Adventures in Adulthood Blog Building Geek Stuff Memoir Web Page Design
by Stacey
Diary of a Novice Web Designer
Day 1: Attend my first Intermediate HTML class. Discover that the final project is building a web site with requirements such as “Must have at least one use of event-based ‘feature’ javascript,” “Must have at least 8 examples of ‘SEOed’ text / markup,” and “Must work in both Internet Explorer 6/7 and Firefox with AND without javascript.” Hyperventilate and consider dropping class.
Day 8: Attend second class. Still in state of shock from reading syllabus. Come out of coma long enough to realize I haven’t done much of anything yet and I’m probably in over my head. Decide to wing it.
Day 13: Build much of my site for the class. An elating sense of competency washes over me.
Day 14: Confident that if I can build a site for my class, I can reproduce it for the Web, I register a domain and find a hosting provider. Minutes later remember that I have no idea how to set up either.
Day 15 - 24: Procrastinate.
Day 25: Read “Getting Started” guides multiple times. Successfully set up hosting, database, and WordPress content management system. Begin to believe I can actually pull this off. Tinker around with CSS. Decide there’s a snowball’s chance in hell of me customizing a WordPress template to the look and feel of my site for class. Sigh and despair.
Day 26: Take little sister to New York City to see Lion King for her birthday. Decide it was a stupid idea to begin site the afternoon before this trip.
Day 27: Suffer repeated failed attempts to create something like my project site. Give up on trying to build my own theme. Download one instead. Fight the urge to weep. Begin to make “minor” modifications.
Day 28: Obsess over site for hours.
Day 29: Obsess over site for hours.
Day 30: Begin to understand how templates work. Realize I might be able to reproduce project site after all.
Day 31: The Captain pops into my office to see how I’m doing. Greeted with “Internet Explorer is the devil!” Stops checking on my progress.
Day 32: Finally get site to work in Firefox and IE. Refuse to acknowledge other browsers exist.
Day 33: Obsess over site for hours.
Day 34: Direct blog buddies to hot new site and take a much needed break.
If it works in Firefox, you shouldn’t need to worry much about all the rest of the browsers. They pretty much fall in line. The trick is making it work in IE and then in all the rest. That’s how Web design is… IE vs. everyone else. Welcome to hell. 
Because I care . . .
I did eventually check to make sure the site looks ok in Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, Opera, and Netscape.