Content and Organization
There are certain pages or types of content you’ll be required to have for class each semester, and it’s important to keep those up for as long as you’re in the course. And there are some pages that are important to give your reader context: a bio of the site creator (you!), and other background info that you think is important. But you’re not limited to that content! Maybe you want a page that sums up the skills you’ve learned in your courses or outside the classroom. Maybe you want a blog post that’s all about your pets. This is your site, and beyond the required pages, you get to decide what best represents you, your goals, and your learning.
That said, you’ll need to make sure that visitors to your site can find all that content. So make good use of menus to organize your site. The required pages are already added to your theme’s main menu. (You can set up your menus through the Menu section of the Appearance tab in your dashboard.) Choose titles for each page that clearly convey what kind of content it contains. Use links to direct people from one part of your site to another.
Your Aesthetic
Choosing a theme
You have three themes to choose from:
Fonts and colors
The theme you choose will come with some fonts and colors preselected, but most themes will let you customize some of those aspects (in Customize under the Appearance tab in your dashboard). This is another area you can play around with and see what appeals to you. But make sure whatever fonts and colors you choose are easy to read. You can read more about those considerations in the Accessibility section below.
Accessibility
Here are a few things you can do to make sure your site is accessible to your potential audience.
Alt text
Alt text is a description of an image element that is visible to screen readers. You can add alt text in the image selection pane while editing your page or from the Media page in the dashboard.
Color contrast
When you pick your colors, make sure that there’s enough contrast between your text and background and that your background isn’t so busy that it distracts from the text. You can check whether your colors have enough contrast here.
Accessible language
Try to write clearly and avoid overly complicated or technical language.