Sprint 8
This week, I accomplished several tasks. First, I registered for a domain name (www.necrourgica.com) using ClouDNS. I then registered for a hosting service (5gbfree.com) and set up my domain name to connect to the hosting service. I tried to upload my site to the server, but for some reason, the hosting service stopped working midway through my process and remained down the rest of the night. I will try to upload my site to this hosting service next week, and if the service is still down, I will probably have to find a new hosting service to use.
Because I didn’t get through the entire process of uploading my site officially to the internet, I decided to instead shift my focus to some of the other tasks I have left to complete in regards to the design of the site itself. I continued optimizing the site for its new 1-page layout, working with the various formatting details, as well as the order of page elements, to improve UX. I also worked on the Bio section of my site to make it more responsive, since I was having a lot of trouble with this when I originally created it. As I was going along with these tasks, I began noting all the various details of the site that I will have to adjust in the following weeks.
Something I continued learning this week about my project was working with responsiveness. It was a huge hassle to get the pictures and text in the Bio section to be properly responsive across different devices. It took a lot of tinkering around and making very slight adjustments that actually have big effects on how the site will look on different screens. I also learned about registering for domain names & working with hosting services. I had never registered for a domain name or intertwined it with a hosting service before, so this was a new process for me and I had to do some research to figure out the services that would provide the cheapest cost but also fulfill all of my needs. This is a very important concept/process to understand, because it’s obviously crucial in order for the general public to access your site and will prove useful to me in my future career with all the various websites I will be working on.
Something I learned about my process was that research is important. If I had done a bit more research about various bootstrap elements prior to beginning my project, I would’ve been able to more readily integrate certain elements into my site the first time around instead of designing them one way and then doing the research afterward to redesign them. At first, I used some tables in my site because I wasn’t totally sure how to work with bootstrap’s rows and columns, which are more responsive, so I had to go back and change the layouts this week. I also feel like maybe I should have researched hosting services & domain name registration in the beginning of designing my site just to have a clearer idea from the get go of how this process works. The fact that I only got into this now is fine, it’s not too late, but I think some earlier research would’ve been useful. I will keep this in mind for future websites and projects that I work on.
Something I continued learning this week about the design process in general is that it’s important to realize that the way you planned things to be in the beginning isn’t always going to be how they turn out in the end. Like I said last week, you have to be willing to give up certain things you thought you were going to include as more information about your project becomes known. I originally thought I would be integrating a search bar and mailing list, but I realized that there wasn’t enough text content on the site to warrant a search bar and as for the mailing list, the band isn’t very active so they would not have enough information to be sending out regular emails. Something else I learned about the design process is that it’s important not to get hung up on every minor detail as you’re designing, because you can easily become frustrated and disheartened, which will decrease your motivation to move forward and will also waste time. However, it’s also important not to totally disregard those details so you can come back to them at the end and address them. This week, as I was working on perfecting the format of the site, I started getting micro-focused on very small things like the exact spacing at a certain part of the page or the exact padding of a text section, which made me feel overwhelmed. I then stepped back and took a look at how much I had managed to accomplish as far as the big picture of my site’s design and all that I’ve managed to put into it, which made me feel better about my project, and made the various details I have to address seem more manageable. I will keep working on them these last couple of weeks.
