AestheticsI feel that the colours chosen work well together. The reflections don't work for me on this project; they give an amateurish feel. The 'flowers' also offer nothing to the design other than to act as an obstacle when then text size is increased.
Accessibility & Validation
Disappointing, the students XHTML doesn't validate; not that a doc-type has been specified.
Alarmingly, it is much of the same for the CSS. From examining the source code (both XHTML & CSS) I get the impression that it is generated by a WYSIWYG editor. These facts would concern me as a potential employer.
Increasing the size of the type creates issues with the design. This could have been solved with a little work & testing
Navigation
The internal navigation is consistent and reliable but is on the small side. The external navigation is unreliable with some links broken and others purposefully removed. Along side this is the 'blinking text' for all hyper-links in when in the hovered state. All things considered, the site does not provide a good user experience.
Conclusion
As a student project, the site serves it's purpose of holding a corner of the web with the students name on it. I feel that the delivery could & should have been much better considering that this is a final year university student. From this analysis I can see just how important the impression is that the portfolio delivers.
jeffmanske.com [Professional]
AestheticsJeff's portfolio gives the impression that it is flash based, although it isn't. When compared and contrasted the student created project, there is a clear divide in the level of professionalism, experience and skill in favour of Jeff. There are still some issues as detailed below but overall a much more aesthetically pleasing build.
Accessibility & Validation
As is to be expected the site has compliant XHTML [transitional] & CSS [2.1]. All of the content is in one XHTML document which could be arduous for screen reader users. Design breaks when type size is increased.
Navigation
The navigation is consistent, reliable as well as being aesthetically pleasing with a subtle JavaScript based animation to move from one area to another. Regrettably, the site doesn't degrade well for browsers with JavaScript disabled as there is no easy alternative method of navigation.
Conclusion
The site looks great, it shows off his skills as a designer & a developer. The project doesn't consider accessibility as much as it should but otherwise is a project to be proud of.
No comments:
Post a Comment