Frances Cherman's dm160b Homework

My Web Design Experience

In 1996, I told a geek friend I needed a Web site for my copywriting business. He threw a few HTML heading and paragraph tags onto a page, stuck some placeholder text between them, showed me how to create links and close my tags, and said, “You're on your own.” I hobbled together a really ugly Web site, uploaded it to a server (at least I had my own domain name), and there it has sat for the past 12 years, a complete embarassment to my reputation as a professional. Updating it has been on my to-do list ever since then, but I wanted to do it “right, ” and I was stymied by the number of tools and options available (not to mention the fact that there were more available with every passing year.)

Last semester, I finally decided to start at the bottom by learning HTML and CSS. I took Wally Parham's dm160a course, and an obsession was born. I loved the CSS concept: separating the styling instructions from the content so that changing the style everywhere on the page or in the site is as simple as changing a rule. I became fanatical about learning how to make CSS do everything, including things others typically relied on images for--like those shiny, convex-look nav bars, for instance. For my final project, I completed a potential design for my business Web site (using a shiny nav bar of my own CSS design). It works (validates), but I still have some design challenges, like how to display my portfolio in a user-friendly way.

My Personal Goals for This Course

I want to build on my work from last semester, refining the look of my business Web site and creating an easy way for users to browse my portfolio without having to click back and forth and without losing their orientation.