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KatieWagner.com - A Portfolio has 4 Reviews

Below are the reviews left by other members on KatieWagner.com - A Portfolio. Jump to review form?

1. 

   reeshas gave it on 28th Mar 2009 and said:

   Hello Katie, I really liked this layout so I want to review it, also I get points xD. What first got me interesting is the nature part. I’m a sucker for nature themed designs and sites. So here I am. I’ll provide you with a few comments on the overall design and css, before I give you my opinion on your site. I like the strong colors, the light brown and then getting darker reminds me of top soil =D I like that the design is centered and looks like is coming off the background because of the shade on the sides. This design is very simple yet very effective. For once, there’s no side navigation to crowd up a decent site. Your main links are strong in color and size. Big and bold is the way to go! The colors match so perfectly I don’t know what to say. Your dividers have goo length and the text isn’t all squeezed into a tiny space, nice and roomy atmosphere. The font color is clear and easy to read, and I especially like the hover links on the bottom, great job! Alright moving on.

   *HOME: easy to read and understand. Your recent editions give viewers an idea of what you’re capable of. I like how you put in the title of the layout or site. The borders around all the images, you also used light box 2 which is so much better in every way!

   *ABOUT: this page is so simple and clean, god, it’s so easy to follow! I wish you had more on the site, it’s very creative, and when did you make this site? What inspired you? Do you have future plans? I’m kind of left unsatisfied there.

   *CONTACT: wow the message part is huge; make it wider, not longer. Also, have your email here just in case the form doesn’t work of if someone wants to use your email to contact you. make sure to type out your email, not link it.

   *PHOTOGRAPHY: you say small? This is a lot to me. Man the doll with the glasses is so cute! Very lovely photos. How did you get the jellyfish picture, it’s amazing!

   *WEB DEVELOPMENT: I like how you listed the features in each project. You’re very talented and you have a wide range of talents too. I’m going to review your other site too =D thanks for reading my opinions.

   Using MSIE on Windows | Report This?

   katili's Response:

   Thanks for the feedback, especially the ones about the About page; I never know what to put on those. I'll have to work in those suggestions! I took the jellyfish picture at an aquarium, it was kind of hard to get cause it was pretty dark in there.

2. 

   Greykitty gave it on 9th Feb 2009 and said:

   Layout

   I'm not a real big fan of dark green and yellow. I find it just doesn't looka s nice together. I think it's the cool and warm colors they just kind of clash. I think if you stuck with earth tones, or yellow and orange it would fit a little better. What you have now isn't bad, just doesn't work really well in my opinion.

   I would suggest moving your header font up to the right hand corner more rather than keeping it close to the bottom where it kind of mingles with your navigation text. I would also suggest changing the font and size of your navigation. I think it would look nicer if it weren't all in caps. Maybe up the font size one or two points. Maybe order things differently like About, Portfolio, Contact, and then Home. Cut down on the links on your page, and if anything you could maybe add an external links page somewhere.

   Your other links, being teal, don't stand out enough with the rest of your font. I would make it a lighter color. I think rather than having a bright yellow border change it to a darker one and when you hover over it have the lighter color show up. I like your little arrows pointing to more information.

   Content

   You intro paragraph is fine, and so is the most recent, but I would suggest actually adding a last updated tag or even add a small text blip saying you have updated and what you have updated. This will let you know that you are active with the site and whatnot.

   Web Development

   I like how you have it set up, though I'm almost tempted to say it might look nicer if it were all centered since you have each layout on it's own little section. I like that each design has a longer description though I clicked on the link about that and it lead me to a broken page. Is it an actual html example of that layout?

   Photography

   It's nice and I like how you have it organised. It would be nice to see more of your works though, but this has a pretty good variety.

   The contact form is pretty typical so I haven't got any suggestions there for you.
   Your about section is pretty complete, gives a nice image of who you are. Maybe add a photo of you in there somewhere. Just small one inline with the text to make the page look a little more full.

   Overall

   I think your site is pretty nice, I'm not a real big fan of your color scheme but everything else about it is quite nice. Your content is nice and gives a good feel for what you can do, just watch those broken links.
   I think if you made a different layout keep to either warm or cool colors and fix up a few of the small glitches, and keep adding more content so it stands out and you'll have a great portfolio.

   Using Firefox on Windows | Report This?

   katili's Response:

   Hiya :) Thanks for the suggestions!

   Do you happen to remember which link was broken? I can't find one.. the links do go to functioning samples of the layout, and as far as I know they should all be working :( If you remember, please PM me or something, I'd appreciate it.

   I'd been a little hesitant about putting the dates on the web site entries, just because I sometimes go through phases where I don't update things regularly, but now that you mention it, it couldn't hurt to put a blip on the updated items or something.

   And thanks for the input on the link color. I was a little concerned about it but hadn't gotten much feedback on those specifically. I'll re-evaluate the colors on those.

3. Sianay gave it on 7th Feb 2009 and said:

   I'm viewing your page in Mozilla Firefox.

   layout / css: 6 / 1O ; I'm quite fond of your layout, minus one thing; the brown background just doesn't go very well with the green. Your banner is simple: a yellow flower. I really like it and it put a smile on my face. I'm undecided about the CSS colors but i wont complain, it's all very pretty.

   Links / Navigation: 8 / 1O; They all work, have appropriate titles and lead to the right places. They stand out and are easy to find. Perhaps add more pages to link up to the navigation, it will make your site seem more active.

   Uniqueness: 5 / 1O; Gah. If i was reviewing this page 5 minutes earlier then i would have given it a higher score, but unlucky for you, this is now 'just another portfolio'. I never used to see many of these but its getting old. I'm not complaining about it so please don't take it personally.

   Popularity: O / 1O; Sorry, i found no evidence of any hit counter or page statistics, and if there were any i appoligize, they weren't noticeable. I'd never heared of your site before either.

   Content: 7 / 1O; Not too little, Not too less, if you get me? Theres enough to keep your mind awake. When i clicked on the pictures, They took Forever to load and i couldn't exit them until they had loaded, i felt trapped! My internet and computer is pretty fast.

   Overall: 26 / 5O; i apologize if i have calculated it wrong, im not partically good at maths, but i suppose the score isnt relivant.

   comments: I love your photography, that's what made your site unique. Please explain 'Web Development' too me? I'm young and stupid and it didn't explain on your site. There is little writing on your page, sometimes this is good, sometimes it's bad. Well done and keep up the good work!

   Using Firefox on Windows | Report This?

   katili's Response:

   Hello, thanks for taking the time to review my site :)

   I know where you're coming from with the sudden flux of portfolios popping up. I meant to do mine ages ago and well, I'm just now starting to get into trying to find a job, and so I finally sat down and made one.

   There are statistic trackers keeping tabs on the site, but I didn't make them public because I really don't feel like anybody else needs to know about it. I'm kind of curious now; are there really a majority of sites out there that have that information publicly available? Most of the sites I visit don't have stat trackers on the pages /shrug.

   I'll have to look into why the images took so long to load for you. I know the javascript won't let you click until they're done loading, but there aren't that many.. hrm. Thanks for the info, I hadn't come across that yet.

   As for "web development".. it may not be quite the right term but I'm using it until I think of something better. Basically I don't want to call myself a "web designer" because I hate the design aspect of it and would be very happy to do nothing but front-end coding.

   I guess maybe the one concept that isn't coming across as well as I might like it to is that this site is meant to supplement my resume while I look for work.

4. infragilis gave it on 27th Jan 2009 and said:

   Using: Windows XP, Firefox 3.0.5

   When I first got to your portfolio, the page doesn't really seem to have a stopping point. The extra white space you have underneath your welcome just seems uncalled for. I was curious about it, so I looked at your CSS and noticed that you put a minimum height requirement for your content div. Divs expand vertically regardless, so there's really no need to put a minimum height requirement.

   I don't understand why you have access keys in your navigation. I don't think regular visitors to your site are going to know what they are or how to use them. I know I didn't.

   Honestly, I think the information on your main page should be on it's own. You have impressive credentials for design though. I think you might want to showcase your best work on the front page. That way future clients can see what kind of work they can expect. Now, I realize that you have pages for these items anyway, but you include everything on those. Picking out your best layout or a few of your best photos might be better in the long run.

   Layout: Single column layouts are kind of popular, I think, for portfolio designs. I think your header image is a bit squished though. It's as if you wanted the entire picture for the header and couldn't crop. It's a bit blurry too. I don't know if that's because of the squishing or just the picture itself. I think cropping the image to really focus on the flower would be nice.

   I do like how you pulled colors from the picture to decide the colors for your layout.

   Your navigation floats to the right. I don't know if this is intentional, but centering would bring your layout together more.

   Web Development: The thing I notice mostly is the images. They're kind of large. Which is good for showing some detail, but personally, I kind of wanted to see a bigger screenshot. Perhaps you could have a smaller version link to a bigger version using Lightbox (which I will talk about more below).

   I noticed that when I click on more information, the image is bigger and you give a mini history of the design. Maybe you could use the width of your layout to your advantage to make the image bigger here instead of on the synopsis page.

   Photography: This is a good selection of photos. I love that you are using Lightbox. I think it's a really handy tool for what you are showing.

   Contact: Generic contact form. However, I think you should put your email there too, in case the form breaks. It's good to have a backup plan.

   Text: Since you mentioned it above, some usability studies have found that readers have a harder time reading light text on dark background. Though, I think yours displays at a high enough size to kind of head off some of that difficulty. If you are really worried about it, you might look at doing a lighter background with a darker text.

   Overall, I think this is a good beginning to a portfolio. You have the main points down on what needs to be there.

   Using Firefox on Windows | Report This?

   katili's Response:

   Hiya! Thanks for the feedback.

   I have the minimum height because the layout looks *really* weird if it doesn't hit the bottom of the browser window.. the middle column just kind of stops. Since a couple of the pages are short, I wanted to make sure that the layout was going to reach the bottom of most browsers.

   The access keys... /shrug. They probably don't need to be there, and I've already toyed with the idea of taking them down. I agree that the average user isn't going to use them, but then again, they're mostly there for the people that need them and not the average user anyway (accessibility and all that jazz seems to be the direction web design is currently going).

   I don't know if it's just me having looked at the photo for so long that it looks normal in my eyes but you're not the first person to say it looks squished, so I'll be re-doing the header image.

   As for the navigation float; yeah, I need to mess with that some more. I haven't figured out yet why it's shifting so far to the right but it's been bothering me too.

   I also really like the idea of using Lightbox for the thumbnails on the websites. That hadn't crossed my mind yet, as Lightbox was a last minute addition. I think I will go ahead and change that, thanks for the suggestion!

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