Week 20: Turning Ideas Into a Clear Website Plan

This week was less about coding and more about thinking. I focused on planning and structuring the Sayembara website, while also reviewing other competition management platforms for reference. The main goal was to figure out how to explain Sayembara clearly to non-technical users, without overwhelming them.

Shaping the Website Story

I started by drafting the overall structure of the Sayembara website. This included the main pages such as Home, About, Features and Contact.

The main challenge was figuring out how to explain Sayembara simply. Instead of focusing on technical details, I tried to frame everything around what organisers can actually do with the platform.

I paid extra attention to:

• Clearly introducing the four core systems: Registration, Competition Judging, Admin Dashboard, and Certificate Generation
• Emphasising that each system can be used independently or together as a complete workflow
• Breaking down the competition flow step by step, from registration to certificate issuance

This helped shape the website into something that explains both the big picture and the flexibility of the platform without overwhelming visitors.

Thinking Ahead: WordPress Planning

Alongside content planning, I started mapping the structure into a realistic WordPress setup. I thought through:

• Which sections should be standalone pages versus part of the landing page
• Navigation flow and where calls-to-action should appear
• How visuals like screenshots, diagrams, or short videos could support the content

This step helped ensure the structure isn’t just theoretical, but something that can actually be built smoothly in WordPress.

Learning From Existing Websites

I also continued reviewing competition and event management websites to spot common patterns. This reinforced a few important ideas:

• A clear landing page with high-level system overviews works best
• Detailed explanations deserve their own dedicated pages
• Users care more about benefits and use cases than technical details

Seeing these patterns helped validate many of the decisions I made during planning.

Reflections & Insights

• Planning before building saves a lot of rework later
• Explaining technical systems simply is harder than it looks
• Thinking from a non-technical user’s perspective changes how content is written

What’s Coming Up

Next week, I plan to finalise the website structure as soon as possible. Once it’s approved, I’ll start drafting the actual page content in WordPress and begin experimenting with layouts based on the agreed structure.