theme, our ideas needed to be compiled into the website and we’ve been lucky enough to have had Jake do much of the heavy lifting in this area. Even today, when we are less than a week away from announcing our website as complete, we realized there are issues that need to be resolved such as the arrows at the bottom of posts which lead to different categories.
I think this type of a project really forces us to think about all of the work that goes into the websites we use every day, and how many people are involved in making them look as they do. Websites are clearly not created overnight and take the hard work of people skilled in technology, something that many of us have had no experience with until now. Regardless of the difficulty of such a task, I’ve found it extremely exciting to see our ideas and edits come to life on the blog. Even though Jake has been largely responsible for making this happen, we’ve had the opportunity to see the backend of the website and learn about the different widgets needed to make it something unique. It has definitely made me even more appreciative of websites that are aesthetically pleasing and functional, but also more sympathetic to those which are lacking in such areas. Web design is a process of trial and error, as we have experienced with our own site.
Hi Katherine! I agree with your post in its entirety. I also never realized how much work goes into creating a website. Even the simplest of tasks, such as determining the theme for each section of the website, takes a lot of behind-the-scenes work. I’m glad that we have had Jake’s help in navigating the technological side of creating our group website. I am also happy that we have all been working together so well. We have been able to make decisions about the site’s aesthetics easily. Even if somebody disagrees with another person’s ideas for the site, he or she still listens respectfully to the other person’s perspective. This has allowed us to get our site running, rather quickly. I love the way that it looks so far and I can’t wait to get feedback on our pieces from the public.
Hi Katherine,
I found your blog very interesting. Before this project, I too, had no idea of the time and effort it takes to make a blog. One has to decide the theme, the layout, and what type of content they want in their blog. It seems like a 10 minute job, but in reality, it takes days of hard effort. It’s a collaborative effort in which all parties are involved. For instance, if it wasn’t for the strong group efforts that our IDC class has put in, I don’t know if our website would be as great as it is today.
Yes. The technology we are using allows us to collaborate but we still need to pay attention to the human element.