This portfolio website which is completely designed and hand-coded by me has experienced many iterations based on experts' suggestions.
Every time I use my personal website as my portfolio for my job applications, the interviewers tend to offer some feedback about it such as “I don't know which work is the most important,” “Works should be the most important part of your website,” or “Your category is not clear.” This prompted me to embark on a redesign journey.
This website serves as a part of my job applications, and the interviewers are the users. I collected all the advice I have received, for which I am so grateful because it allowed me to identify the problems and improve my website for the better.
Role: UX/UI Design, Responsive Web Design
Time: 2017/1 - Present
GitHub: yuyuchinglin.github.io (GitHub Page)
When I went to a job interview, I would ask the interviewers about their feelings on and suggestions for my portfolio website in the one-on-one section. These included people aged between 28 and 50 years who were supervisors with technology, design, or management backgrounds. Their responses included the following:
“You did a great job. I can see you take it very seriously. However, there are some
suggestions. When I
went to the website, I want to see your portfolio, the portfolio should be the most
important part.”
- Blockchain tech lead, male, 40 years old
“There are almost ten works on your website. Some of them are design work, and some of
them are coding
work. The works’ category should be more clear. Besides, I don’t know which is the most
important work.
You should highlight your favorite work.”
- Project manager, female, 35 years old
“The color scheme on your website doesn’t look nice. I felt a little dirty because your
background is
not black enough. I think the color should be more clear.”
- Software engineer, male, 30 years old
According to the interviews, there are two main problems: One is the works displayed, and the other is the color scheme. My solutions are provided below.
(1) Works:
Instead of putting a lot of information such as introduction, skills, and pictures on my index page,
I now
only put my works on this page to highlight the importance of the portfolio. I have reduced the
number of
works to ensure the portfolio’s quality. Furthermore, I have put a filter on my works. If users want
to see
the coding work, they can use the filter to reveal it.
(2) Color:
For the second version, I wanted it to be professional, elegant, and warm, so I changed my color
scheme. To
reduce interviewers’ cognitive loading, I used a white background, which is typical for portfolio
websites,
instead of a black background.
I hand-coded this website and deployed it to the GitHub page. In addition, I host a custom domain on this website. Therefore I can remotely add, commit, or push to the GitHub repository, and my changes will appear on my website.
I use Google Analytics to track user activity, which provides me with useful data. For example, I can see the time or page the user visited, what country they originate from, and what devices they used. This will give me some inspiration to improve my website.
You are now in the second version of my website, which I have redesigned according to the advice of interviewers. Hope you feel much better now! If you still have some suggestions, please feel free to tell me!
This is the first version of my portfolio website. I chose this design because of its classic and elegant façade. However, I need to enhance it further to ensure a user-friendly interface.
