Process:
My experience setting up my WordPress website was overall pretty good. I found that as long as I carefully followed the instructions given for each component that needed to be set up, I did not become confused or frustrated. However, I could imagine that if I had failed to perfectly follow the instructions at certain points, I could have gotten very lost. I also imagine that if I had edited the theme of my website using coding and not the theme editor, then things may have been much more difficult. This being said, I am very pleased with the way my website ended up visually looking. You can visit it at https://pegraml.sites.carleton.edu !
Potential:
With this website, I could see myself accomplishing a few different things. Firstly, I could use it to catalogue all of the digital humanities projects I will have created over the course of this class, in a sort of online museum. Furthermore, I could also catalogue my written reflections on these projects. Alternatively, I could use it to share my thoughts on a variety of other topics that interest me. Perhaps I could turn it into a personal blog in which I share my thoughts on new music that I like, or perhaps even more general cultural critiques.
Benefits? Drawbacks?
As far as the drawbacks of hosting one’s own website instead of signing up for a service or social media account go, I can only really think of one. A professional service or social media platform will have top of the line, professional designers that have already created an excellent vehicle to share whatever you are trying to share, so you yourself will have to become quite proficient in the intricacies of digital design if you are to hold a candle to this level of design expertise. Otherwise, hosting your own website is nothing but a boon. It gives one much more flexibility to share whatever one wants, using any form and/or language. While it takes some learning, one also has exponentially more precise control over how one’s own website looks and functions. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, whatever ideas one shares on a personal website aren’t going to be stifled by the nefarious algorithms of any mega-corp–here’s looking at you, Meta.
Hi Luke,
Your website is so cool! I love the dragon on the front page. I’m glad that you did not have much difficulty with setting up your website. I personally found the experience to be a bit frustrating, but once I adjusted it was very enjoyable! I agree that hosting your own website gives a lot more control, which is a great benefit!
I love your color scheme!! This is by far the coolest layout I’ve seen! My only small critique would be the all-black menu screen. Despite the white text, it took me longer than I’d like to admit to find where I was supposed to click! Cool site though, and I love the font!