This project was, by far, the most challenging, time-consuming, and yet rewarding of the year. I decided to do a speculative redesign of my first project in this class for a few reasons. One reason is that when I created the first project, I felt limited by my knowledge of web development and coding. Second, I wanted to explore WordPress further and challenge myself. And lastly, I wanted to be able to visually see my progress throughout the semester. My first project looked like this:

At the time, I was proud of small achievements, such as coding a navigation bar, changing font color and size, adding elements like boxes, bolding, italicizing, shadows, borders, underlines, and adjusting image sizes. However, now that I can develop an interactive website with elements and effects I never would have dreamed of adding in simple HTML, I am proud to say that I have successfully redesigned my Project One website.

When I started building this website, I had a few goals in mind. Firstly, I wanted to experiment with plugins. I wanted to add an interactive map, galleries, and special effects to enhance user experience and diversify the site. I was able to do this with the plugins WP Maps, Modula, B Carousel, and Animate In View.

With WP Maps, I had to face a few obstacles. At first, I had to change the settings on my computer and on WordPress to configure the API address so that the map could function. Then, I had to experiment with the features available in the free version I downloaded. I originally created a map with over 15 pins of different restaurants and dessert places around Athens. I had planned on making several maps for various aspects of this website. However, after I had created that map and designed a page using it, I realized that the free version only allows you to create one map per site. So, I decided to delete the map and recreate it to depict tailgating spots. This was frustrating and time-consuming, but overall, I am happy with my decision and feel that it was a better use of an interactive map on this site.

All of the other plugins were fairly easy to figure out. With Modula and B Carousel, I was able to display images more interactively. I adjusted the radius of most captions, titles, and visibility. I used Modula on almost every page/post on this site, and I used B Carousel on my Gameday Guide page. Animate in View was also relatively simple to use. I strategically chose blocks to animate and adjusted where the fade-in was from and how often.

One of the most considerable efforts that went into creating this website was the sheer amount of content in it. Overall, I created five pages and five posts, each fully fleshed out with a variety of information and images. Compiling over 150 pictures and accurate information mixed with opinions took a lot of time. I also planned out which restaurants, dessert spots, study spots, boutiques, and concert venues I planned to use and spent time walking around Athens to capture many of the photos I ended up using. Overall, I am incredibly proud of what I have created. I allotted a lot of time and energy to overcoming obstacles, working with the theme, templates, and plugins, and gathering content to create an interactive, user-friendly, fully fleshed-out website.