Website Goals, plans and errors I encountered
The main goal of my website is to give people clear and reliable information about the Climate Crisis (AC 2.1). I decided to focus on this topic as it’s an urgent issue that requires immediate global action. It affects every living creature on Earth and has already made some species extinct (AC 2.1). I don’t have a specific target audience as climate change is a universal threat, this website is just for people who want to learn more about global warming and what we can do to help (AC 2.1).
To meet the requirements for my website, I chose a navigation bar at the top of each page. This ensured that the user could go to any page the same way they could from any website and that any of the 11 pages were easily accessible (AC 2.1). Keeping the layout the same on every page makes it easier for people to focus on the information instead of how to navigate through the website.
By adding a survey, this gave the user an educational and engaging experience that would challenge their own carbon footprint and contributions towards the climate (AC 2.1). I wanted this to be interactive so that users would actually think about their own carbon footprint rather than just reading through a bunch of text, making the learning process feel more personal and impactful for the user.
I considered the technical factors that influence the performance and speed of my website (AC 4.1), so I used Vim editor as it’s fast and lightweight. I deployed the website to GitHub Pages for fast and accessible servers, which helps the website load faster for any user who visits. One major problem I ran into when doing this, was that I was unaware of the importance of having a page named “index.html”. Originally, my home page was named “home.html”, this caused the public domain to load my "ReadMe" file on my public repository instead. So I changed its name to index.html and this resolved the issue.
Building my own database is complicated, unnecessary and time consuming so I used FormSubmit to save responses and connected it to my personal email address to view any of them after submission. This kept the backend simple while still ensuring that the survey functioned properly.p>
A huge priority of mine was security and legal safety (AC 4.2). Since my website includes a survey, I had to think about how to protect user’s information such as their names and suggestions (AC 4.2), so I chose FormSubmit as it uses encryption on every submission. This means that any data sent off would be scrambled, protecting user’s data from hackers trying to steal information. I also made sure to only ask for basic information to keep the survey private.
Legally, I followed the copyright laws by using references and images from public domains and cited my sources in a separate document. This is also an ethical choice as it gives credit to the scientists who contributed to the research I used.
Summary
Building this website not only made me more aware of my environment and how I can reduce my carbon footprint, but it also improved my programming. It pushed me to learn new skills such as Github Pages deployment, some Vim tricks and basic web design. I used w3schools and youtube tutorials to learn key parts of my website, such as the navigation bar and how to use FormSubmit.