Project Overview #
After learning programming largely through web development at the end of high school, I was fortunate enough to put my knowledge into practice with a concrete project: creating the first website for a young humanitarian association, Fratern’ailes. This association aims to support primary schools in Congo, primarily by purchasing school textbooks.
This experience allowed me to learn and participate in every stage of a project. First, we started with several meetings to define the association’s needs, the website content, and the graphic charter. Then, I began designing the website, a lengthy but rewarding process since I have a particular interest in UI/UX design. This involved delivering multiple mockups created in Figma and frequent exchanges with the association to gather their feedback. The final two stages were, of course, developing the website and deploying it.
Technical Challenges #
Given the site’s simplicity, I selected lightweight technologies that I was proficient in. For the frontend, I used vanilla JavaScript, and for the backend, I utilized the Express.js framework. I didn’t encounter any major obstacles during development, though I paid special attention to responsive design to ensure the site adapted to all devices, as well as code organization.
However, one aspect I discovered was website deployment. Indeed, I had rarely had the opportunity to do this kind of work before. I learned how to publish my site by navigating the services and constraints of a web host, and of course, fixing unexpected bugs.
Once the site was functional, I focused on optimizing the loading time. To achieve this, I minimized calls to external services (fonts, icons) and did significant work on images, which are often the heaviest elements. I decided to use a CDN specialized in image management, allowing me to deliver images in the right resolution based on the device and use lighter formats (WEBP, AVIF).
Result #
The deadline was initially set quite broadly at the start of the project, but towards the end, I had to make some compromises to deliver it on time, as the association wanted the site to be available before their departure for a new humanitarian trip.
For a first development experience with an organization, the project was overall a success and allowed me to acquire many skills. Finally, I continue to actively develop the site (despite limited free time), with planned updates to improve content management and add new pages based on the association’s needs.
The website (only in French) is available at: fraternailes.org.