Documenting Design

“If it isn’t written down it hasn’t happened”

Documenting the journey of MDEF is all about having a place to look back at the work you have done and creating a journal however you want. I chose to work with a website building tool for my portfolio as it allowed me the ease of creating the webpages I envisioned in my mind. I used my website to create blogposts about the courses I took and also to help others with problems they might face if they choose to use the same program I do.

Handy Tips:

Throughout the process of documenting my masters into this website, I ran into various problems and things that blocked my progress. To help others that might run into similar problems I collected some of my solutions into this database.

Mobirise vs. MKDocs

There are many platforms you can use when creating your website and I think the important thing to remember is what is important for you. For me personally that was focussing on the documentation and look and feel, rather then the coding. While with Mobirise you have set building blocks you can use for free it is a easy and quick interface. With MKDocs once you understand the basics you can build anything you wish, however the time needed to understand coding and creating the website of your dreams will be more intensive. So keep this in mind.

https://mobirise.com/help/GitHub-publish-371.html

Linking Mobirise to Github

One of the tasks I assisted with during class was linking my classmates' GitHub accounts to their Mobirise, enabling them to publish directly from the Mobirise Desktop and ensure everything functions as intended. The video demonstrates me explaining the basics to a classmate, and you can use it to follow along. Alternatively, the link below the video provides additional assistance.

Generating Personal Graphics

I am not the best graphic designer out there and while I do enjoy creating a persona of myself, I wanted an easy way to be able to share my view on the courses as introduction images. Anyone who also feels this I truly recommend using Adobe Illustrator and generating images to your liking. Then you can use your personalized figure and add it into different scenes. This saved me a lot of time on curating personalized images.

Documentation Weekly Reflections

Class 1 (05-10-2023):

This week marked the start of our master's documentation journey, introducing us to a new format that departs from the traditional logbook which I had used in my bachelors. Instead, we were tasked with creating a website as a collection of works, reflections and anything that might interest us. While I was used to coding and website building, the shift to using Github and MKDocs was a bit of a challenge. While I was able to set up my Github and edit the basics from the template, I still felt a bit restricted in my process as I was spending more time trying to code what I wanted then actually making the content. I did however spend some time trying to look at possible templates to use in the future and helping out other classmates who had no experience in coding.

Class 2 (10-10-2023):

This week was a challenging week but also gave me the most growth in the interaction of my website. In the class we were introduced to Mobirise and after a quick look at the platform I was hooked. I had noticed that I could spend more time on making the website look how I wanted and less time on the coding so I started to build the website you are currently on. With the discoveration that Mobirise could then be linked to my personal Github account I was free to create what I wanted within the blocks given with Mobirise. Once again as I understood the concept quite quickly I helped my fellow classmates with their troubles.

Class 3 (17-10-2023):

A short class in which we went through the various websites of other students. It was interesting to see what other had done and which feedback was received. Also the day I realized I should be documenting my documenting and so another page was added to the website. One where I reflect on my process but also hope to share my tips with others. Pablo was positive about my website just warned me to perhaps create an 404 error page just in case someone ends up somewhere they aren’t supposed to, or to ensure that all the links were in order.

Class 4 (07-11-2023):

Today received some valuable feedback from classmates about my website and the posts that I have written. Heard that they found the layout clear and that everything was complete. Next to that they enjoyed the course images I generated using AI. Next to this I learned that I might want to think a bit about the icons I used for the phone and email. However I sadly can not change these due to constraints with the Mobirise application.