Website One: Commerce

Building a commerce website through Wordpress was much more challenging than I initially anticpated. I've built websites through visual-building websites like Wix before, but Wordpress uses a block system which was completely new and unfamilar to me. It was really hard to get used to it at first. The interface seemed like it was built just for text-only use cases like for a news website or blog, not for things like a store, which really threw me off. I had spent hours trying to make the first product listing page right. My product pictures weren't sizing correctly, my columns were misaligning, and I couldn't figure out the interface at all. To make better use of my time, I ended up pausing this website to work on the news site so I could become more familar with Wordpress in a more traditional sense before I continued.

After finishing up the news website and becoming more familar with the block interface, finishing this website became much, much easier. I realized I was overthinking the WooCommerce blocks like the product listing block and the column blocks, and I looked up some tricks to make the editing interface easier to use, like changing the view settings to move the toolbar to the top of the page, and spotlight mode to make it easier to focus on each block.

At this point making this site became more fun. I started experimenting with different block settings, video embeds, and different layout settings that were included with my template. Adding product variations was a really cool feature but unfortunately took a LOT of time. As it turns out, there are over 200 SKU variations for an iPhone 13 Pro once you consider size, color, capacity, and carrier... It would've taken way too much time to price out each individual SKU, so I removed the carrier option which cut it down to a much more manageable amount. It was still a lot of work, but being able to choose each different attribute on the product page looks so cool and like a real store site.

Website Two: News

While creating both sites was very challenging, the news site was much more fun for me. I ended up pausing working on the commmerce site to work on the news one, and it honestly helped me get much more comfortable with Wordpress. The formatting for a news site was pretty much completely in line with the existing format of the template, which allowed me to focus completely on Wordpress' features rather than being distracted by the design aspect.

After creating different news posts I realized just how powerful and versatile Wordpress is, especially for a use case like this. The block format required a learning curve for me but once I got it it was very easy to use, and honestly I wouldn't be surprised if some of the news sites I got the posts from ended up using Wordpress. My favorite block for the news site ended up being the pullquote block. In the grand scheme of things it's not that necessary, but it helps make a post feel much livelier and much more like a real news site. I also ended up researching and installing a plugin called "Yoast", which lets you duplicate posts. I did this to make creating new posts easier since all the formatting would be directly copied over. I know that creating custom blocks was an option, but I found Yoast to be more intuitive and much faster. Another plugin I liked was aptly called "Newsletter", and it's probably my favorite part about the whole site. It's a very small touch, but having a legitimately working newsletter signup field in the sidebar really brings the whole thing together and makes it feel like a real news website.