Last year, we launched our official website, and it took a lot of work from our IT team, especially because most of the team members had little or no experience building a website from scratch.
I had a little chat with David, our I.T. manager, to discuss how his team went about building our website and the challenges they encountered.
How would you describe the whole website-building experience?
In a word, I'll say Adventurous. Sometimes you think you know stuff, but you don't. I had to learn a lot of things by immersion.
Did you have any form of experience building a website before this?
I knew Python (Django) to an extent, and I understood some stuff in HTML. But I knew very little about CSS and nothing about JavaScript.
How difficult was the process?
It wasn't easy. I'm more of a back-end person, so working on the front end with a close deadline was demanding. I had to watch many tutorials, and when I was done, I realized I had only developed the website for desktop mode and had to go back to adjust it for mobile view.
What were the skills you had before that you feel helped you to learn how to build a website as quickly as you did?
I'd start with knowing how to google solutions and previous basic knowledge of HTML & CSS. I also knew how to handle a lot of things in Django.
How did your team members help out in the website-building process?
My teammates were very helpful throughout the whole process. They kickstarted it with ideas for the home page layout, created a drafted sample, and those samples/ideas came together to form what's currently on the website.
I also got assistance with back-end issues from one of my teammates; an example was when none of the media/static files(i.e. images ) were being displayed. Developers who have deployed projects using Django can relate to this. My teammate had handled that issue in a previous project, so he helped me resolve it.
That bug was one of those issues that could keep you in a spot for days, so the help was much appreciated. My team is cooking up something better this year, though, so anticipate.
What was the most difficult part of this project?
That would be between getting humbled by CSS and deploying a Django project. CSS will have you going to find a tutorial to understand what exactly some things are meant for but deploying a Django project had lesser tutorial articles and videos to learn from.
There was a night I was about to close all the tabs and give up; then I saw one tab I had opened the night before. And the instructions on that web page worked. Apparently, I opened it nights back, but I was so sleepy I didn't understand what I was reading, and it was the answer to a three-day problem. I was so happy. The sleep that night was the best in weeks.
How do you feel seeing the website go live?
At first, it was satisfying that people liked the aesthetics, but there was a bug, the one I spoke about earlier, and it was the last thing left. People were sharing the link, but that feeling of guilt when deploying the project when a bug was there ate me up, so when I finally solved it, I was confident and happy to show my work. Felt pretty good.
Thank you for your time, David. Looking forward to everything your team will be cooking this year!
❤️
Jesutofunmi from UPFOLIO.
