Vincent Crescente Explores the Research on Effective Website Design

Vincent Crescent, Verrazano Class of 2018, majored in Computer Science.

I was nearly complete with a Communications major when I realized that I had a passion for computer science. So I switched gears and plugged away at courses. In a way, I moved from thinking about design from the user’s perspective to wanting to work on the back end. I supposed it’s not surprising that when it came to developing a capstone project, I gravitated toward reintegrating the two parts of my academic background.

Vincent built several websites highlighting different eye-catching attributes

My project was very interesting and challenging in many ways. I learned a lot about web development and the large range of choices a designer can make to reach a certain aesthetic. I wanted to find a common answer between designers on what to put in a page to make users feel a desired emotion. I found that knowing your audience well is key to creating such page. One thing I learned is that it’s possible to design your website with eye catching content that ensures it will catch the user’s eye. One student I reviewed used an algorithm that creates a webpage that can most likely make the user look at three different pieces of content in the order that you’d want them to. I find that interesting! There is an abundant amount of research on each attribute a website can have. If I continued researching this topic I would probably focus on color, considering it is the most difficult and most interesting to me. Color, psychology and computer science is a complex but intriguing mix and I look forward to learning more about it. What I would do differently, is organize and write clean code. I used a Udemy course to learn HTML, CSS, Javascript and JQuery to learn web design and create this project beginning in September 2017. I noticed as time went on I would write cleaner code toward the end of the project. Next time I write code for a web page it will be better organized, and it will be because of the lessons I learned in this project. Overall, this project was difficult, interesting and fun, challenging yourself and getting out of your comfort zone is a great way to learn about yourself and grow.