2. The company I spent my placement at Anicca Solutions, based in Castle View in Leicester. Their portfolio includes everything from large organisations right down to small hotels. My main role was working as a Web Developer. I used my broad skill set to improve both website interfaces, known as the “front end” and their “backend”, database-driven systems.
3. My contribution to the organisation Overall, I gelled well with the team, and adapted to the workflow of a busy office. I used my knowledge of Interface Design to contribute ideas and implementations that improve the user experience of a website, e.g. a slideshow that fades each image into the next. (www.greyhoundinn.co.uk) I also worked with the designer regularly, drawing from my knowledge of typography (the study of typefaces) and other design disciplines. I brought in fresh ideas and techniques drawn from the latest web technologies.
4. The skills and attributes I developed I always learn best my putting the things I’ve learned from books into real world projects. Through working on a few different projects, I’ve solidified and improved my knowledge in some areas. Through completing projects, I’ve taken some best practices that I’ve repeated with the next one that comes along. My team working skills have improved as, sometimes we might not all agree all the time, pulling together in one direction towards reaching a deadline under pressure is very rewarding. I also learned a little bit about business processes and the day-to-day running of a small business.
5. The skills I need to develop further There’s always something to learn within the web industry. It’s the part I really like as there’s always something new. I’ve got a lot of books on my shelf that I haven’t read yet and they relate to things I want to learn more about: Typography Design and Design history, e.g. Bauhaus Accessibility Issues Programming languages – each one helps solidify different areas of programming languages Search Engine Optimisation – an increasingly important area to know about
6. How I plan to improve my development I’ve always kept up to date with the latest ideas and technologies. I’m thinking about starting a side project to try these out. There are some open source projects I know about and have been in touch with before, so I’d like to become more active within those communities. Being part of these projects shows good team working skills and also provides very good experience.
