You and I and Semantics
06 Oct 2016
Semantic UI was the bane of my existence for the past week. Okay, honestly it was not quite completing the multi hour block of video lessons that really made it tough. I thought I would have more time during the weekend. But the weekend had other plans.
During this module, we got to graphically remake the site of our choice using Semantic UI, and that was definitely one of the highlights of my week. It was pretty neat seeing the variety of different sites everyone in the class chose. I think it really speaks to the diverse tastes found in ICS 316. I just wish I had more time to complete the remake of the site I chose, since I was only completed some parts of the top of the page. Now I wonder if it would be possible to create a nice image slider in using Semantic UI, since that was a nice component of the site that I chose.
Getting the CSS, images, backgrounds and alignment arranged pixel perfectly was pretty frustrating at times. It seemed like when I wanted something full width it suddenly had margins on each side. I had a lot of troubles with margins. Conversely, though, it was very rewarding when something actually displayed correclty! Figuring out about adding the line of jQuery that enabled dropdown menus was amazing!
I’ve worked a tiny bit with bootstrap in the past, and I appreciated how it worked with grids and responsiveness and mobile platforms.
I really like learning more about UI design! This week’s other informational links in the module were pretty useful for my web development projects at work. I’m still working on refining my aesthetic. I want to get to the point where I can justify every part of my pages’ designs. I want every part of the page to contribute to my endgame goals. A lot of my aesthetic is just influenced by current trends that other sites follow without actually understanding the reason behind them. The social aspect of design is a science unto itself as well. You have to consider your market’s demographic and how that influences their devices of choice, browsers, platforms, and visual tastes.
At work I’m thinking about integrating a black and white full width image at the top and then adding coloring to the call to action button for emphasis. But I also wonder if that would appeal to a middle age demographic?
Lately I’ve been recognizing value of simplicity and making things easier to understand rather than needlessly complicating things. I still dream of a future with more intuitive framework development. The learning curve for frameworks isn’t impossibly difficult, but it’s still quite a barrier of entry for anyone interested in web design.