For this week’s process post, I decided to do some setup and work on my website to make sure that it is fit to run as a blog.
The first thing that I did after getting started by purchasing a domain name and setting up WordPress was choosing my theme.
The theme I ended up choosing was called Twenty Twenty-Two, which has a very minimalistic design, and a bird which signifies freedom and unrestricted movement.
My overall wish from brainstorming the week prior was to create a very minimalistic website that does not overburden the reader. It is also easy to navigate and contains lots of media to balance out the text.
I then decided to set up the various menu options and add elements to ensure that everything that I have posted is easy to find. This includes adding the various categories and then adding tabs at the top of my website to ensure that they could be easily navigated to.
Some troubles I had was with setting up the homepage, as the elements and the theme did not want to play fair. It kept shifting around until I was finally able to figure it out and get all the elements I wanted in place.
This was surprising to me because I am considered computer literate since I provide support to people in my IT services job.
It does make me wonder why even in 2022 there are some websites that do not prioritize ease of use to make it easier on the end user. Imagine how difficult it would be to get elements into place if you did not have a computer related background.
All this setup reminded me of Gardner’s reading on “A Personal Cyberinfrastructure,” as they state that “To build a cyberinfrastructure that scales without stiflling innovation, that is self-supporting without being isolated or fatally idiosyncratic, we must start with the individual learners” (Gardener, 2009).
The reason why this reminds me of Gardner’s reading is because I am the individual learner. While I could reach out and get help from my peers, ta, or even the internet, there is value in learning how to fix it by yourself. If you do not learn, when the website scales, you may have more difficulties, and run into even bigger issues you could have possibly been able to fix had you learnt what the original problem was.
As I’ve heard in my life before, it’s not the failing you have to worry about, but rather not learning after you fail that you have to worry about.
All in all, as of process post #2, I have created a skeleton for my website in which my various inhabitants (posts) will be moving into as soon as the interior of my website is fully furnished and links to the right categories.
References:
Gardner Campbell. 2009. “A Personal Cyberinfrastructure” EDUCAUSE Review 44 (5).