Web Design from a Student's Perspective

Welcome to the new St. HOPE website. This site was designed in Mr. Sarabia's Advanced Media Productions Class with Sac High students Jennifer Thao and Nicole Vargas at the helm. We would also like to thank Veronica Alvarez, Francisco Lozoya, Ruben Perez, Byron Brown, David Rodriguez, Ishmael Alvarado and Monet Newt for their work.

Old Site	New Site

Our Story

My experience designing and creating the new St. HOPE website has been fun and challenging. The initial design layout of the site went smoothly. However, creating the layout on the computer was more difficult. We went through many different layouts until we were all satisfied.

This process was long and frustrating at times. As I worked through the technical part of the design, I had a lot of fun. I was able to be creative on my own, with Mr. Sarabia guiding and coaching me on how to use the programs and color schemes. I also had suggestions from peers and Ms. Blaine. In the end, I created a layout that everyone was happy with. Putting the website on the web was another challenge because I was not familiar with the programs we used. Once again, Mr. Sarabia was there to guide me through the process. I enjoyed learning how to use and understand new programs like Adobe Flash and Dreamweaver.

The first time I saw the complete layout of the website I was very excited. I am very happy with the results and how everything has worked out. This whole experience has been long and challenging, but most of all, very fun and rewarding.

Jennifer Thao
Principal Designer
Senior
MEHS

Redesigning the website for an entire school system is no joke. At first, the project was daunting. At the same time, we were confident because we knew we had all the support we needed. None of us had ever created a website so the instructions we got from our Advanced Media class were really helpful. My group members and I broke the pages down and decided on the content.

During the planning stage, we looked at other websites from other high schools, elementary schools non-profit groups for inspiration. We saw what we liked and what we didn't. Our goal was to create a site that was fun and easy to navigate.

We also broke down our old website, quickly agreeing that it needed a complete redesign. We wanted our website to be accessible to parents and fun for students. Most of all, we wanted our site to reflect the students. We agreed that a gallery of students would be right in the front.

Nicole Vargas
Team Leader, Web Framework
Senior MEHS