This was my first time using Codecademy, and so far I have found it to be a great site to learn basic programming skills. As far as look and usability, the site was very clean and easy to navigate. One aspect I appreciated the most was that there were no ads, and for a free site, this was surprising. It would have been annoying to try and complete these lessons with flash or pop-up ads!

Going through the Web Fundamentals lesson, I liked how each section had a theme and every exercise was fairly short. This step-by-step method helped me to easily understand the building blocks of HTML and CSS language. When I did perform a task wrong, it would correct me in a nice and encouraging way by saying, “Oops! Did you forget the…?” I liked how the site doesn’t spell out exactly what you need to do, but offers hints in case you get stuck. The projects at the end are also helpful to ensure that you comprehend the lesson.

Additionally, I appreciated the FAQ forum, which allows you view frequently asked questions or submit your own question. I had to go here once during the CSS Classes and IDs exercise because I could not figure something out. In a matter of seconds of going to the forum, I had my answer because a similar question had already been asked. This was really helpful!

Overall, the Web Fundamentals lesson was extremely helpful and something I can immediately use at my job. At work, I often edit HTML templates in Dreamweaver and usually getaway with swapping out new text and images. Rarely am I editing in the actual code. When I run into problems, however, I’m forced to ask our web developers/designers, but now I will feel more comfortable solving minor issues on my own, even with just the small knowledge gained from the first Codecademy lesson.