Journal 3

After much deliberation and genuine frustration, I have given up on Dreamweaver.

Okay, not so much given up but switched my creative efforts to WordPress. And what's great is that now I actually have theories to support that switch, or at least a supported rationale for the switch.

I realized last night that my centrisms were not in line with what the project needed to be. While making the site in Dreamweaver, I was tool-centric, but because that is not technically one of Gibbon's centrisms, I can best relate it to a Media-Centrism: "Media-centric designs place great emphasis on the constructs related to the instructional medium. The technology itself holds great attraction for new designers" (Gibbons, 2003, pg. 22).

Coming into this project, I knew I wanted some first-hand experience designing and creating a website in Dreamweaver. My LSTC had mentioned that Dreamweaver would be an important tool for me to learn in case I become an LSTC at a school where Dreamweaver is used to create the website. Over the past few weeks, I have spent several hours figuring out Dreamweaver, and in reality, I have created a pretty good rough draft of a site. I even showed screen shots to my client, and she loved the design!

So, then, why am I leaving Dreamweaver in the dust?

I was way too tool focused these past few weeks, ignoring everything else but figuring out how Dreamweaver works. And it was to the point of frustration. While the site was looking as I expected, I believe I made a serious mess out of my CSS. It was incredibly difficult for me to modify.

And I also had a revelation last night: Because I am making this site for a client, it will be turned over to her once the project is complete; I will not be linked to this project forever. My client has zero knowledge of Dreamweaver, not to mention that I've probably made such a mess of my CSS that any knowledgeable web designer would likely have to trash the entire thing and start over from scratch. So, my media-centrism and focus on the tool would have left my client in the dust once the project is over.

I got so wrapped up in my tool that I forgot to consider my client and the context in which I am working. The good news is that I do feel like I have a decent-enough handle on Dreamweaver that I would be able to make any necessary changes on a school website- just not enough that I could build one from scratch.

So, last night, I made the switch to WordPress, and man, was that easy! In a matter of two hours, I was able to make the site to the point where I had left off in DreamWeaver. We even got her a domain name!

The site can be found here: jessicanicolepics.com

References:
Gibbons, A. S. (2003). What and how do designers design? TechTrends, 47(5), 22-25.