English 351 - Reflection

Timothy Mills
http://www.inajar.net/351/reflection/class.html

It's strange to be writing a reflection for the class, it seems as though the semester only started last week. But here I am at the end of the class. I knew coming into the class that I would have a pretty good understanding of most of what would be discussed. Considering I've been working on the web since 1995 there is very little in web publishing that I haven't dealt with in some way. Knowing this I was hesitant to sign up for the course, but I figured that if nothing else taking English 351, http://www.english.ilstu.edu/351, would give me an excuse to work on the web and not feel like I was shirking my other responsibilities.

My time in English 351 has also made me a better programmer. Since I used a combination of PHP, http://www.php.net, and MySQL, http://www.mysql.com, on each of my projects I have a much better understanding of what each of those tools is capable of doing. By no means have I used either to their full potential, but I've come closer in the projects I completed this semester than in any prior projects. I'm also writing much better code now, both cleaner and more efficient. I've still got a ways to go, especially in the area of commenting my code, but I'm getting better all the time.

The class has also allowed me a chance to experiment with CSS. I've used CSS in the past, but mainly only for it's text styling capabilities. Last summer (2002) I started work on a community-based site for sharing graffiti. tagged, http://www.inajar.net/tagged, uses some CSS positioning techniques, but also relies on some older table-based layout tricks. Coming into English 351 I wanted to get away from these layout tricks and to start using CSS positioning to its fullest. I realize that CSS positioning is still not supported by every web user, but in the near future it should be. And done correctly, using CSS to create the layout of my pages means that in the future if I want to change the design I only need to edit the CSS file instead of each document. The class gave me a chance to really learn a lot about the capabilities of CSS, just look at in progress, http://www.inajar.org, my personal site, as an example.

I'm also beginning to rethink my entire approach to web design. For quite some time I've largely discounted the usability gurus (like Jakob Nielsen). Don't get me wrong, I've always thought that usability should be part of a designer's worries when creating a site, but I didn't ever agree with the usability gurus that it should be the largest concern. This semester I've been able to explore the emerging field of web experience design, a design philosophy that seems to fit my definition of the web much better. Unlike usability design or straight-up graphic design, experience design considers each area that goes into the creation of a site. That means an experience designer blances usability with graphic design, information architecture, etc. to create the best experience for the user (see my paper "Experience Design: It's Not Just For Disneyland Anymore", http://www.inajar.net/351/other/experience.html, for more on this topic).

In the end I'm very happy that I took this class. I've had a chance to really progress as both a web developer and a web designer. Now I just need to become a better experience designer.