Introduction

In the previous essay, “getting to know website development”, I covered different website development tools that an individual has when starting the process of web development. After the essay, I embarked on a task to create my first website and learn more about the practicalities of website creation. This essay will be going through the learning process and reflecting on the project.

Picking The Right Platform

The initial step to start building a website was to choose a platform appropriate for the goal of the project. The goal was to create a website within a week, so using a website builder with drag-and-drop features was in my opinion the best way to approach the challenge. In the previous essay I compared the two most popular website builders, Wix and Squarespace. Based on the information I gathered then, I decided to lay the groundwork for the website in Squarespace, since I wanted to focus mostly on the visual appearance of the website.

The Experience With Squarespace

Squarespace as a platform was a user-friendly experience. The website has hundreds of different templates to choose from based on your specific needs. There are multiple categories that allow you to filter the templates and choosing the right one was simple. Editing the templates is built on “blocks”. Blocks are preset features that most websites need, such as text, images, videos etc. Adding these features in was very simple and user friendly. There were also built-in features for marketing, translations, analytics, scheduling, and e-commerce. Overall, Squarespace seemed to have all the tools and add-ons necessary to create a modern website under one platform, which made it easy for a beginner to create a functional website with all necessary elements attached to it. The website is currently still a prototype, since it has some unfinished elements, such as booking and direct online sales. However, the visual design is complete, and it has all the necessary pages implemented.

Reflection & Conclusion

The project itself took about eight working hours to complete. What I discovered during this project was that it’s quite easy and fast to create a working website. The platforms available offer a lot of tools for the developer to work with to create a visually pleasing website with e-commerce and marketing options integrated into it. However, I realized that for the editor to have material to work with, you should have a lot of different types of content ready to be used. Overall, I would say that the challenge was a success. I now know how to create a functional website for myself or a possible client. If and when I choose to create other websites in the future, I will most likely be experimenting with other website builders as well, so that I have a better understanding of the options available.