Understanding our processes as we set out to do our work or to accomplish goals can teach us a lot about ourselves and help us improve our craft. Whether our field is creative in nature or not, we all engage in processes that we can learn from. Oftentimes the outcomes become the sole focus of our endeavors and we forget that sometimes the journey can be as important as—or even more important than—the destination. Designers often deal with being labeled as "creatives" or "artists," while design tends to be a process that focuses more on problem solving than on sole artistic expression. Web design is a field in which problem-solving especially comes into play. To address a given problem, a web designer must work within a given set of constraints (both creative and technical) in order come up with an appropriate solution. In this presentation I will be addressing the creative process through the lens of web design and my experience working on an independent research project where I researched, planned, designed, and developed my portfolio website. My project encompassed researching current web design and web development best practices, current trends in web design, and best practices in content strategy for the web. After gathering information and acquiring new knowledge, I proceeded to plan how to apply it to my project. The planning and research stage included determining which goals the website should meet and how the content and wireframe should be structured. I then proceeded to designing the user experience and user interface of the website, which culminated into the ongoing development of the design.
