As I approach graduation, I find myself most interested in jobs in the tech startup sector, despite my BA degree at UCSB being in political science and writing and literature. As such I am creating a portfolio website in order to showcase the skills that I will be learning over the next year.  I plan to utilize Wix initially to create a prototype, unfortunately my ambitious academic load of 20 units over the past 6 weeks has prevented me from attempting the entire website from scratch using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript within the course's timeframe. Nevertheless, the Wix prototype will mark the crucial first step in this journey.

 

​My choice of Wix as the initial platform for my portfolio website stems from its user-friendly and versatile website builder, aligning seamlessly with the goals I have set for this project. Wix offers extensive design options, flexibility, and an intuitive drag-and-drop interface, making it an ideal choice for creating a visually appealing and functional portfolio website.

 

Beyond a traditional CV, I envision my portfolio website as an interactive experience that captivates visitors. To achieve this, I attempted to employ User Experience design principles, weaving together my website with three core design principles: 'friendly,' 'original,' and 'impressive.' I think I've achieved the 'friendly' output with a Sans font, bright blue and white, and calming images. 'Impressive' has been difficult to achieve as that will require coding prowess that I have yet to develop, as will 'original.'

 

The goal of this website is to showcase programming projects that I have begun to complete, as a sort of live resume. I hope to integrate these projects into the fabric of the website itself. In light of Wix' offerings, this iteration of my website serves as both a resume and as an offer of services, as one of Wix’ most advanced offerings is a robust and easy to use shop and payment processing system. As such I created a web page offering full stack web development services, with a purchase platform that is easy to use and actually works. Additionally, I made a website outlining potential services to offer. I used stock images as it is difficult to find any images related to programming while still maintaining a light-colored friendly atmosphere.

 

Some features I intend to add to the final product but were not possible with Wix' features are as follows: I intend to create original graphics and illustrations to simplify complex concepts and complement project descriptions with engaging anecdotes from my journey to becoming a pre-professional in the field. Interactive code snippets would enable visitors to explore the raw and polished aspects of my work. Pop-up quizzes would add an element of interactivity, requiring correct answers for access to certain webpages. While I am intrigued by the idea of a dynamic background based on user interactions, I will be cautious not to detract from the website's core purpose of information display. Parallax scrolling, which enhances user engagement, is another feature I aim to incorporate. Given the current prominence of machine learning and artificial intelligence, I plan to integrate a basic chatbot that can answer questions related to my profile.