The field of web design is very different now than when I first began learning web technologies in 1999. At that time web pages were laid out using tables because many features of CSS wasn’t yet supported in most browsers.  Also, having limited graphic design abilities and knowing HTML and Photoshop meant that you had a pretty solid technical base.  Things are much different now. We’ve reached a point where the websites of most large companies and institutions are managed using content management systems. Also, more and more websites are being viewed on mobile devices. On top of these major changes, we now have HTML5 and CSS3. Although these new revisions make our jobs easier in many ways, the learning curve can be challenging.  It’s very easy to feel like you’ve fallen behind in your field and to suffer from burnout.

One major difference I’m seeing is that the title, Web Designer, seems to describe my job less and less.  Maybe it is more correct to state that the meaning of web design has greatly evolved. Until a few years ago design (in a superficial sense) was the driving force behind the page layouts I planned and developed. Maybe that was due the particular time or my lack of experience in certain areas. Now I plan layouts based on accessibility and user experience. The actual design comes last and is often mostly complete after accessibility and UX have been taken into account.  As more and more sites are designed with the mobile web in mind, the more that will become the case.  When you consider the limitations of screen size and user behavior, the goals of the site shift. Ease of navigation and effective content delivery are the main focus. Even though this is the goal of any website, I find that designing for mobile becomes a subtractive process. I’ve always thought of designing for a computer’s screen size to be an additive process.

For those of you who are interested in entering the field, my main suggestion is to be as versatile as possible. There was a time when someone right out of a university graphic design program, could get a job designing wireframes and site mock-ups. For specialized design firms, these jobs probably still exist. Most web design jobs require much more technical knowledge, from user experience design to scripting. Experience with a CMS is also a plus. Also keep in mind that, once you find a job in the field, it will always evolve in ways you don’t expect. I’ve worked in the same in-house web group for several years. I’ll find that I go through periods when I’m designing and developing many different sites and periods when I’m not. Just recently, I’ve been put in charge of implementing Drupal. I also have to design and develop forms and work with databases. I realize that the array of tasks, my job involves, is extreme for a web designer.  The versatility though, will hopefully provide many opportunities down the road. That is something that those of you, preparing yourself for a career in web design or just starting out, should consider.

A screenshot of the completed form

The jQuery Stepy plug-in creates different steps (screens) from the fieldsets in your form. Implementation of this plug-in was fairly simple. Although jQuery Stepy includes validation, I had to install jquery.validate.js for the more complex validation. This was also fairly easy, but I ran into one problem. This form had fields that weren’t required unless certain radio buttons were selected. Writing a few lines of JavaScript was required. I’m not a JavaScript wizard by any means, so I added to the JavaScript that my group uses for it’s forms. Below is an example of the code I added to allow for the if/then validation.

if(document.custom.citizenship.selectedIndex == 3  ){
document.getElementById(‘nocitizenship’).style.display = ”;
$(“select[name=citizenCountry]“).rules(‘add’, {required: true});
  }

else  {
document.getElementById(‘nocitizenship’).style.display = ‘none’;
$(“select[name=citizenCountry]“).rules(‘remove’);
}

Once the form and validation was fully functioning, I found one last problem to solve. If the user completed the form as intended, clicking on “next” or “previous” to navigate through the fieldsets, everything worked fine. If a user accidentally hit the browser’s reload or back button, all of their data was lost, and they would have to start over. This mistake was actually very easy to commit. I needed to find a way to store the field data in the browser to prevent this. For this I utilized HTML5’s local storage feature. The plug-in that solved this problem is Sisyphus.js. Sisyphus makes all of the user’s data remain in the form, even if they accidentally close their browser window.  I found the instructions on the Sisyphus page to be a bit confusing. By reading the instructions on Smashing Magazine, I was able to implement the plug-in.

As my projects get more advanced, I find that there is rarely just one jQuery plug-in that solves all of a project’s requirements. Since I’m not a JavaScript expert, I highly rely on these pre-written bundles of code. Sometimes it’s a real challenge to get them to work together. I recommend finding a good JavaScript coder, or start learning the scripting language yourself.

Statistics

• During the 1^st quarter of 2010, smartphones made up 54% of all mobile phone sales in the US – SmartOnline
• There were 5.3 billion mobile subscribers (77% of the world’s population) in 2010. – mobiThinking
• Half a billion people accessed mobile Internet worldwide in 2009. – mobiThinking
• By 2014 the web will be accessed on more mobile devices than desktop computers. – mobiThinking
• 85% of Mobile Devices will be web-enabled by 2012 – Google
• Mobile search as grown 400% in the past year – Google

Smartphone market share for 2010

• 37% – Android OS
• 27% – Apple iOS
• 22% – RIM BlackBerry OS
• 10% – Microsoft Windows Mobil / WP7
• 3% – Palm/WebOS
• 2% – Symbian OS
• from SmartOnline

I’ve wanted to write a post like this for a few months, but always backed off of the idea. This week, though, I was greatly inspired by Emily Lewis’s recent blog post describing all of the personal problems she encountered in 2011 and her examination of how she dealt with them. Her article struck a chord with me because I’ve had to endure my own horrendous personal issues during the past two years. It was also good to read that hard working and successful adult women have to face similar ridiculous and traumatic circumstances that I’ve faced. The stress, that others have caused me along with my inability to deal with that stress, has really held me back. I’m making sure this won’t be the case next year. I completely understand that people face bigger challenges than me, such as death, illness, and job-loss. I’m very aware that my past problems will seem very petty or childish to some. This is just my way of acknowledging the curve balls I’ve been thrown, so that I can leave them in 2011 as I enter a new year…and feel like an actual adult again.

2010: Breakups, suicide attempts and constant worrying

I don’t know if you’ve ever been blamed for someone’s real suicide attempt, but it sucks. By “real” I mean that they actually end up in the hospital and supposedly almost died. I bet if you were ever blamed for this, you were a young adult. I was 32 years old. After such an event you’re at first sad, and then you can feel the heavy weight of guilt…for a very long time.  The guilt I felt was especially heavy because it was the result of the breakup of a five-year relationship that I initiated. I’m not going to go into details about the relationship. All I’m going to say is that, finally deciding that a relationship has been a long up-hill battle that you’re not going to win, was difficult but necessary for me.  I won’t say that I handled it well, because I didn’t. I will say that I never expected the outcome.

I probably spent about seven months constantly worrying that my ex-boyfriend would finally succeed in offing himself. Every time I’d get a desperate text or email, I would have to figure out if it was another suicide threat. I’d drive to his house to make sure he was alive, or call his roommates. It was horrible. Since it was decided that his attempt was a “secret” I only spoke about it with my closest friends. Feeling that I was to keep this incident, that I felt was a calculated way to get back at me, a secret was difficult…not to mention it made me angry.

After the breakup, especially after his attempt on his own life, I felt very alienated and ostracized. I could only feel that all of his friends, who I’d hung out with for five years, blamed me for his actions as well.  I can only imagine that this is a typical paranoia, those in my situation experience. Maybe it wasn’t actually paranoia. It doesn’t matter at this point.

If I could go back in time, I wouldn’t have let this incident weigh on me so much. Looking back it was silly of me to think that I caused all of the problems of a 35 year old. His problems went way beyond me and began long before we ever met. Unfortunately it did weigh on me, though. This event and his actions created a loud background noise that made it difficult for me to do the daily things I needed to do.

2011: A failed band, master manipulator and anger management

In January of 2011 someone was introduced into my life that I wish I never had the misfortune of meeting. I had previously started playing guitar with a drummer I had met. I used it as an outlet to be around new people and to escape the post breakup issues and the alienation I was dealing with. He was able to find a new addition to our band, who seemed really nice and talented. I still find it hard to believe that this new addition ended up dragging me into his marital problems, blaming me for his marital problems and ultimately making me feel stalked. I should also add that he is ten years younger than me, and I have never had to deal with anyone as fucked up as him.

Yes. We became really good friends and ended up having a kinda sorta affair, when his marriage went downhill. It was actually around the time his wife got him arrested after a Harry Potter premier and he spent the night in jail for public intoxication. The outcome to our relationship was typical. I was lied to and basically manipulated by my band-mate and friend. He told his wife about me. I received some texts calling me every horrible name possible, by a shallow immature girl I never had any respect for. He blamed me for all of his problems. I’m sure this sort of thing happens to most people who get wrapped up in someone’s dysfunctional marriage.

Of course the band I was in was a failure after this. Since I hadn’t seen or heard of my band-mate before our first practice, I was glad that I didn’t have to see or deal with him anymore. It really sucked, though, to lose something I was excited for and that I’d worked really hard towards. As terrible and depressing this situation was for me, its what followed that defined and ruined my year.

So yeah, 2011 is the year I was stalked. I don’t know the reason other than revenge. I just know that the day after our falling out, my ex-band mate and his awful wife decided they would follow me around to the places I like to go with my friends. Sometimes I got some really creepy looks, too. On the first night, they made sure to go to my favorite bar, my favorite place to see shows, and an art opening at my friend’s salon. It was obviously deliberate. This also went on the next night. I managed to avoid them and was very relieved until they decided to come to my favorite karaoke bar where most of my friends and I like to hang out. In fact, we’ve been going there for seven years. This pattern lasted for well over a month.

I’m not sure if you’re familiar with Knoxville. It is a small city, but it isn’t tiny. I guess its small enough that someone can make your world very small if they have the motivation and desire. Keep in mind that I never saw these people before the first practice I had with him. They live in a different part of town, would hang out in that part of town, and had a totally different set of friends. Actually, I don’t even know if these people have friends.

You might be thinking to yourself that calling this stalking is an overreaction. My answer to that is to imagine not being able to go anywhere, to escape your depression, without having to deal with the people who blame you for their marital problems. It isn’t fun. It’s actually pretty awful. I didn’t know how to respond to any of it. At one point things actually got so bad that some of my friends were concerned for my safety. One night right after leaving my favorite bar, some friends witnessed my ex-band mate blaze out of the trashy bar across the street and in my direction. When he turned around to see that someone was watching him, he went in a different direction. I just remember getting frantic texts and phone calls on my way home to get to my house and lock the door behind me. I have no idea what was really going on that night, but it scared the shit out of me.

I’m not one that feels hate very often. It’s actually pretty rare. I have to say, though, that I feel extreme hate towards my ex-band mate. I also feel hate towards his wife. It is also an emotion that I don’t like to feel. I was not the cause of their marital problems. They are. I also did not deserve to feel the way they made me feel. Going out with friends and having to pretend that I didn’t feel that I was being intimidated, was very difficult and emotionally draining. During this time it was very hard to come to terms with the fact that the person who told me multiple times that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with me, who gave me a mixed CD containing a song with the lyrics, “Get along home Cindy Cindy, I’ll marry you someday” was now going out of his way to make me feel intimidated. He succeeded. I couldn’t even spend a weekend in Cincinnati this past summer, without constantly looking over my shoulder.

The stalking has gone away for the most part. I’ve had times where the hate I felt died down as well. There have been times recently, though, where a terrible dream will bring back the feelings of fear and anxiety that I felt when I was actually going through it. That brings all of the hate back, and that has happened very recently. I honestly don’t know how I’m going to leave this issue behind in the New Year. I can only convince myself that I’m better than these people, which is the truth. There were times when I felt pretty low because I received texts calling me a whore and a bunch of other names that don’t describe me. In reality these texts were coming from a very immature 25 year-old college drop out, who’s only accomplishment might be that she’s attended every Harry Potter premier. I also need to think about how my ex-band mate is a short-tempered prick who’s paranoid and will probably cheat on his wife several more times in his life. I can only hope to God they don’t put those women through what I had to go through. These are the things I have to remember when past events pop up in my thoughts.

Making the same mistakes twice

If you’ve managed to read all of my post to this point, this might be where you stop reading to start cursing my name. I don’t blame you. Even after going through the situations described above, I made some really stupid decisions that set me back.  The first was to get my band back together. Even after the stalking situation, I really missed being in that band. I figured that if I couldn’t escape these people, I might as well have the pleasure of being in a band again. I’m not sure why I decided to torture myself by making that decision. Of course our reunited band didn’t last very long, and it just prolonged the problems.

Also, for some reason I got back together with my ex-boyfriend…the one that attempted suicide a year and a half ago. This is actually a mistake I don’t regret. Of course our second shot at a relationship didn’t work. It lasted about two months. Only the first month was good. After that he started to resent me and blame me for things I could never understand. I should also say that for over a year after we initially broke up, I constantly wondered if ending the relationship was the right choice. I also really missed him. During all of that I forgot why I broke up with him in the first place, and getting back together with him made me remember. I no longer have feelings of regret for ending a five-year relationship or guilt for his previous actions. I guess this is a good thing.

Work

During the past two years, my professional life really suffered. It was difficult to care about my job with all of the background noise that was going on. It didn’t help that the web group I work in is so far behind on web technologies and standards. One thing I love about my profession is that it is constantly changing. When you can’t take part in that aspect, its difficult to be motivated. I now have a professional mentor, from another institution, that is helping me think beyond my job so that I can keep up in my field. It has greatly helped. I do have to say that if he’s reading this post he’s probably wondering why he’s mentoring me. Hopefully he doesn’t think I’m a lost cause. I say that loosely, of course. I do feel that my career will get on track again in 2012. Without the personal problems of the past two years weighing on my mind, I feel I will be able to succeed in the New Year.

Acknowledgements

There is one person I left out of my post so far, who played a pretty big part of my life in most of 2010 and 2011. That person would be the boyfriend I had after the suicide attempt and before the kinda sorta affair. There was some grief involved with this person, but not the lingering tormenting kind. He helped support me through the guilt and alienation I felt after dealing with the suicide attempt. I think I was able to support him through the weird spot he was in at that time of his life. Because of the crap we were both dealt, our relationship was probably doomed to fail. I can at least say that I had a few level months that seemed pretty stable. I can look back and appreciate that.

Suck it, 2011

So that’s it. I need to say that the point of this post was not to trash certain people or seek revenge. It was just to describe how I’ve felt for the last two years and the crap I’ve had to deal with. I’m not really sure why I feel that I needed to write this in order to move into 2012 with a clean slate. It did help in making me realize why I got myself into these terrible situations in the first place. Starting in 2012, I’ll definitely be more cautious when it comes to the people I let into my life. That’s for sure. I’ll also concentrate more on my career and take better care of myself. I most definitely won’t be making the same mistakes twice…at least I’ll try not to. I’m just really looking forward to finally feeling like the adult I see when I look in the mirror.