I am fairly new to the art program here at Oswego. Though I have been here for a while, studying as a public relations major, once I joined the program last semester, I made sure to map out a carefully thought out plan of the skills that I wanted acquire during my time here. Mostly, I just wanted learn Photoshop and Illustrator, however, Dreamweaver has been a great surprise. So far, learning web design has been one of the most useful skills that I have picked up within the last 3 semesters. Although I do not wish to go into a career of web design, I have now acquired the skill to know what these programs can do, what is possible and what is not. I think it will benefit me in my career because I can work with someone and be able to speak and comprehend the language of web designers. For this reason, I am more than happy that I took this class. It has been one of the very few times at Oswego that I can say that a worth while investment was made from taking a class.

Initially, I am nervous when it comes to starting these projects because I know how much work and attention to detail building a website requires. However, after surviving my first experience with the Rock Star website, I’ve learned a lot and feel more confident in my abilities to design a fully functioning site that actually works. When it comes to designing for our latest e-commerce site I feel excited to begin designing and laying out the map of the site. At the start of this new reject there were a lot of things that I had to take into account in order to make it easiest for the consumer. I didn’t realize how much information I’d need to put into my site and how carefully I needed to be organized. Since the pre-critique I have not really changed that much, but I have made an effort to stick with one or two fonts throughout the site to give it a more unified feel.

Coding makes a lot more sense to me now. I had taken a class last semester that involved coding, but it was never really explained that well. I think this is where web design was most frustrating for me because I had to un-learn all of the wrong and misleading things I had tried to teach myself before. Dreamweaver was a huge help in that I could visually see all of the changes as I went along. I feel more prepared for future projects that may involve designing for the web. Steve Krug’s book was very influential and I can see an improvement in my work because of it. My first website was a fairly simple design, but I don’t think it was as user-friendly as my final one. I’m really happy with the design of my e-commerce site, it reflects a lot of what I learned this semester, like designing for the user.

Well, I think we all survived our first web design class! I got a couple bumps and bruises a long the way of course, but I think I came out strong in the end. I learned so much about web design and just designing in general that I can take with me. I think the most important information I’ve taken from this class is patience. Learning to work with code for the first time was especially frustrating, but now having worked at it and understood that it’s basically all trial and error until you know exactly what you’re doing, I have a new approach to my work. I’ve been trying to take things slower and really get it right the first time and how I want it before getting too ahead of myself with wanting to move forward. I also learned to be persistent and that the internet is your best friend (which is weird, because we are in fact designing for the internet). With web design there a lot of things that you come up with that you want to include (photo slideshows seemed to be the main culprit here), but it’s actually quite a complicated thing for a beginner to use. Yet, we are so used to Photoshop and Illustrator and programs we know like the back our hand, that we want it to be as easy, but right now it’s not. I’ve learned to try and be more patient with myself and in learning basically a new language and way of designing.

I think I’ve come a long way in understanding web design from the beginning. At first, for a while I was like a deer in headlights and didn’t even know how to properly set up my .html! Now, I am getting better at all the basics and even trying to get into the more complicated aspects. I plan on eventually taking 417 and continue working with Dreamweaver in the meantime to work on my skills and not forget everything! I also feel like I can move on from this class and work with the program on my own, like helping my mom with her websites and stuff. I’ve had a great experience in this class and can’t wait to learn more about web design!

Going into this course I didn’t really know what to expect. I had never worked with web and to me it was an intimidating field. Coding the first website was the most difficult part of the semester, just because it was such a new concept and way of thinking. Lots of trial and error ensued and some frustration. But now, working on our final website I have more of an understanding of what I’m doing. Its not as much of a guessing game anymore. I obviously have a lot left to learn and I plan on taking 417 down the road. After taking this class I feel I’m at a good, solid start to continue developing skills and create functional/appealing website designs.

I have learned a lot during the last couple months in this class. Going into this I knew nothing at all about how to make websites or anything about web design. I really did not know what we were going to learn about in this class. I was a little skeptical that I was going to be able to create websites.

Now after being in this class for a while I feel much safer in making a website. I learned how to create layouts in dream weaver and how div tags can effect the placement of objects and how they act. I liked learning about how to make links, I learned even more in this last project of different ways that links can work and how people interact with the website. Other important things I learned I didn’t even know I would learn in this class, like how websites affect people. Interaction with people is very important in webdesign. Going out of this class I can use this knowledge of design and how it can be used to get people to read your information/buy your product etc. I have learned how to design for an audience which will come in handy in any future jobs I have as a designer

The main thing I am bringing away from this course is a bit more confidence in my abilities to web design. Coming into this course, I was very intimidated by the code aspect of designing for the web, as I was not sure whether my designs would even be possible to translate into a website. After creating the two websites in class, I am a lot more confident in using Dreamweaver to do what I want.

It was also really beneficial in this class to really think about how people interact with the web, and to design accordingly. I feel as though I am much better at thinking about interactivity through my design, because this project has forced me to approach design with the idea that not only myself and my professor were going to have to view it.

Form this class, I learned a lot about how to design for a website as well as learning the coding. When I came into the class, I had no idea the first steps on how to construct a website, had no experience in Dreamweaver and no clue how to use CSS. I learned how to construct a web page by first slicing out what you have created in Photoshop and then go along with saving it depending on the weather it’s text or an image. I learned how to create id’s and classes, and this is how you go about nesting our information onto the page. I have learned, when making a website, you have to keep the design simple yet well designed. You want the viewer not have to think when there on your site.

I feel I have learned a lot from taking this class and moving forward with design, this will help me out tremendously if this is the type of field I want to go into.