E1 UI Basics Technical Essay

01 Feb 2021

For BrowserHistory1, majority of the coding was fairly easy because I remember having to make our own website in high school. To start off, I tried to complete the entire WOD without watching the screencast in under 15 minutes. I ended up failing and stopping my timer because I got stuck with making the list for the table of contents so I watched the screencast. After completing the video, I attempted to do the WOD again while recording with the 15 minute timer but I ended up stopping because I messed up my narration and started the recording and timer over. A part of me wanted to be mistake-free and perfect. It took me two more tries to get everything good enough, but I still messed up on my last one because I did not put the closing tag for my paragraphs. Since I still had about 5 minutes left to spare on the timer, I decided to just fix it right then and just submit what I had. Overall, the whole process took about 1 and a half hours because I would get distracted by other things in the midst of starting over.

BrowserHistory2 had more complex codes so I found my self struggling a lot during this WOD. First, I attempted the WOD with no timer but without watching the screencast. I got stuck on the part where we had to change the font so I watched the screencast. Unlike the first time, I wanted to finish the WOD in its entirety and make sure it was done right and complete at least once. I continued working towards completing all the coding and only referred back to the video whenever I absolutely needed to. Once I finished doing it fully and it was all correct, I deleted everything and started over. I began recording and started my timer and I was able to finish under 10 minutes my second try.

BrowserHistory3 took me a bit longer to understand than BrowserHistory2. Since completing it first without a timer really helped me the last time, I wanted to do it again for this WOD. I got up to dividing the sections into columns without the screencast. After watching the video, I continued to do the WOD until it was completely correct. I then deleted everything and started to record with a timer going for 10 minutes. Everything went fine up until I had to format the unordered list. My timer was at the 3 minute mark and it took a while to find my mistake so I decided to stop the recording and find out what went wrong. I started over the recording and the timer and I completed the WOD in under 10 minutes.

My advice for the WODs is to complete it at least once correctly before attempting to record. Personally, I do it without a timer first so I don’t feel pressured but it may be different for you. Once you do the WODs correctly one time and believe you fully grasp the concept of the assignment, then try to attempt it again. If you are really confident, do it again with the timer counting down with the Rx time while recording so you won’t have to retake if it is done correctly.