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Why I Changed My Website

|Sumin Oh

For the longest time, I relied on various website builders to create and host my personal site. I've gone through Wix, Adobe Portfolio, and most recently, an indie drag-and-drop tool. That last one unlocked the freedom to build a fun personal website. It was super easy to use and quite flexible thanks to its of drag-and-drop nature, but over time, a few issues started to bug me:

  1. The responsive design options were very limited.
  2. There was no support for bugs or errors.
  3. It wasn't ideal for hosting blog content.

Another major factor that came into play was my desire to rebrand. My previous website was playful, a little girly, and whimsical, which reflect my personality, but it didn't come across as professional, or, perhaps, as intentional.

And now with the rise of AI, I felt like I had no excuse not to try to build my own website.

I took an intro to web development class during college where we dabbled in HTML and CSS, and I figured the experience I gained from side projects over the years might get me somewhere, especially with AI. Between Google AI Studio, Claude, and Cursor, I considered designing in Figma and vibe coding my way through, but I was lazy and wanted to launch quickly, so I "cheated."

I found a free template and started modifying that instead! The initial updates didn't require much AI assistance because it was pretty straightforward to review the files and get the gist. For things I wasn't sure about, I turned to Cursor. Instead of relying on the agentic mode to do everything for me, I'd ask questions on how to modify something or to debug. I didn't like how it was modifying files that weren't relevant to the changes I requested, so I opted for some manual copy-and-pasting. This way, I can start learning how the files are organized and structured.

After a few failed attempts at cloning the repo and deploying, I can now make edits and launch with just a few clicks. Shout out to Netlify for making it that easy!

It is taking me some time to create new pages and visual assets, but I'm so excited to finally be in control. Every issue I run into is now a reflection of my own skillset. It's incredibly liberating. And honestly, I'm really happy I no longer have to spend $200 a year simply because I didn't know how to do something. That was honestly my biggest motivator, haha. I did pay for Cursor, but that's okay because I'm learning.