Apologies if this is the wrong section to post this - if any mods feel it should be placed elsewhere please do so
I was just wondering if people had any opinions (good or bad welcome!) towards my portfolio website. Iāve had it running for a good few months now and this is by far my first responsive website project which makes me wonder whether it still stands up or whether some improvements are needed.
Having had the site live for a few months I think some changes may be needed (particularly to the āWallā or homepage) to boost the SEO value and just to make more of an impact. Let me know your thoughts.
Iām coming at this from a design / usability angle; I donāt know anything about responsive sites to critique that, sorry!
I like the colour hover over the image tiles, I would maybe looking at specifying what kind of project each one was with a small description on the hover effect?
I see that you can select them by theme at the top as well, but adding a little enticing description on the front page would help me see from a glance on one page what type of projects you have experience in. Less clicks is good
I would recommend changing the copy text at the top - it doesnāt tell me anything!
To get inspiration, look at information on how to write a great cover letter as they will be similar principles.
Heres a little overview:
Avoid an Overly Formal Tone & Generic Phrases Show, Donāt Tell Add Some Personality
As this online portfolio demonstrates I have a wealth of experience within the fields of Website Design
This to me doesāt say anything - reach out to clients! get them to write you a little recommendation. Someone else saying 'Andrew was a delight to work with and his knowledge was exeptional. If there was a problem, he always knew the perfect solutionā says so much more then the line above.
People already know that if they click on the About Me page they will read more about you. Itās something you donāt need to explicitly say
Instead;
Want to know more about how my skills can help get your website up to date? Read [LINK] About Me [/LINK]
You need give people a reason to click on your about me page. You ideally want to answer the unasked questions people want to know such as Why Pick You? What makes you better than Tom or Harry.
Your about me page is so much more interesting in comparison to those first lines on the front page!
Hi,
when i resize it shrinks well so i assume a mobile would look good too. I think it looks slightly dated though (sorry). I personally would probably lose the background darker grey and have the entire page the lighter grey. Iād expand the banner and footer to full screen width so you lose the āpageā type effect you have, which so many older website have.
Iād also not have the text go all the way across the page in one long line as that is bad in both print and web. A sentence should be around 55-75 chars to be easily readable (the reason newspapers are split into columns). Perhaps a quick intro on the left and a testimonial on the right or something.
Colours on the tiles when you hover, and the coordination of the colours
How you instantly see your work when you go on the site, its right there.
The whole concept of the tiles. I have always likes that.
Its fairly unique compared to other sites
āAbout Meā section content seems fairly good and informative.
What I dislike:
The gradients. It doesnāt look right in my eyes.
How dull the website is. You have got two colour schemes going on it seems, a dull one (most of the site) and some brighter colours. They really donāt seem to go well together.
I have to do so much clicking to find out about your work. I know you can use the top bit for different themes, but I would find it easier if when you hovered over it, you got the colour and some text, such as: āHome Comforts Restaurant and Bar needed a complete redesign of their website, to bring it into the important responsive design ageā etc.
Mobile seems neglected. Its responsive, but it doesnāt work well on the phone. For example, the tiles are the same size on my phone as they are on my 27inch monitor. why donāt you decrease the size of the tiles for phones?
All in all, its got a good design and I like the features a lot, but try and get rid of some of the dullness in the site, and make it better for mobile phone users.
Thanks very much for all of your feedback so far. Iām sensing some themes running through them:
Brighten up the rest of the website, not just the tiled/project areas. The idea with the dark grey was to contrast the bright colours and make the projects stand out a bit more - maybe some more thought needed with this though.
Need to review the top section - this is mainly for SEO purposes and gives a short introduction to first-time visitors since I didnāt think the grid really said anything about me and being as the homepage is important for SEO I placed that at the top - maybe a slight after-thought thoughā¦ Do I make the homepage panel more of a permanent feature rather than giving the visitor the option to close it again?
The portfolio itself was mainly built to show off my work to prospective employers, not necessarily clients. However, since Iām now in full-time employment maybe I should shift the focus more onto attracting clients?
The gradients do look a bit dated if Iām honest - I was trying to think of ways to subtlety show the āprojectā colours of orange, yellow and blue in the header section.
I will look into having a hover effect to view more details on the projects. My only concern is that this effect wonāt be visible on tablet and mobile devices - a reason it wasnāt implemented in the first place. However, maybe I make it static on tablet and mobile, or would this look too busy?
Thanks once again everyone, your feedback is very much appreciated - keep it coming!
Need to review the top section - this is mainly for SEO purposes
SEO is a important side to any website, but always remember that youāre ultimately designing for humans - so making sure it sounds interesting I think is more important to think about (adding Devon Graphic Designer for keywords makes complete sense though - it is good for SEO and useful for people to know)
Also adding a blog is usually a good way to optimise for SEO - and adds quality to yourself as it shows you have knowledge ect.
The portfolio itself was mainly built to show off my work to prospective employers, not necessarily clients.
Prosective employers are just the same as a client - you need to engage them, show them how you will be a benefit to their company (or themselves), and ultimately make it easy for them to see what you are all about.
this effect wonāt be visible on tablet and mobile devices
I read that roughly just over 50% of site visits come from mobile - but only designing for one platform misses out the other half! I would also say that if a prospective employer would be checking out your website, they would probably do it on work time on a desktop or laptop.
Brighten up the rest of the website
I had a look to see if I could find some similar portfolio sites using different colour schemes:
There are other effective ways to make your projects stand out not just applying a Dark Grey gradient which is a bit outdated. Might check out [Awwwards][1] for ideas and trends as well.
Clients can be employers as well.
Uhm. Best to remove the magnifying icon on the hover state and add in the title of the project and your contribution to that project. i.e. āInFocus - Branding, Web Developmentā while on the mobile, just retain the project information and title.
Be consistent with the design and consider color combinations and how your users/clients will interact with the site.
Contact page:
IMO, it would be good to remove the āHuman Verificationā as this is one of the most important elements of your portfolio website. It should be easy to access.
The āContact Formā on your āContactā page feels redundant. Or probably put in something like āGot an interesting project or idea? Drop me a lineā.
Logo/Home link is broken and a bit differenot of the pages.
