My Niche?: CSS and Responsive Design in Tech

17 Mar My Niche?: CSS and Responsive Design in Tech

The tech community is very unique and diverse. These traits are what make the tech sector so welcoming to people of all different backgrounds. The concepts that are introduced and expected to be learned can prove to be slightly challenging in the beginning, however, they are not impossible to learn if the person, or in this case, myself continues to be patient. Being understanding of the fact that this is a new concept and it cannot be learned overnight is something that continues to plague me. I did find this week to be unusually difficult because we were introduced to several new concepts such as The Box Model and integrating shadows into our buttons. These may seem like small tasks to perform/code, but they are not. To make simple changes, a great amount of code is required sometimes, and other times, it is not the amount of code written that becomes difficult, it is being able to remember which command prompt should be used. This is when a google search becomes a web-developers best friend!

The Box Model was something I found extremely difficult to begin with because there are so many different elements of the box. We have the content at the very center of what we are manipulating, followed by the padding or the “white space” around the content. Then we have the border which we could compare to the border on a picture frame and lastly we have the margin which is the last step before we roll off of the page or off of the screen. In order to adjust certain elements of this box we need to consider whether it is an inline element or a block element; meaning we need to know if it spans the entire page, or only around the element. So long as we know this, we can determine whether to use “margin” or “text-align” to command our design. That was a difficult concept to grasp because I could not determine the difference between the two; that was until I learned how to inspect a website using the developer-tools! Inspecting the page allows me to highlight each element and it shows in a different color. For example, when I inspect a webpage that has box elements, I am able to highlight the padding, the margin, the content, etc. based on which line of code I have selected in the inspector. This was beyond amazing for me because it felt as though I had a teacher/helper right there with me. The web-developer tools that are offered by Google Chrome browser are amazing!

As a newbie in tech, I am totally aware of the skill set required in order to be successful in this field. Of the top 10 skills needed (HTML/CSS, Javascript/jQuery, CSS and Javascript Frameworks, CSS Processing, Version Control/Git, Responsive Design, Testing/Debugging, Browser Development Tools, Building and Automation Tools/Web Performance, Command Line) I believe my niche will be found in the realm of Responsive Design & Building and Automation Tools/Web Performance. The content I create for the worldwide web will be content that helps a particular group or community of people advance towards their greater purpose. One thing I keep in mind, is the rapid pace at which technology is growing and changing. That is true of the devices we use, the way in which we engage in entertainment, and the way we use these tools to help people connect with one another.

While reading the article, The 10 Skills You need to Land Your First Front End Developer Job, written by Scott Morris (2018), I was able to relate to his thoughts around how simplified web development use to be. In the past, it was only possible to view web pages online, on a desktop computer. Nowadays we have cellular phones, tablets, smart watches, laptops, and desktops. The responsibility of a developer who heads responsive design is to ensure that all tools work properly across all mediums. The responsive design team is responsible to for ensuring web pages can resize on their own according to what device the page is being viewed on. These commands are coded into the CSS framework when built by the web developer. It now becomes majorly important why learning proper CSS commands will prove to be valuable. As proper CSS command language is being learned, I will also learn the concepts and commands needed to complete tasks such as automatic resizing of the page. Seems simple and small, but it’s actually very important because not everyone has a computer, and in third-world countries who have citizens with only cell phones, this feature becomes an attention to detail matter because without it, the content would miss millions of people. The point of web development and design is to create something that can be viewed and appreciated by the world. Inclusion at it’s finest.