In this blog post, I will reflect on my experience using WordPress to create my DoOO website. I will also discuss the skills that I have gained throughout this process and how I plan on developing my website in the future.
To create my website, I followed several tutorials. Although these tutorials were useful, they did not explore the more technical aspects of WordPress, such as coding. This meant that I faced several challenges when creating my website. One of the main difficulties I faced was creating a logo that had a transparent background so that it blended in with the website background regardless of the colour or image selected. When I first uploaded the logo, the background image did not disappear. As a result, the checked background of the logo sharply contrasted to the initial green website background— causing the viewer’s attention to be fixed on the logo alone (Jones 2012). To make the logo transparent, I used an editing programme called Gimp to remove the background and followed an online tutorial to change the CSS code so that transparent backgrounds automatically disappeared.
Once I had finished my logo, I struggled to select an appropriate theme and theme colours because I was unsure of my target audience. Although green conveyed a youthful, less serious tone that would appeal to a younger audience, I chose a white theme because it was more mature and would help me appeal to a wider audience. Furthermore, white is associated with new beginnings— symbolising the beginning of my academic journey (Kress and Van Leeuwen 2009). Therefore, through creating this website, my decision-making and problem-solving skills have improved immensely.
In addition to creating a professional and polished environment through the design of the website, I used Lyda.com to manage the internal workings of the website to ensure that visitors had a positive user experience. For instance, I changed the comment settings so that comments must be approved manually. I also installed an anti-spam plugin to ensure that any irrelevant or inappropriate content posted by commenters is removed. This was done to ensure that my website maintains an overall professional and positive tone.
Even though the anti-spam plugin will safeguard visitors, user experience could be improved further by adding a night mode plugin. The night mode plug-in would allow users to change the bright white theme to a darker theme, making it easier for users to read posts late at night or in dark lighting. Moreover, the plug-in will increase the appeal of my website to younger audiences who are accustomed to using platforms that provide such features. By not adding this plugin, users may be unimpressed with the lack of user-customisation my website currently offers and decide not to view posts. Hence, I will add this plug-in to improve user-experience.
Another feature that I would like to install is a plugin called BuddyPress, which will further elevate user experience. The plugin allows users to respond to one another in a thread and favourite comments, which is a common feature of many popular platforms. Therefore, by adding this plugin, this would create an interactive experience between users, and encourage users to continue to visit my website and comment on posts. While I did consider the possibility that this may encourage negative as well as positive interactions between commenters, comments must be manually. This will ensure that threads do not become inappropriate or hostile.
Despite the improvements I wish to make to develop my digital skills and increase user experience, I have managed to successfully install a social-network sharing plug-in that allows users to share posts on various social networking sites. While I did consider the possibility of posts being shared inappropriately as I am unable to control comments on other platforms, this will increase readership and encourage more people to visit my website. Thus, the positive implications outweigh the negatives.
While the themes provided by WordPress make it extremely easy to set up the website and make posts, my creativity was limited. For instance, it is difficult to customise themes beyond the set options and add certain features to posts. Therefore, I did consider using other DoOO applications to create my website. However, as I researched the features of other DoOO applications, it became apparent that many of their features were similar to, if not worse than, WordPress’ features.
Nevertheless, unlike WordPress, Omeka makes it much easier for users to add features, such as descriptions and subjects to create a narrative around posts. These features allow the content creator to almost tease the audience and entice them further by offering a synopsis of the post— increasing the appeal of posts. Whereas, the likelihood of visitors clicking on posts made using WordPress is dependent on the title of the post and/or the image used as the cover. Furthermore, some WordPress themes make it difficult for users to change the font title. This means that posts are not that eye-catching. Therefore, I may switch to Omeka in the future to increase the possibility that users will view posts.
However, it is possible to add such features in WordPress by changing the code of the theme without having to change the theme entirely. Therefore, I may use further tutorials on Lynda.com in the future as this would help me to improve my coding skills. I would then be able to apply these skills to future websites (e.g. a forum for English students to discuss academic work) and other digital projects. Therefore, instead of using Omeka, I will look for other online learning resource that inform users how to explore more advanced features of WordPress and truly understand how websites work.
In conclusion, although I am pleased with my current website, there are still several changes that I wish to make to improve the experience of visitors. Moreover, I hope to expand my skills as I feel that currently they are quite limited.
References
Jones, R. (2012) Discourse analysis: A resource book for students. New York: Routledge
Kress, G., & Van Leeuwen, T. (2006) Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Design. London: Routledge
