I'm completely new to web development and don't know HTML, CSS, or JavaScript, but I'm creating a small interactive website as a gift for a friend. I described the idea to an AI assistant, used it to generate the initial code, and have been asking it to make visual and functional changes step by step. I test everything in VS Code and have deployed a partly finished version to Netlify.
The site is essentially static: there's no backend, database, login system, or server-side code. For interactive features, I'm currently using JavaScript and localStorage. I have about a week to finish it, and it's meant to be a fun personal project rather than a business or professional website.
Is this a reasonable approach for a simple gift? Are there important things I should check before sharing the link? I'm also wondering whether localStorage is appropriate, whether anything private could accidentally be exposed, and whether there are useful places to find design themes or visual inspiration. Honest feedback and practical suggestions would be appreciated.
5 Answers
For a personal gift, using AI to help build a simple static site is perfectly reasonable. Just keep backups of the working files and test the site on different browsers and screen sizes. Ask the AI to explain changes and check its own work instead of blindly accepting everything it generates, because generated code can contain mistakes or fail in situations you haven’t tested.
You probably don’t need a database or backend if the site is just a self-contained interactive experience. localStorage is fine for saving preferences or progress on one person’s device, but it won’t reliably synchronize between devices and the stored data belongs to that particular browser. Keep the project simple and focus on the presentation rather than adding infrastructure you don’t need.
The main limitation is that you don’t understand the code, so debugging unexpected behavior may be difficult. That doesn’t make the project invalid, but treat it as a creative prototype rather than a professional or secure application. Save a working version before each major change, make one change at a time, and ask the AI for plain-language explanations when something breaks.
Don’t put anything genuinely private in the page or in localStorage. Anything delivered to a visitor’s browser can be inspected through the source, developer tools, or stored browser data. A public link with no login is not private, even if you only send it to one person. For a gift, the safest option is to remove sensitive information from the site and share that separately.
Once the files are complete, deploying the static site is usually enough. Before sharing it, test the deployed link rather than only the local version, check every button and animation, verify that assets load correctly, and try it on a phone. You can use design galleries, color-palette tools, and existing sites with a similar mood for inspiration, but make sure the images and fonts you use are licensed for your project.
That makes sense. I’ll remove anything personal from the site and keep the interactive parts simple instead of trying to add a database at the last minute.