ztheDev.com

Project Overview

Developed a secure, fast, and user-friendly static website for a trauma-informed doula service. The site emphasizes accessibility and provides comprehensive information on birth and postpartum care services.

This project serves as a modern showcase of accessible, performance-first web design. It was built with an emphasis on clean code, semantic HTML, and responsive styling, using technologies like Astro and Tailwind CSS. The site not only focuses on a minimalist aesthetic to highlight content but also prioritizes user accessibility across all devices. By blending intuitive navigation with robust technical solutions—such as automated deployments and structured content management—the project delivers a secure and user-friendly experience that meets both design and performance standards.

Technical Challenges

One of the main challenges in this Astro project has been balancing rapid development with the commitment to accessibility and performance. My goal is to create fast, inclusive static sites for small businesses and artists — projects that load quickly, feel polished, and are easy to maintain. Astro gives me the flexibility to focus on content-first architecture, but it also means learning the nuances of component-driven development and staying thoughtful about how I structure and deliver pages.

Integrating tools like Tailwind CSS, MDX, and accessible component libraries brought its own learning curve. I had to think deeply about how to organize content, style elements cleanly, and ensure a consistent user experience. Figuring out image handling, layout reuse, and mobile responsiveness — all while avoiding bloat — took time and iteration. Each design decision felt like a chance to sharpen both my aesthetic eye and my front-end discipline.

On the technical side, setting up a solid development pipeline with GitHub Actions and deployment to Hostinger via SSH has been both rewarding and tricky. I’ve had to build confidence in troubleshooting build failures and managing dependencies. But these challenges have strengthened the project — and my process — ensuring it’s not only fast to build but smooth to maintain and expand.

Learning moments

When working with Git, it’s easy to get tripped up by what’s actually staged for commit. After running git add, you might check git diff and not see your changes — which can feel confusing. That’s because git diff only shows unstaged changes. To see what’s actually staged and ready to be committed, you need to run git diff —staged.

Pairing this with git status gives you the full picture: git status shows which files are staged or modified, while git diff and git diff —staged show the actual content differences. Knowing when to use each one is a small but powerful skill that helps you commit with clarity and confidence.

Testimonial

“Z was the best to work with, it’s as if we are one mind.”