My experience of completing a college assignment with Wix.com

On multiple occasions, I’ve attempted to design the next great website! Dreams of launching a successful business, like Facebook or ESPN, propelled me into a storm of brainstorming and excitement. Unfortunately, building a multi-billion dollar business is no easy task. Without fail, the excitement always faded and my focus shifted to a different project.

College has been my main focus as of late. I was enrolled in a Business and Professional Writing course this summer at The University of Minnesota. For the final assignment our professor had each student create an online portfolio. Finally, a chance to build my dream website! 

Squarespace.com and Wix.com are the two most popular website builders. After taking both for a test drive, I used Wix.com to complete my assignment. Listed below are my three favorite features of Wix and two suggestions I have for improvement:

1. Wix is truly free

They say the best things in life are free. With Wix, you can create a stunning website without spending a dime. You can connect a custom domain free of charge, or continue using the Wix affiliated domain for as long as you would like. Once Squarespace’s fourteen day trial expires, the platform no longer allows you to edit your site. Though the website will remain published, your ability to make alterations will be hidden behind a paywall.

2. Blank canvas page template

Sometimes, the only thing you want is a blank canvas and complete creative control of your project. Oddly enough, that is not something you can find in all website builders. The blank canvas page template is especially useful when creating a page with only a single element, such as displaying a single QR code. Alternatively, the blank page feature allows you to drag and drop elements in any format to create a truly unique page. 

3. A widely diverse photo library

The very last thing you want is for your website to be targeted with copyright infringements. Wix offers a high volume of high quality royalty free images to fit nearly any scenario. These options are especially valuable for me as a student. My study time is much better spent clicking and dragging images onto a screen, than it would be doom-scrolling through a search engine until I find a royalty free image. 

While I really liked Wix and the features it provides, I have two suggestions for how Wix could be even better:

1. One size fits all attachments

I wanted to display all of the major assignments I completed during the semester in a single page. The best way to do so was including a pdf attachment under each assignment description. That solution worked well, until I realized one of my assignments was a video format. Once I locked in my choice of adding a pdf to the grid display, all of the attachments had to be PDFs. There was no option to alter each attachment type individually. The only solution I found was to piece together text boxes in order to frame the embedded video file. Though the video can now be properly viewed, it is very aesthetically unappealing and sticks out like a sore thumb.

2. Set grid boundaries

While editing your website, you drag and drop elements onto a grid. The grid allows you to effectively line things up and snap them into place next to each other. Unfortunately, there is a limit to how small you make the grid. That leaves a lot of awkward blank space between different sections. 

Overall, I found Wix.com to be a very effective platform for completing my college assignment. Though there are some things I wish would be improved, the majority of the website builder is both intuitive and powerful. I definitely recommend that you try it out for yourself. Who knows, maybe you will end up building the next great business!