Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Porfolio Screen Design - Second Iteration

Following on from my last post here is the updated version of my portfolio screen design. I have taken into consideration the previous feedback received and made various changes. I would however welcome any additional feedback you wish to give.

6 comments:

Craig Burgess said...

I'm not keen on the reflective text, and I think it's something that woefully overused on so many websites. If you really want to go with reflections, I'd suggest making the actual reflection a bit more subtle so it looks a little bit more like a reflection. I think your header would probably look better with an image in there and some simple text overlaid saying your name. Alternatively, you could come up with a nice logo and put that in the middle of your header like a crest.

I think your navigation is still too big, and I wouldn't advise putting a link to your CV on there. In these days of identity fraud it would be so easy for somebody to take your address and other details from something like an online CV. I'd change it to something like an online CV that doesn't have contact details on it, and just specifies professional experience and level of skill.

I think you could get rid of that rather large amount of introductory text on the right of your homepage and put another thumbnail of your work on there. Even better, I'd put two more underneath as well.

The colour scheme is nice, and I think after a few more changes you will have a nice, easy to use website.

DREW said...

I think the colour scheme is better now. I think Craig has had a good idea there with putting a logo in the middle like a crest, that would look really good.

I know me and you already discussed the issue about identity fraud and CVs in class, I think you mentioned doing a internet version but I think this is something everyone needs to be aware of.

Ben Waller said...

Thanks for your comments. I wanted to try the reflective text as it is something that I have never used before and felt looked more effective than my banner on the first iteration. I could however as you suggest make this a bit more subtle.

I agree with you both about the CV section, I think in an ideal world this would be a good feature as it gives potential employers easy access to your CV. However with things such as identity fraud this would not be appropriate. I could include a page listing skills/experience and then specify that they should contact me for a complete CV if they wish.

Richard said...

I like the tones of blue you have used and the reflection in the header.

Would the whole screen fill with the blue or would this be the actual size of the webpage with a different background colour. I think this might look boxy again if it is and I know you were trying to get away from this look.

Other than that I don’t think a user will have any trouble at all navigating your portfolio.

Ben Waller said...

Thanks for your comments Rich. I was going to use a blue as the background colour so hopefully this wont give the boxy effect.

Scott Dunwoodie said...

I think if you are planning to keep the reflection it needs to be toned down a little. It doesn't upset me as much as it does Craig, but I agree a reduction in size would help to balance the design more.

I think a few more images of your work should be displayed on the page instead of all the text you have at the moment.

Too much text can be off putting for the user, personally I would much rather see an image or two than a load of words!