[thelist] Question...

Shawn K. Quinn skquinn at frogger.kicks-ass.net
Tue Jul 1 16:47:06 CDT 2003


On Tuesday July 1 2003 01:20, rytames at telusplanet.net wrote:
> I have a few questions, and since this
> group seems packed full of professional
> folks, it must be a goos thing to ask em.
>
> First of all, I'm looking for a job as a web designer/
> multimedia developer. I know all the stuff I have to
> improve on, and secondary stuff I should learn...
>
> This post is not me asking for a job, but rather,
> I would like your veiws of:
> a) My web sites.
> b) My expereinces.
> c) My personality.
[...]
> I'm not going to list the things I know, instead
> I have two version of my online poirtfolio,
> that I would like creteced, from the veiw point
> of 'would I impress you, as a employer'.
>
> The links are:
>
> v1 - fairly basic ( i'm looking for opinions on v2 though ):
> http://portfolio.tames.2y.net/
> and
> v2 - still need to add more content:
> http://portfolio.tames.2y.net/test.html

The stylesheet is common to both of them, so I'll list comments about it 
first.

Font sizes should *never* be specified in px or pt in an author style 
sheet, as the user knows best what size font fits best with his/her 
environment and viewing situation. Line height should *never* be 
specified in px or pt because if the user may well have a larger font 
size than you are expecting. 24 px text is very hard to read with a 20 
px (or smaller) line height and that may be the smallest size the user 
can read easily.

Get rid of every 12px font size and adjust the remaining ones to be 
((old value in px)/12)em (14px would become 1.17em for example). 20px 
line height with 12px text would be 1.67em.

> A brief explaination is in order, becouse i like
> to explain myself. First off, I did everything myself,
> minus a few tid bits here and there.
>
> v2 will replace v1, and v1 is slightly in limbo, so some
> design elements are missing.
>
> v2 is supposed to reduce the clutter, and make it
> easier to navigate, more interactive, and more intelligent,
> as well, as offer more insight to 'me'.
>
> I also decided to use to my advantage, peoples
> perceptions, of 'me'.
>
> I personally like v2 a lot more, but it is slightly more advanced,
> and I opted to attempt a lot of javascript and css. The thing
> is, I have not coded any server side funcationality as of yet, and
> that is where the cooler stuff comes into play.

V2 degrades *very* ungracefully in the absence of Javascript. I feel 
confused about just what is wrong with a plain HTML link. Some users 
either won't have Javascript capable browsers, or will disable this 
capability. (Given the number of security problems with Javascript over 
the years, who can really blame them?)

After making a "sacrifical lamb" user account just to see what this 
Javascript does, it's really nothing that can't be done better with 
plain links anyway. I should have trusted my instinct and not wasted my 
time.

> I like it thus far, but I don't think it 'wow' enough to be hired
> from. v1 is ok, it mostly concentrated on my graphic works. v2
> though, i want to display more on my development skills.

V2 does a great job at shutting out a significant percentage of your 
audience, myself included. As far as I can tell the only thing it will 
"wow" is the paper shredder as your resume goes through it.

V1 is *much* better, it only suffers from readability problems when the 
font size is bumped up.

-- 
Shawn K. Quinn



More information about the thelist mailing list