On Website Creation Part 1

I have previously made websites for other classes and consider myself to be somewhat advanced in website design and creation. Even with having proficiency and a keen interest in website creation, I still find myself stumped and sometimes scared during the website creation process. My perfectionistic tendencies tend to get the better of me during the website design and creation process. I always try to find ways in which I could make the site better and sometimes become bogged down in the details.  When thinking about my App Smashing project, I decided to create a model Civil Rights club that could serve to inform High School students about Civil Rights struggles within the United States. The audience for this fictional website is High School students at the fictional Lawrence High School in Cheek County, Georgia, general high school students, and also the general web searching public.

I had a great time creating the App Smashing work product using ThingLink. The App Smash was created about one of my favorite topics, the Civil Rights Movement in Georgia History. For purposes of this website, I decided to extend this topic a bit further than Georgia’s boundaries. I decided to have more inclusive information about more current topics. The essential information I wanted to convey to my target audience is that the Civil Rights struggle is a REAL, CURRENT, daily struggle for certain individuals and groups. It is easy to get enmeshed in a bubble such as High School, where your own problems are readily at the forefront of your mind, and students really need to escape this bubble and think about people who have real, ongoing, daily struggles for their Civil Rights.

Given this very interesting topic, I sought to do it justice in a creative and effective way. This was a very daunting process. I know we all know the old adage that with great power comes great responsibility. This situation is a great power/great responsibility situation because young minds can be so easily influenced. It is critically important that correct information be spread about this very important and delicate topic.

Design Considerations
            
Prior to reading the materials in this week’s Module, I would have just jumped into this project headfirst with no consideration to design whatsoever. I would have just picked designs that I thought were interesting and visually attractive. I guess I am sort of a minimalist because when I design, I like to have stark pages that are free from busy and distracting elements.

Siepert (2015) establishes that users seldom read all materials presented on a webpage; instead, users will click on items that are interesting and will click on things of interest to them (para 3). Given this information, I do not take offense if users do not read every single kernel of information on this page.

Weebly, the website platform I chose to utilize in order to build my website is absolutely 100% amazing and user-friendly when it comes to building. Thankfully, this site allows for inclusion of Creative Commons images. Within Weebly, creators are allowed to import images from your computer, from a website, or from Flickr. I cannot express how much I love Flickr’s interface within Weebly. Weebly takes the hard work out of this process because it will create citations at the bottom of the page.

After beginning this process, there are many more considerations I have about the design process. I am intimidated by the creation of icons and will probably outline this process in my next blog post. Until then, I wish my fellow classmates good luck in the design process. I am very excited to see everyone else’s websites because I am sure that I can learn from everyone else!!