Final Post!

Wow, we're REALLY THERE! This is the one of the final few assignments I have left to do in my degree program!

This was really one of the more enjoyable classes for me. I played with a new web development program in the process, so it wasn't my best work but I had fun! I think that if I could do it again, I would spend a little more time on the content and less time on being nit-picky with little design things.

When it came time to put together all of my portfolio items, I felt more like I was throwing it together than anything... trying to dig up information.

I need to revisit those items and find a better way to present them in the future.

Portfolio Evolution

I'm sure that 5 years from now we will be seeing some more dynamic portfolios pop up that mainly feature new social aspects. I imagine that social networks will continue to evolve over the next couple of years and I'm sure that the webmaster tools section of those sites will continue to add new features.

I think that portfolios have a huge potential to become more socially interactive. Maybe even a portfolio social network? I guess you could call LinkedIn that, but I'd like to see something where people could use components of the social network freely in their own designs.

Concept, Wrong.

Being a long-time web developer, I know better than go experimental on my visitors without seriously considering the consequences of psychologically messing with what they consider to be the "norm". Web designs have been studied over and over again and what's been tried and true is tried and true for a reason.

It works.

Web development is psychological. Visitors tend to want to look in certain locations for information, they want their navigational menus in certain places. So, before you go experimental, funkadelic disco on your portfolio, think about the effects that your site will have on my brain.

This is my brain.

This is my brain on your site.

Please don't do that to me.

http://kashiwasato.com - A horrible example of experimental gone wrong. Why? Because it's confusing to visitors... I had no idea what I was looking at for the first two minutes! Also, it's full-screen flash which means that no iPhone, iPad or mobile devices without Flash support can access this portfolio. Get with the AJAX and HTML5 program.

http://clearmediawebsites.co.uk - Freaking gorgeous. Clean layout and updated technologies (AJAX) without going crazy. I love the grid layout of their portfolio page. I'll probably adopt that.