One of my favorite aspects of my Media and Wed Design class is the hands-on approach that comes with learning new skills. The assignment this week was to create an HTML webpage. Following along with tutorials from W3Schools, I used their HTML editor to write my own lines of code and test run in real time. Some important critera for this project included: a heading, embedded picture, introductory paragraph, website and email links, and a color change. These are the basic elements and attributes that make up HTML webpages.
Technically, this is not my first encounter with code. Back in high school, I remember briefly partcipating in a coding bootcamp. Some of the guidelines for HTML coding seemed familiar, like using angle brackets (< and >) to define tags. I think the main obstacle I encountered was forgetting to add closing tags, especially when I was working with a longer piece of content or nesting elements within each other. To resolve this issue, I regularly tested my code using the W3Schools editor. Another obstacle came up when I wanted to change the color of a single word, green, to appear the color green. The W3Schools tutorials did not have instructions on how to isolate a word for a style change, so had to search for a separate tutorial. I learned that I could apply the <span> tag to target a specific section of text for style. This will come in handy in the future when I need the code to perform a similar function.
Overall, I learned that coding truly is like learning another language. The good thing is that I enjoy lingusitics and language learning! I also find HTML to be much more logical than human language. For example, it makes sense that an empty element would not need a closing tag. I was surprised to find my background in English and copyediting helpful for paying close attention to the line-by-line code. While some may find it tedious, I like focusing on the smaller details. The nice thing is that creating a website allows for both detail-orientated and big picture thinking. While my first webpage was simple, and definitely not aesthetically-pleasing, I’m looking forward to learning and integrating design concepts that enhance UI/UX.
Kim Granados 