Hey all, i would also like to find a mentor. I know everyone’s time is extremely valuable but I would love someone to walk me through a few projects. I would be more than willing to help them out in learning more about technical side of design if they feel they are lacking in that area. I have a portfolio site but it is more geared to Design than UX. I need to update it as I go through the process of learning. From what I understand a good UX portfolio is more story driven?
There are an awful lot of UXers that aren’t technical and wish they had some help in that area, so this could be a marriage made in heaven! I’ll tweet it out to our audience and see what we can figure out.
Hawk, that sounds good to me. If it helps, I am proficient in html5, css3, less, photoshop, dreamweaver, lightroom and twitter bootstrap. More than willing to mentor for a mentor.
Alright I have had a look at both and I have feedback. I have to warn you I have a habit of being brutally honest but I try very hard to be constructive
I have a lot of feedback and I promise I only want to help you.
I love a grey colour scheme it’s clean and elegant and from a content perspective I think you have the beginnings of something amazing.
The constructive criticism:
It really confused me. Scrolling through I wasn’t 100% sure what I was looking at- as in where each section ended and where new ones began. The visual workflow just didn’t work for me. I definitely feel that it would be better if it told a story and if it was clearer how many stories were there. I kinda felt I had to work for the information and not everyone will do that. Not really a fan of the footer - don’t send me somewhere else when I came to see your whole portfolio.
I also cannot tell where you are based- I think it’s great that you’ve lived overseas but where’s home? I also don’t like that your resume takes me somewhere else. Also, at least one of those links to the mock ups was broken - the first one was. That’s the one people would click on and if it doesn’t work that could be it and that would be a real shame because you have serious potential. There’s also a lot of text too.
I like the tree- I usually hate things that move but that tree gets away with it because it’s cool and soothing to watch.
The constructive stuff:
So I click the about me button hoping to find your story but instead it scrolls a little and I find out I’m looking at your side project. Nothing wrong with a side project, but I was expecting to see your story not what you get up to in your free time.
This annoyed me too: [h=5]Nominated For Multiple Design Awards[/h] That’s great but which ones and what for??? Those questions come to mind when I see that plonked in a divider. Where’s the ‘so-what’ factor I guess is what I’m asking. Tell us more about you and your story. I’ve been nominated for some big awards too but the story behind them is so much more interesting
This: [h=6]A collection of my works and passions[/h] I would expect for this to lead to your portfolio - I can’t find a link on this site to your portfolio. Why are they separate? I know one is your side project but I kinda feel it should all be together or at least connected in some way.
I also found grammatical errors and am not a fan of the way the text moves on some pages.
Look I could go into great detail with this feedback but right now I’m going to stop because I think that’s enough for now. If you’re still reading this, I’d really like to help you make this the best it can be because I think it just needs refining. The bones are there and they’re good. I’m snowed under until after WIAD but after that I’d like to test your site for you. I have access to remote testing tools (opens in the browser) and I want to put them through those tools to see what happens. I’d need your help rounding up participants but I reckon we could do it
PS My website is terrible and I’m going through the same process!
ASHM,
First off, thank you so much for taking the time to go through my site and putting down all of your thoughts. I really appreciate it and I agree with just about everything you said.
Let me explain the sites a little better for context.
The /jc was quickly thrown together quite awhile ago for potential employers. I agree with everything you said about it. I hate it, but I just have not had the time to do anything with it. I made the conscious decision to try to affect change where I work now and I am still in that process so I have not been looking for work. Thus, it has sat untouched. However, I felt it would be a great project to run through the Ux process map and that is why I am starting that on the “Process” Board. With everyone’s help and a good Ux process I think I can make my portfolio pretty slick.
The other site is merely for potential customers who need quick web designs or redesigns. It is a quick showcase of what I am able to accomplish for them. The audience is more word of mouth, small business that really cant afford to go through a true Ux process. I keep them separate for privacy reasons (as people at work know of my site and I don’t want them to know I have a portfolio site, even though its benign at the moment) That is why there is no link to the two. That being said, I agree completely that it really could benefit from both content strategy and some good information architecture. It is also a work in progress. There is probably the opportunity there to link them at some point as well if I really need to start looking.
I want to focus on the portfolio site first and then come back and run the other site through the process.
Thank you for the Design Award mention. I totally agree… seems to me as I remember back I totally meant to include them but it got lost.
The only thing I would counter with on the tree is that the consistency comes through in that the “trees” are a consistent theme along with the logo, and the different trees reflect the different disciplines. Its something I will mull over though. My grand plan was to animate all of the different looking trees at some point.
Let me know if you need any technical help on your site!
