Website Critique

Photographs can be seen at either my black and white page or my color page. I recommend you watch the Day of Defense trailer. See my Black and Whites or Color

I have always wanted my own personal website. Not just any website a
website that serves purpose and will have people, including myself,
going back for more. I don’t want my website to be a one-night stand.
Where someone sees the site once and says, ‘that’s nice’ and never
sees the website again.

I want this website to be long lasting and professional. I am really
impressed with the web design of this site: www.dayofdefense.com
It uses traditional colors and has a classy style.

I started out mimicking that style with a black background and light text.
However I am not graphically advanced enough to put together excellent
jpegs to go with the design. I reluctantly gave up that idea. My mom when
looking at it with her old eyes said it’s ‘kind of hard to read.’ After not
speaking to her for a month, I forced myself to change the format of my site.
I believe that the finished product is much better than the ideological product could have ever been.

It is absolutely vital that my website look aesthetically pleasing as well as professional. I racked my brain and looked at other examples on the web and decide I need a monochromatic scale color scheme, I prefer the cooler blue colors, and so that is what I chose. I also needed some kind of visual vectors to frame and direct the eye to the content of the website, after much racking of the brain that was achieved as well.

I am severely irritated when I explore a website, and there is no apparent way to go back to the home page with out pushing the back button a couple of times. I wanted every page in my website to be accessible from every other page in the website. However through peer review and looking back I have decided to lists all the web pages at the bottom of each page in list form, for quicker and easier navigation.

I chose the envelope tab format because I wanted something that looked professional but doesn’t take much knowledge to create. I designed the tabs through practice in Adobe Photoshop. I wanted most of the page to fit on one screen, because my audience doesn’t want to scroll down a long page of words.

The main purpose of this site was a to post my portfolio and resume. That mean’s prospective employers will be reading this and critiquing me. Thus I mainly focused on making the site professional, and added a personal touch to make my site special.

One of my peers commented that he like my use and style of humor. I did have trouble on my resume page with one of the links having a mind of its own. I received comments to break up my resume page graphically somehow, and to make my bottom navigational buttons closer together.

If I had more time I would only change little itsy bitsy things. I am very happy with my results and finished product.