Purpose
The ultimate goal is to create a blog website where I can articulate why it is good and identify its shortcomings. This website will not only allow me to share my thoughts and feelings but also showcase my personal development projects.
Another reason for doing this is that, after collaborating with an iOS engineer recently, I realized I haven’t been paying enough attention to certain aspects of programming, such as Unit Testing. This is crucial for developing stable and maintainable programs; it’s not just a superficial process. So, I want to start by building this simple blog application, reshaping my development and design mindset, and rediscovering the joy of creating things without feeling overly anxious 🎉. Each of the following points will later be shared in related blog posts under different tags.
To that end, I’ve created a project plan. This project has no strict deadline. My hope is to complete it at my own pace, free from stress.
Design
I plan to use this blog website as an opportunity to start learning design, creating a simple set of fonts, colors, and layouts. For color schemes, I’ll draw inspiration from Douban, while for fonts, I’ll choose something that works well for both Chinese and English text. Additionally, I’ll make some design modifications to the existing functionality. In other words, I’ll focus on design first, then move on to implementing features.
Given my engineering background, I think the following approach would work best:
- Start learning with the book Refactoring UI, and practice with Figma.
- Learn Figma basics by watching this beginner tutorial.
- Once familiar with the basics, follow this video tutorial to step through designing elements like fonts, colors, and buttons.
Development
- My primary focus will be on learning Tailwind CSS to complement the design work. Tailwind CSS and design go hand in hand, somewhat similar to the relationship between SwiftUI and design, enabling the creation of visually appealing UI quickly.
- I’ll also take the opportunity to learn the Astro framework.
- There are plenty of resources for learning the above two technologies, so I won’t list them here.
Marketing
- I might consider sharing some of the building process on social media 📺.