Week 53 was posted by Charanjit Chana on 2018-10-29.
The entire purpose of 1 Thing A Week was to find a manageable format with which to blog. I finally hit up on a formula where I can post regularly and share the interesting things I find with a wider audience. I feel like my style and voice has evolved over the past year but there's a long way to go. I don't feel entirely comfortable with how things come out all the time, but I had to start somewhere to be able to improve. This week, let's take a look back at the first year of 1 Thing A Week
Favourite articles
First up I wanted to look back at some of my favourite articles. This really is the first time I've found a way to get thoughts and content out on a regular schedule. It's certainly been a fun challenge. Here are the 10 I enjoyed putting together the most:
| Week | Title |
|---|---|
| 3 | NO_ONE EVER REALLY DIES While the article itself was short, it was the first with lots of embedded content. It took plenty of time to put together and the first week to feature notable items |
| 7 | The Evolution of Kendrick Lamar One of the first longer-form articles (although not that long) |
| 10 | How to take better photos One of the longest articles and the first where I really spent the whole week preparing for it, I really hope the advice has been useful for someone as it was an eye opener for me |
| 14 | What is the point of the Apple Homepod |
| 17 | Getting the most out of your digital assistant |
| 31 | Top 7 kits at the 2018 FIFA World Cuo This really got me geared up for the World Cup and was my first experiment with an article that had a top n list format |
| 32 | Apple WWDC Roundup 2018 |
| 36 | UEFA Champions League branding 2018 |
| 46 | 2018 Apple iPhones & Apple Watch This felt like being a full-time tech reviewer and I loved it, I look forward to covering more events in the future! |
| 50 | My 5 favourite web & design resources |
Iterating: Adding features
I've iteratively built up the features and functions on the site over the last year two. When the site launched, there were no notable items. You can even see how the site looked back on January 18th 2018. It was a lot narrower than I even remember, there was no sidebar and the archive was basic to say the least. Now there are a lot more features and depth to the site. These features all appeared over the course of the year:
- Notable items that are quick links to interesting content I find over the course of the week
- Share section with links that make sharing to social networks easy
- The Market which is in need of some love
- There are now
categoryand tag archives - You can search the site, powered by DuckDuckGo
- I'd long been commenting on notable items, it just wasn't available to anyone but I finally made my thoughts available
I think the commentary feature was my favourite to get working. I'm a follower and admirer of a number of sites that have a good balance between quality and quantity. It turns out it's not an easy balance to find but I'm hoping the commitment of 1 Thing A Week and the addition of notable items that I'm finding a good balance.
Feedback
I consider 1 Thing A Week a constant 'work in progress' and a learning excercise in a number of different ways. I still have lots of features that I want to add, things I want to learn and lots of content to think about writing. If there's anything you'd like to see covered, added or constructive criticism, I would love to hear it.
Tags: anniversary , retrospective, review, anniversary , retrospective, review