Austin Tran

As I have been working on my theme for the past few week, I have made some great progress. Recently, I have updated my theme to use REM unit. I figured that my design would scale better using REM. Knowing that for sure, I went a head and adding to my stylesheet another set of css code, using for a smaller screen resolution. That what I have been trying to do. Unfortunately, yesterday, due to an big update from window 8, my PC was unable to reboot itself. I managed to fix to problem but I was forced to restore my data back to two week ago. I have lost tons of files that I did not back up yet. So, the theme I am using right now is my current version. Scaling using REM and It works best for 1920 x 1080 screen resolution. It does not include css for smaller screen resolution or mobile design though. I will have to redo that part.

I also did a draft for my online resume.

This is an image of my resume. It will be created in wordpress using HTML, Internal CSS stylesheet. I figure I still need some change before I actually put it up here. I will update my progress as soon as I can.

Austin.

I do not have a specific place to come to to get inspired. I would say my inspiration comes from my curiosity.
Every time I visit a website, I always pay attention to the functionality of the site and the design of it. It becomes one of my habit ever since I started web design. I usually check out the site’s and how it works then I question myself on how to do a similar thing. It would be like, I see a custom search bar on the site and I wonder if I can make one like that for my site too? In my head, I start thinking about the process of doing it, what software would I use, what kind of code would I need. For most of the time, I could not solve the puzzle, that is when I do my research and learn more about this field. However, when I do figure it out in my head, I always try to practice it. Sometimes it does not turn out the way I want it to be, but that kind of keep me busy on it and try harder to figure out how to do my coding better.
So I would say, I am easy to get inspired by all the new things that I have not known about. My problem is that I do not comprehend what I know into any specific form of work. I usually just practice parts by parts. Therefore, when it comes to putting them together. I usually have troubles doing that.

These are resume(s) that I have found really interesting. I love the design of them all especially those with typography involve. I do not know how to describe what I feel. The designs of these resume inspires me. I mean not only in making a resume, I am thinking more about the styles and if I can use the styles on others purposes not only a resume.

Sources: Most of these are collected from WWW.Hongkiat.com. Some of them are collected from WWW.BuzzFeed.Com

4 Design Strategies That Make a Compelling Call to Action By John BoiNott is a great article.

Call to Action (CTA) is an element that I can see a lot now in almost every website that exists, especially businesses’ website where they try to get people to buy their products online, IE: Amazon,… The way these CTA appears to users is really important, from what I can see. A combination of poor, inconsistent  design and fail to give the users instruction on a CTA might lead to a whole lot of sales and traffic to a site. Therefore, it is important to pay attention to the CTA on the site.

John Boinott shares his opinions on the design of CTA base on 4 important points. First of all is “Test user friendliness”. This is applied for everything not just a CTA on a site. An easy to use site and CTA always attract more users, thus will increase the traffic to the site and give higher chance to increase sales. John explains it pretty clear in his article. His next point is “Provide instruction”. John implies is his article ” This is the part where developers tell users what to do”, and that is exactly what it would do. Verbals would help a lot better than just images in this case. For example, throwing in an image of a cart is less efficiency than an image of a cart and the word “Check out”. Therefore, John suggests to make it clear for users. John’s next opinion is more of a designing opinion. It is about the use of colors. He states “Colors and placement are crucial in website design, since a customer’s eye will likely be drawn to certain elements on a page”. That is true for the limited of color that can be use on a website, therefore, some colors would attract users’ eyes more to some certain parts of the page. Placing CTA in area where the attraction is gained is important, for it will draw attention and help us developers achieve what we want.

Overall, I find this article is really helpful. These opinions are great tips for developers, especially for those who are working on a business website.