Most case studies are about a client. This one is about me. It's the story of how I audited my own portfolio, found a long list of broken things, and rebuilt the site while balancing school, work, medication adjustments, and motherhood. The technical fixes are the surface. The real result is how my mindset changed.
HTML pages audited
Bugs identified & fixed
New business landing built
Case studies written
My portfolio website represents more than just a final class project. It represents my personal growth, resilience, creative identity, and technical development throughout this quarter.
While building this website, I faced many challenges including broken links, responsive design issues, troubleshooting code, Bootstrap structure problems, navigation fixes, and layout consistency. Instead of giving up, I continued rebuilding, researching, testing, and improving my work step by step.
One of the biggest things I learned is that UX/UI design is not only about visual beauty. It is also about systems thinking, accessibility, organization, structure, and emotional communication. Through this process I learned how to better understand user experience, hierarchy, responsive layouts, branding consistency, and how design decisions affect usability.
My portfolio also reflects my creative personality. I wanted the experience to feel immersive, emotional, cinematic, and modern instead of looking like a generic template. I experimented with typography, color depth, visual storytelling, and layout composition to create something that feels more aligned with my identity as a designer. I became more confident using Bootstrap, Figma concepts, layout grids, and content organization while also learning the importance of accessibility and mobile responsiveness.
Another important part of my growth was learning how to problem solve independently. There were many moments where things failed technically, but every mistake taught me something valuable about coding, file structures, servers, linking systems, and debugging. I also collaborated with and learned from other students and developers, which expanded my understanding of both creative design and technical systems.
This website is still evolving, but it reflects how much I have grown in creativity, resilience, communication, systems thinking, and UX/UI development. The process challenged me deeply, but it also showed me that I belong in this field and that I can continue growing into a stronger designer and developer.
The clearest way to describe the growth: I used to make one beautiful thing at a time. Now I build the system the beautiful things come from.
I analyze problems deeply instead of decorating surfaces. Professor Min Pak specifically called critical thinking my strongest skill.
I learned how colors, spacing, typography, navigation, and components work together as one unified language across an entire product. My UX/UI pages show the transition from single artwork thinking into system thinking.
My work has emotional atmosphere. The portfolio does not feel generic. The language, typography, photography, and layouts feel cinematic, reflective, warm, and human.
This case study proves it. I audited broken Bootstrap files, duplicate heads, missing image paths, invalid HTML, broken routing systems, and repaired 30+ bugs. Real developer-level troubleshooting growth.
My background in construction, interiors, remodeling, systems, and project coordination gives me a perspective most UX designers do not have. Physical-world expertise plus digital UX thinking is my edge.
This page, the Build Case Study, the Discovery Journal, the PNW Floor Design app case study, the academic creative brief, all written end to end. Real writing under real constraints.
Naming the gaps is part of the work. Here are the four areas I am actively pushing into next.
I improved a lot with Bootstrap and HTML, but going deeper into CSS architecture, JavaScript behavior, accessibility standards, and responsive engineering will make me much stronger technically.
I understand people emotionally. Industry UX also expects structured research artifacts: usability testing, journey maps, accessibility testing, metrics, user validation processes. That documentation discipline is next.
Sometimes my ideas are so rich and layered that the experience becomes visually dense. Learning when to simplify and reduce will make the strongest ideas even more powerful.
My writing sometimes still sounds like I am proving I belong. My actual work already shows that I belong. The next growth step is speaking with ownership instead of defense.
Where I started
I'm a student in the New Media & Digital Design program at Pierce College, finishing my AAS in Digital Design with a UX/UI certificate, taking DDSGN 215 and 230 with Professor Min Pak. I work full-time as a Senior Designer at Floor & Decor, and I'm raising my daughter.
In the months leading up to this audit, three things happened at once: I started a new seizure medication that affected my focus and memory, my daughter developed serious allergy and blood-level issues that required continuous testing, and my classes started piling up faster than I could keep up. My portfolio site had been live for weeks, but I knew, under the surface, that pieces of it were broken.
On May 14, 2026, I decided to do a real audit. Not a quick glance. A full file-by-file review. What I found is below.
I went through every HTML file in my portfolio folder, side by side, comparing what each page said against what files actually existed on disk. The pattern that emerged was familiar from Professor Pak's lessons: small inconsistencies compound into a site that "doesn't work" for reasons that look mysterious from the outside.
Three pages, index.html, portfolio.html, graphic_design.html, pointed at js/bootstrap.bundle.min.js, a file that didn't exist. This is the exact issue Professor Pak warned me about on March 4: "Without js, Bootstrap does not work."
Result: carousel, dropdowns, mobile menu, all silently broken.
resume.html had a second <!DOCTYPE> and a second <head> block inside the body. Browsers tolerate it, but it's invalid HTML and breaks the document model.
Result: layout instability and validation errors.
Three <img> tags in about.html had two src values smashed together: src="a.jpg"b.JPG"". Likely a Dreamweaver paste accident.
Result: cards showed no images on About page.
portfolio.html referenced images/images/facelogo.png, a double folder path. None of those images loaded. Also referenced files that didn't exist at all: cupcake.png, setwoman.jpg, uiuiiu.PNG.
Result: 8 missing images on the portfolio landing.
uxui.html embedded five PDFs from files/PNW_Floor_Design_*.pdf and files/your-training.pdf, a folder that doesn't exist in my project. Also a typo: creativebrief.pdf vs the actual creativebrife.pdf.
Result: every case study PDF was a 404.
Every one of the 12 cards on photography.html was titled "Black & White Rose, 2026", even though the images were all different (apples, plants, gym lines, blue flag). Copy-paste rot.
Result: portfolio looked careless to a reviewer.
The Portfolio dropdown pointed "Graphic Design" → design.html. But design.html was a placeholder that contained the literal word undefined. The real content lived in graphic_design.html.
Result: clicking the nav landed users on a blank page.
The end of uxui.html had a trail of orphan closing tags: </div></section></div></section></section>. The case study sections weren't actually nested cleanly.
Result: unpredictable rendering, hard to maintain.
Pages mixed popper-2.11.8.js and popper-2.11.8.min.js, only the .min version actually existed in js/.
Result: inconsistent JS loading across pages.
Across index.html, portfolio.html, and graphic_design.html I swapped bootstrap.bundle.min.js for the real pair: popper-2.11.8.min.js + bootstrap-5.3.8.js. This is exactly the recipe Professor Pak sent me in March.
Cut out the second <!DOCTYPE>, <head>, and re-imported link tags that were nested inside the body. Restored a single, valid document.
Reduced each src="a.jpg"b.JPG"" to a single correct src + matching alt text describing the project.
Removed all images/images/ doubles. Swapped non-existent files (cupcake.png, setwoman.jpg, uiuiiu.PNG, etc.) for real images already in the folder: mayacake.jpg, web1.JPG, resized_pinkflower.jpg, and facelogo.jpg (correcting the extension).
Pointed PDF embeds at images/creativebrife.pdf and images/app.pdf. Replaced phantom files/PNW_Floor_Design_Sitemap.pdf with an inline image of the sitemap (images/web.PNG). Removed the duplicate PNW section and the two unused PDF modals. Closed every open tag.
Twelve cards went from twelve copies of "Black & White Rose, 2026" to descriptive titles: White Rose Study, Blue Flag, Apple Still Life, Plant Study, Line & Form, Composition, Lifestyle, Editorial Portrait, Color Study, Mood & Tone, Texture & Detail, Story Frame.
The "Graphic Design" dropdown item was sending visitors to an empty file. I replaced that placeholder with a full Graphic Design portfolio page, hero, project grid using my drew1 series + Dispersion piece + self-identity study, and a clean route into the case study at graphic_design.html.
Replaced the empty "Untitled Document" file with a real case study, problem / solution, 4-step process, gallery, result, and a CTA back to design.html and contact.html.
A standalone business.html as the umbrella front for my UX/UI, creative direction, visual design, photography, web, and consulting services. Parisian Evening palette, custom dark services panel, gradient CTA, working contact section.
The "Download Resume (PDF)" button pointed at a file that didn't exist. Replaced it with a working "Print / Save as PDF" action so the resume page itself can be saved.
The lessons under the fixes
Got stuck on a Dreamweaver / Bootstrap version conflict. Reached out to Professor Pak. She wrote back: "Without js, Bootstrap does not work." The line stuck.
Asked Professor Pak for more time on the portfolio submission. She extended to Sunday Mar 23. I committed to 8 pages, css, js, images.
After days stuck on broken links, figured out that remote sync in Dreamweaver was overwriting good files with old versions. Turned off remote sync, rebuilt structure, secured my work.
Wrote Professor Pak a long letter about new direction, separating personal designer brand from business brand, prioritizing real case studies, treating UX as systems not decoration.
She asked me to book the Portfolio 1:1 interview meeting in Starfish. The work for the meeting is what I'm building now.
Audited the full site. Fixed 30+ bugs. Built a new business landing. Wrote two case studies. Realized I can name and explain my own growth.
"Design is not only about visuals, it is about structure, psychology, communication, organization, usability, trust, and solving real problems intentionally."
, from my letter to Professor Pak, May 5, 2026The plan I'm walking into
I used to think growth in design meant my work would suddenly look more beautiful. What this audit taught me is that growth is quieter than that. It looks like opening a folder you've been avoiding and reading every file line-by-line. It looks like saying "this is broken" without flinching. It looks like fixing the boring stuff before you allow yourself to design the pretty stuff.
I'm not a perfect student. I started a serious medication mid-semester, my daughter has been through scary medical testing, and I work full-time at Floor & Decor. There were weeks I couldn't think straight. But the version of me at the end of this case study is calmer, more organized, and more honest about what design is for than the version that started it.
That, more than any visual, is what I want my portfolio to prove.