Heroes of the User Experience
22 Feb 2024The Power of Bootstrap 5
I have been feeling powerful as this past week and a half, we have been studying and creating User Interface Frameworks in class. Aside from wrestling my uncooperative images that refuse to center, logos with margins that are so off, or my footer code being annoying, I have truly been enjoying HTML, CSS, and Bootstrap so far :)
Although UI frameworks are not easy to wrap your head around in the beginning, it is important to learn for those wanting to get into the UX/UI field. Bootstrap 5 can look scary at first, but once you start practicing and playing around with it more often, it’ll all make sense. I especially enjoy when I am practicing similar lines of code, and finally get the “ohh that makes sense” when I understand a function and get more familiarity. I enjoy how bootstrap 5 is compatible with just any browser. It allows for many customization options and I especailly appreciate how once implemented, intelliJ can apply the closing of a <div> or add the class=” “ tags for me. It is a special tool and I am glad that I got to explore it.
My attempt at the MLC Website
Original MLC Website
I attempted to recreate the Malama Learning Center web page. I know, it is indeed hard to tell which one the original is, sigh. Just kidding. I thought that this webpage would be interesting to recreate as I needed more practice creating the navbar as well as overlaying text on an image like this one. The footer took me quite a long time to recreate though, as the section that says “follow us” could not cooperate with me…apparently.
Is it even worth the time and patience?
As a student who is curious to know about UI framework and has talked about that being a potential career, this is the return investment and time frustration that I know will be invaluable to me in the future. We learn things every day to get familiar with what we aim to practice in the future. Three weeks go, I knew NOTHING about Bootstrap, CSS, was newly introduced to HTML. Three weeks later? I know at least something about it. I experienced it. Learning something new is not easy and is not always going to be happy-go-lucky. Challenging myself to gain knowledge on something new, is a style of growth in both my personal and professional endeavors.
Can a software engineer benefit from UI frameworks? You bet it. It’ll be the best of both worlds.