At City Tech I have gained experience in different areas that has helped me develop skills in design, web development, advertising campaign, and User Experience Design. Since my module is Web Design I told Sarah from the beginning of the internship what I could provide. One of the things from my classes that really stuck in my head is the importance of planning before you start creating. I sat down with her many times to discuss what is her business about, who are her clients, the type of demographic she wants to target, the message and brand she wants to portray. She had too many ideas in her head and it seemed like she wanted to do it all and reach everyone. I had to explain why that is not possible and why is important to be more specific on a niche market.

Organizational skills is one of the most important skills I gained in school, not just how to time manage projects, but the importance to keep files, documents, folders and accounts organized. She is very unorganized and forgetful. It took me weeks to find account passwords, files, information that I needed, unfinished websites, and more. I taught her how to upload videos on YouTube in order to keep all video files there, and create playlists to keep it even more organized by category. I made calls, and acted as tech support many times when digital issues arrived. Patience is another thing I learned from school, which I entirely applied in the internship. I remember one professor telling me that I should imagine every client as someone with a kid mentality, that way I will explain everything clearly and simple. Clients will never understand your point if you are not clear enough.

In a more technical level, I applied site hierarchy in the website. Thus the flow of each page will make sense and it will be easy for the user to navigate. One of the most important things for web design is to make it usable for the user, meaning no complex words, navigation, no guessing where things are, no too many going on in the screen, etc. Sarah always wanted everything together in one page and I always told her about the KISS principle: Keep It Simple Stupid, which she loved it. I tried to keep a clear message and put the brand in a good position. I designed the content of the website in a way it would show off all her history, because that is one of her businesses’ strengths, and that is also proof of her work. The website I didn’t build it from scratch, but she wanted me to keep working on one that an old intern was playing around before, which was incomplete. I basically deleted content and kept the same theme and feeling as the other one, and focused on what matters the most –content.

In my classes we always talked about “opportunities” and how we can expand our ideas or projects to something more. I told her I would teach her social media, which she can use to market her business as well, plus I knew how much she wanted to know more about facebook and other social networks. I taught her about fb pages, profiles, Instagram pictures, how to edit them, hashtags, and how she can take that to help her business and reach out more people. I’m sure that without any city tech skills I wouldn’t have been able to do anything in the internship, even simple typography issues or web related problems.