Topic: My Portfolio Site

[thewooleymammoth]

Let me know what you think...

www.ericwooley.com

The sites with screenshots ive made arnt real and dont really need judgement. But other than those images let me know what you think. also ie doesnt work yet, im still getting bugs in it.

[tibberous]

It really needs a better design - even the simplest of header / menu's, and a background / border would make the site a lot better.

[ignace]

I agree with tiberrous. Your design looks unproffesional.

Also leave out:

Although I do not have a large portfolio I do have experience and talent

[thewooleymammoth]

Thanks for the advice. How about now?

"Windows comes pre-bundled with IE to download Firefox" - from your signature thing

That is all i use it for also haha

[thewooleymammoth]

ill take your silence to mean

"ITS SIMPLY AMAZING! HOW DID YOU DO IT?"

unless anyone objects...

[Adam]

ill take your silence to mean

"ITS SIMPLY AMAZING! HOW DID YOU DO IT?"

unless anyone objects...

Mmm sorry, I object. As mentioned before the design is really amateur.

"Windows comes pre-bundled with IE to download Firefox" - from your signature thing

That is all i use it for also haha

You may want to think about testing in other browsers, even if you don't use them. In Chrome and IE there are pretty big display issues with the pop-ups you need to address.

Just things like centred code samples, multiple layers of pop-ups, slow responses / constantly waiting for some animation to complete, unusable with JS disabled, zero SEO, etc. etc. Make this site very user-unfriendly and unprofessional in my opinion. Not touching the basic use of Photoshop to create a very rough gradient, thick black lines separating content, the lack of content, lack of logo, etc. etc.

[thewooleymammoth]

just to clerify: the new look is really ametuer?

[thewooleymammoth]

just to clerify: the new look is really ametuer?

sorry didnt see the rest of your post..,.

You may want to think about testing in other browsers, even if you don't use them. In Chrome and IE there are pretty big display issues with the pop-ups you need to address.

Just things like centred code samples, multiple layers of pop-ups, slow responses / constantly waiting for some animation to complete, unusable with JS disabled, zero SEO, etc. etc. Make this site very user-unfriendly and unprofessional in my opinion. Not touching the basic use of Photoshop to create a very rough gradient, thick black lines separating content, the lack of content, lack of logo, etc. etc.

In crhome at first glance it appears to be ok (could be wrong though), IE i havnt tested in yet as i mentioned in the first post.

Site loads pretty quickly according to http://websiteoptimization.com/services/analyze/

although i appreciate the thought i think i disagree about waiting for animations because it takes the same or less time for the animations than it would to load a new page.

Im not worried about SEO, if people are finding me through google, i wont have time for thier business.

You are right about the background, I need to hone my photoshop skills and come up with a new one.

thanks for the input ill work on that tomorrow.

[lostprophetpunk]

These are suggestions.

The first thing I notice is the hovering over on the '+' to view a bit of description about the links...it's pointless. It would be easier to make that little section higher (add about 10-15px to the height) and leave the links in the same place that they are, but move the descriptions underneath them. You could also get rid of the gradient background for the nav, and the bottom black border of the nav.

For a simple design like yours, it should not contain 11 validation errors. Your CSS has 5 validation errors. One thing I do find annoying is that you have to wait for boxes to load up when viewing pages.

Now here is where I am going to help you.

When using divs, never use the same 'id' for different divs. If you need several divs to have the same CSS, then use 'class' instead of 'id'.

I hope that I have helped in some way.

[ignace]

just to clerify: the new look is really ametuer?

Well to put it in other words you moved from 1992 to 1998

[ignace]

Some more considerations:

1. Your design gives away you created it in less than 10 minutes which reflects to prospects you don't put much work in what you do or don't care what you do
2. The + and - are just ugly get rid of them and place the description in their appropriate place like title=""
3. Get rid of the lightbox it ruins the usability of your application, is ugly and just adds to point 1. Also worth considering Google does not open Lighboxes
4. Spend time on search engine optimalisation (deeplink to your pages, highlight important keywords, ..)
5. Integrate a blog and let everyone know (that wants to hear) that you are blogging and write good interesting articles, let clients see you are an expert in your field
6. Great you have experience in PHP, MySQL and stuff (don't know what that is, what is that?) but can you create websites? (Think like the client)
7. "I am currently attending Cuesta and Laurus College for web design" Oh he is a student we don't want to take such risk (Think like the client) -> LIE!
8. "Night calls may not be answered." do you think I'm going to lookup when it's night where you live? Sorry your competition makes it easier for me -> I answer calls between 9 AM GMT+.. and .. or LEAVE IT OUT
9. "check out my source code" ... What is that? Why do I need to care? Why do I need to answer questions when all I need is someone to create my website??? Don't use technical terms. If you can't explain it LEAVE IT OUT. If it's irrelevant LEAVE IT OUT

Take a look at some portfolio websites other members have created:
- http://parkercodes.com/ (Garethp)
- http://www.adamswork.net/portfolio.php (MrAdam)

[lostprophetpunk]

I have just noticed something in the 'about' pop up for you. You say you have over 3 years of experience in freelance web design...but I am curious to where that fact comes from. Surely in the 3 years experience you have had...you must have learnt something useful?

Check out sites like these for programming help...
w3schools
Tizag (php)

Check out these for inspiration...
Web Creme
Abduzeedo

I hope I have helped you out some more.

[thewooleymammoth]

I have just noticed something in the 'about' pop up for you. You say you have over 3 years of experience in freelance web design...but I am curious to where that fact comes from. Surely in the 3 years experience you have had...you must have learnt something useful?

Check out sites like these for programming help...
w3schools
Tizag (php)

Check out these for inspiration...
Web Creme
Abduzeedo

I hope I have helped you out some more.

You can go f@#k yourself, I have plenty experience in web design, im just artistically terrible. My freind has been doing the actual site designs and i do the php/ some javascript. However he isnt around anymore so I need to learn more photoshop and general site design.

To the other people who arn't duches. I appreciate the *constructive criticism* and ill go ahead and redo a lot of the looks on my site. and some of the functionality. These suggestions are why i posted it on here. Cause i know it didn't quite look good and i wanted some suggestions. Thank you ignance and MRadam. I dont appreciate insults.

And yea the site has a long way to go. Thats why im not advertising it or really testing it in all the browsers yet.

topic solved, perhaps ill open another thread after the revamp.

[thewooleymammoth]

I have just noticed something in the 'about' pop up for you. You say you have over 3 years of experience in freelance web design...but I am curious to where that fact comes from. Surely in the 3 years experience you have had...you must have learnt something useful?

Check out sites like these for programming help...
w3schools
Tizag (php)

Check out these for inspiration...
Web Creme
Abduzeedo

I hope I have helped you out some more.

You can go f@#k yourself, I have plenty experience in web design, im just artistically terrible. My freind has been doing the actual site designs and i do the php/ some javascript. However he isnt around anymore so I need to learn more photoshop and general site design.

To the other people who arn't duches. I appreciate the *constructive criticism* and ill go ahead and redo a lot of the looks on my site. and some of the functionality. These suggestions are why i posted it on here. Cause i know it didn't quite look good and i wanted some suggestions. Thank you ignance and MRadam. I dont appreciate insults.

And yea the site has a long way to go. Thats why im not advertising it or really testing it in all the browsers yet.

topic solved, perhaps ill open another thread after the revamp.

I ment thank you guys for the suggestions. Not that you insulted me. that was for lostprophet punk

[Maq]

You can go f@#k yourself, I have plenty experience in web design, im just artistically terrible. My freind has been doing the actual site designs and i do the php/ some javascript.

I know this is solved but you need to relax a little bit.  You asked for a critique and that's what you're getting.  If you think people are posting insulting replies just ignore them.

topic solved, perhaps ill open another thread after the revamp.

I'll be looking forward to the revamped site.