I had to snatch the domain name brendanjonesrebandt.com before the other Brendan Jonesrebandts acted. I than sat on the domain for a little bit as my web design experience was limited. I had taken a course at UCSD that included a component of web design. Unfortunately that course was apparently way outdated. We learned how to use nesting tables to control the layout of your content and barely even touched on css, which was optional.
Having a background in HCI (Human Computer Interaction) I was loath to use any content management systems as they all seemed to lack some features that I thought essential. I also found it difficult to modify someone else’s code to get the effect I wanted without ruining some other portion. I went through a series of ideas for building a website and what would be on it.
- I started with the idea that I could create a family site for my, you guessed it, my family and give each person a page.
- Then I decided instead I could build a website as a sort of online resume.
- After I started building video games in java and could publish Java Applets online, I decided my website would be a great place to showcase that.
- I really started doing some research and began putting together a website to feature my java games.
- I was able to incorporate a blog feed, an instagram feed, and my java applets that were identified as a security threat. (apparently the stylesheet decided to go on strike as well)
- I decided rather than continuing to custom build the entire website so I could avoid the little things that detracted from a good user experience, I would instead use WordPress and at least have a user experience.
The evolution of the site was quite unexpected. There are still lots of things that could be done to improve the user experience, but I had to delegate. I started on a mission to find the least offending themes and plugins so I would be freed up for content creation. So far so good. Not great, but rather than continuing spending time planning to attain greatness, I decided it was more important to push forward with good and iterate to greatness, more of an agile development process. There was always something new coming out that I would have to stop and inspect. The site would never get off the ground at the rate I was modifying everything.