In Winter Quarter 2009, I completed an internship, or Directed Fieldwork (DFW), at the Seattle Municipal Archives. To get class credit for the DFW, students are required to post information about the DFW site and the activities the students engaged in during the quarter on the Internet. I decided to go above and beyond the assignment by building my own Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) site instead of using a template site like Wordpress or Google, or using a web design program, like Dreamweaver or Frontpage. I used Microsoft Visual Web Developer 2005 edition and did all of my own coding.

 In designing the website for my DFW, I used ideas from LIS 515 to make a site that is as user-friendly as possible. Components like colors, page titles, link locations and text size were all carefully considered as I did my best to make the site easy to read and navigate.

 For the code, I drew heavily on concepts I had learned in INFX 503, such as basic HTML, building and using Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and the best practices of coding. Because it was my first time building a website from scratch, I did run into some technical difficulties. However, I was able to iron out most of these, and found that, as I continued to work on the site, I got more and more comfortable thinking about and using HTML.

 My site is not exactly as I had imagined it, but I am pleased with how it looks and works. It was a good first experience and a solid foundation that I built upon when constructing this portfolio website. I know I will look back on it for inspiration when I embark on my next coding project.

To see the Directed Fieldwork Website that I created, click on the link below:

Directed Fieldwork