Good morning fellow web designers <3

 

I just finished the first functional version of my portfolio yesterday. The sites main purpose is to work as a reference to my work which I can then link to my job application. It was also my first touch to jQuery, not sure if I went a bit overboard with that. My intention was to use low-contrast neutral colours on the page to give more attention to the work itself.

 

I chose to use to 960px fixed width but now I started contemplating if I should've gone for something larger, say 1230px since my primary audience is not individual clients but rather design agencies looking to hire. I would assume that this group of users definately has at least 1280px resolution.

 

Content wise I'm slightly disappointed. I really need to start reading and practising copywriting more. And of course I'm not happy with my old work anymore.

 

Overall I'm pretty happy how to the outlook turned out and I feel that the horizontal scrolling, altough not the most usability friendly solution, adds a bit of glitter that might make the site stand out and more memorable.

I'd be very happy to receive some professional opinions if this site could actually land me a day job or a freelance gig.

 

And the link...

 

Cheerios!

Modi.

Overall i like however there are a few concerns.

 

• Top navigation colour is quite hard to read if you have bad eyesight (like i do)
  
• The items in the screen move so fast. To fast! The pale colours of the site give a relaxed feel but the items on the mac screen move so quick it really is jarring.
  
• The items on the mac screen are also way to bright and saturated and they clash with the subtle colours of the rest of the site.
  
• The statistics bar doesn't do you any favours. It just highlights where you lack in ability rather than showing where you excel.
  
• Sideways scrolling is fine except when the scroll bar goes with it, it looks awkward.
  
• Sideways scrolling gets jammed. When you get to the new page you either can't click anything or you can't scroll up and down. Happens randomly.
  

 

 

Hope this helps.

Overall i like however there are a few concerns.

 

• Top navigation colour is quite hard to read if you have bad eyesight (like i do)
  
• The items in the screen move so fast. To fast! The pale colours of the site give a relaxed feel but the items on the mac screen move so quick it really is jarring.
  
• The items on the mac screen are also way to bright and saturated and they clash with the subtle colours of the rest of the site.
  
• The statistics bar doesn't do you any favours. It just highlights where you lack in ability rather than showing where you excel.
  
• Sideways scrolling is fine except when the scroll bar goes with it, it looks awkward.
  
• Sideways scrolling gets jammed. When you get to the new page you either can't click anything or you can't scroll up and down. Happens randomly.
  

 

 

Hope this helps.

 

That's a lot of really good insight I would have totally missed on my own.

 

I can't believe I missed out the slideshow thing being so crappy with Safari, I actually did some testing but I guess I blame it on my laptop getting slow because of running too many software at the same time. Are you on a Mac or a PC? Because I couldn't replicate the sideway scrolling jamming effect on my PC.

 

I think you're right about the scroll bar, I used to think it was acceptable but now that you mention it, it does look really stupid. I should be able to fit all the content in the (medium sized) page without a scrollbar with a different approach to layout design.

 

Statistics bar will be removed. It seems to be a trend in web design but I really should learn how to think with my own brain and decide if something is useful or not >_<

 

I don't know what to do with the issue of page colours/contrast clashing with the slideshow images. It might look better once I'm able to fix the slideshow. The only solution I can think of is to make the page use equally strong colours/contrasts but then again the whole point was to make my work stand out. Perhaps slightly increasing the contrast on the site would help. I'll give it a try.

Edited August 26, 201114 yr by modipeluri

That's a lot of really good insight I would have totally missed on my own.

 

I can't believe I missed out the slideshow thing being so crappy with Safari, I actually did some testing but I guess I blame it on my laptop getting slow because of running too many software at the same time. Are you on a Mac or a PC? Because I couldn't replicate the sideway scrolling jamming effect on my PC.

 

I think you're right about the scroll bar, I used to think it was acceptable but now that you mention it, it does look really stupid. I should be able to fit all the content in the (medium sized) page without a scrollbar with a different approach to layout design.

 

Statistics bar will be removed. It seems to be a trend in web design but I really should learn how to think with my own brain and decide if something is useful or not >_<

 

I don't know what to do with the issue of page colours/contrast clashing with the slideshow images. It might look better once I'm able to fix the slideshow. The only solution I can think of is to make the page use equally strong colours/contrasts but then again the whole point was to make my work stand out. Perhaps slightly increasing the contrast on the site would help. I'll give it a try.

 

I tested it on Windows Vista latest Chrome developers build.

The way i can replicate the side way scroll issue is by partially scrolling down on the home page and clicking the 'View Portfolio' button. Doesn't jam up every time mind you.

 

Regarding the slideshow in the screen. I don't think the high contrast would be that much of a problem once you slow it down and maybe try bringing the saturation down a tiny tiny bit. I'd stick with pale colours you have on the site, it looks good.

I tested it on Windows Vista latest Chrome developers build.

The way i can replicate the side way scroll issue is by partially scrolling down on the home page and clicking the 'View Portfolio' button. Doesn't jam up every time mind you.

 

Regarding the slideshow in the screen. I don't think the high contrast would be that much of a problem once you slow it down and maybe try bringing the saturation down a tiny tiny bit. I'd stick with pale colours you have on the site, it looks good.

 

Yesh! After a while I managed to replicate one of the issues with Chrome 15.0.861 dev-m version. Now I see what you mean with the navigation jamming. However the animation in the iMac runs fine for me, unlike in Safari. There's mysterious things going on here. Now I'm not sure if I should make it work in Chrome dev version, or just hope that it'll work when they release the stable version (like in the current stable version).

Really nice site. You shouldn't admit that you've evaluated yourself though with those bars on the home page

Really nice site. You shouldn't admit that you've evaluated yourself though with those bars on the home page

 

Heh, thanks! I've had both for and against arguments for the skillset section. Are you saying I should totally remove it, or just remove the text that says it's my own evaluation, and pass it on as the absolute truth instead?

Just remove the part where you say it's your own evaluation. If anybody asks, tell them it's your own review of on your strengths/weaknesses etc. That's why I do anyway. I think "these are my skills", is better than "this is what I think my skills are".

 

I'd just leave it blank with the table there

 

Edit:

It's come to my attention that you improve slightly if I hover my mouse over the bars as well

Edited August 30, 201114 yr by John Fotios

In my opinion (and it is just that ) i'd remove the evaluation as it really only highlights your weaknesses rather than your strengths. Well from a clients point of view, they can be nasty b***ards!

MikeChipshop is right.

 

Clients might not like that you're not good at javascript without even knowing what it is.

I like it, I like the way the pages change I like the stats etc

Just saw this on Forrst and thought it fitted this topic well.

Just saw this on Forrst and thought it fitted this topic well.

 

Haha, what a coincidence! I read this 5 minutes ago before coming to WDF. It's a great read too!

 

Obviously the core concept is flawed since self-evaluation is always subjective no matter how objective you try to be. My initial justification for it was to show possible employers my skills in relation to each other. Like mentioned in the article this could seriously backfire if another designer of the same skill level has a more generous estimate or just different wording that fits the task better.

 

It really is a challenging thing to show to prospective clients/employers. Even in my CV it says:

Very knowledgeable: HTML, CSS

Familiar: jQuery, PHP, MySQL

 

And i've yet to figure out a better way to do this. I wouldn't feel honest putting all of those things in my skills since I can't really write a new jQuery plugin but rather use and modify the existing ones.

 

Perhaps I should just show my knowhow with my work which is propably the most realistic way of portraying your skills.