Web Form Project Discussion

When making up a web form, the most productive thing I did was look at many, many examples. I think you learn best from seeing what other people implement, then weighing the pros and cons of their work and design, and coming up with a design that incorporates the positives, and leaves out the negatives.

With this particular project, I thought keeping it to a maximum of 5 pages of grouped, relative material seemed to keep the pages short enough so the user wouldn’t have to scroll. I also thought having a progress indicator at the bottom kept the user aware of where he was along the way of the process (I learned this after hearing some feedback from a user).

Keeping the user able to click ‘next’ gave them a feeling of completion and didn’t overwhelm them with too much information on a single page.

The finished web form project can be seen here.

Diversity

Diversity can apply to web design / developing in a variety of different ways. It’s kind of ironic since ‘repetition’ is a very ideal part of designing a nice website, and diversity is about the complete opposite…

My idea of applying the word diversity to web designing is by applying the idea that the kind of people that will visit the site will be vary by a wide margin. It is important when doing the design and planning phase to take these things into account. It is important to have a wide variety of people from different age groups, different computer knowledge levels, and even different browsers and versions to be sure that each person visiting the site can navigate the way that you would like them to be able to, as well as get to where they need to go on the site with relative ease. If you can plan a website that will appeal to a very diverse crowd, then you increase your chances of having a successful website!

Goal Setting

The importance of setting goals is not only a benefit for designing websites, but a benefit for life in general. I don’t know about everyone else, but when I don’t have a “to-do” list, I rarely get anything accomplished worthwhile. I think this has to do with the the way that I am a goal-oriented person and need to have some sort of structure with what I am learning in life, and what I am working on in life.

Goal setting is a great asset in working with a client with respect to doing some website development. If you can set out some goals, both for you and your client, then you have some structure as to when things will get accomplished. It’s no longer a guessing game as to why you are on week six of the project and what the heck are you working on. If you are not as progressed as your goal setting is, then why? Maybe your client hasn’t provided you the necessary information to proceed with the project? Have they fulfilled their goals on time?

In short, setting goals keeps everyone up to speed on what they need to be doing both in life and business. It also gives you a sense of satisfaction when you complete your goals, whether they are short-term or long-term!

Choices

Hmm…..Choices…. I guess I have one right now. Which direction shall I take my monthly blog on choices? I could talk about daily choices, career choices, long-term future choices? Choices are a never ending part of life and with anything in life, I like to ask friends and family for help with my choices. Not necessarily to make them for me, but as more of a reassurance that I’m not making a bad choice and not thinking out the consequences of that particular choice beforehand.

With web design / development, you probably have more choices than you probably thought possible. Millions of colors to choice from, does this color go with my color scheme, is the client going to even like what I’m spending all this time designing? Here is where communication between designer, developer, and client is vital. Let the client be in charge (or at least think they are) of all major choices for their site design, but it is important for you (the designer) to guide them in making the right choices. Remember, you are the expert!

Workplace Ethics

Ethics in the workplace? Wow, where to begin?

A successful business doesn’t necessarily correlate to good ethics, just as an unsuccessful business doesn’t always practice poor ethics. But what does matter is the fact that you have to be proud of the type of ethics that you practice in the workplace, and you are the one that has to sleep at night.

Any person in a specialized profession that has required some sort of training, typically has the upper hand on their clientele. Now, I could tell a client that it is going to take 50 hours to design and develop a website specific to their needs, when I know that it will only take half of that. Will he/she ever find out, much less, any one else? Probably not, and that is where ethics come into play. It is my professional duty to myself and all other web professionals to uphold some sort of standard of ethics when performing my job. If all web professionals dipped to a lower standard of ethics, then the web industry as a whole would suffer.

So please practice high ethical standards in the workplace!

Respect

Respect is of great value in any workplace. Have you ever worked with someone or dealt with someone that you didn’t feel gave you any respect? Well I have, and it’s not a very pleasant experience. In fact, I tend to not want to help them as much or give them my all when working with them. Respect is a mutual thing that must be present between two individuals for an experience to be good.

When working in a web design and development environment, you must have a respect with your client and vice versa. Your client is the one that has the expertise in their particular area and you need to be conscious of what they want. You, as the designer/developer of the website, are the one that has the expertise in your area, and the client needs to respect your suggestions as well. If there is ever a drop in respect between that relationship, the end product will ultimately suffer…

RESPECT one another, it will get you places…

Creation of new school website

Got a new website designed for my web developer school through Francis Tuttle. Check it out at this link.

The biggest struggle for me as a developer was coming up with a solid design that I thought looked halfway decent to visitors. Once coming up with a final design that I decided would work for what I wanted to achieve, the coding and CSS came fairly easy. The biggest help that I found through this process was putting my design up for critiquing from my fellow classmates. Although I didn’t agree with everything that was said, most of it was very, very helpful in the whole process of re-designing my website. It’s always nice to get outside opinions about your own work although sometimes it isn’t exactly what you had in mind .

A Positive Attitude: Underrated

One of the most underrated things pertaining to working with others, dealing with others, or doing business with others is the benefits of having a positive attitude. In fact, even working alone on a project can benefit from you having a positive attitude. In my personal experience, being in a good mood and keeping a positive attitude while working on any project seems to speed up the process of completing a project. More creativity seems to come from having a positive attitude, as well as less frustration (which is always a debbie-downer…).

Have you ever been in a great mood while out running errands and come across a person with a crappy attitude? It’s amazing how contagious that is, and how that kind of attitude can turn you off from that place of business. Now I’m the first to understand that you can’t ALWAYS be in a great mood, or ALWAYS have a positive attitude when things don’t seem to be going your way, but just think about how much more pleasant it is to deal with nice people and positive attitudes as opposed to negative-minded individuals.

Have a great day!

Troubleshooting PHP Code

Talk about a task at hand when working through your first course on PHP code… This stuff is a huge pain in the arse when trying to follow along in a book that isn’t always compatible with what server you are currently working with while implementing MySQL.  However, I am a little fortunate in the fact that my browser did throw a bunch of helpful exceptions at me when trying to work through the kinks of getting clean code to the browser for accurate interpretation.

First off, the syntax of PHP is relatively easy to spot when you have a minor error such as a missing semicolon, closing parenthesis or missing bracket.  The trickier part is when intertwining MySQL into the mix, you can get errors on lines that don’t always match up to where the browser may hint to you.  The key to deciphering these (I’ve found out) is to check your query first off.  A small typo can throw the whole thing off and throw an exception at you that you don’t have  a valid query.  Another key thing to check for, is that you don’t have typos when trying to link to your database.  Be sure to check that you have the proper database name, table name, and password lined up correctly.  It’s always a good thing to start off with a very basic SELECT * FROM XxdatabasexX and be sure that your connection is set up properly.  If your database connection is set up properly then you can proceed to throw more advanced queries that way and see what happens. Another nice thing when using phpMyAdmin is the fact that if you are having trouble using your PHP code to interact with MySQL, then you can bypass that directly with your query and just manually type your query in to the phpMyAdmin interface to see that you are coming up with a valid query anyway!

And don’t be afraid to insert a bunch of echo statements in the middle of loops, etc. to see what loops your code is executing and get the value of different variables only to confirm that they actually are holding the values that you expect them to, in order to accurately execute the code you expect them to!

 

There are a bunch of troubleshooting techniques with all sorts of code developing, and these are just a few of the techniques that I found helpful in my struggles with PHP and MySQL!

Teamwork

Teamwork! A vital part of any career and any part of life for that matter. There will be a point that you will come across a problem in life/work that simply can’t be solved by yourself. The most successful people in life are not afraid to ask for help. They are fully aware that getting advice from people that have been there before is a valuable asset to have.

Take web development/design for example, everyone starts off with the same experience, NONE! To be able to get to the point of being able to self-sustain and maintain a website, you must have gotten some sort of advice from someone, whether it be a teacher, fellow student, or a wide variety of books. Teamwork is a very important part of any educational experience. The fact is, not everybody sees everything the same way. What may look good to you, could be perceived as “ugly” to a majority of the visitors to a site.  By taking in the responsibility of working with others, you can gather a variety of opinions and combine them all to create a wider audience appeal.

In closing, don’t be so stubborn to think that you can create something all by yourself and expect everyone around you to see it in the same light as you do. Approach problems with the idea that making yourself available to constructive criticism and input from others around you is a good thing! Whenever you get stuck with a problem, remember that others have had that same problem before you, and teamwork is a valuable asset to have!