March 28, 2005

Portfolio Design Kyle's Way

I was going to give my thoughts on Portfolio Design, but Kyle did it better than I ever could:

I think it depends majorly on how you intend to use your portfolio.

  1. Are you looking to attract clients from internet searches?
  2. Are you looking to attract clients from business card referrals / word-of-mouth?
  3. Are you looking to simply use your portfolio in face-to-face interviews, showing your work?

I'd say those are the three business-related goals for portfolios.

For option #1 - Focus on content, big headlines - short text. Make the user want to continue reading. They're just seconds from the back button... always remember that. These users are coming to your page with bad expectations. You have to actively pursue them to read the content.

For option #2 - Make it flashy, but not too flashy. Have a lot of content, headlines aren't so important - you can start making the text longer and more prominent. These people took the time to type in your address into the address bar - they're here to stay for a few minutes, and have a high likelyhood of actually reading your content. These users are coming to your page with good expectations. They have a reason for coming, and they're definately going to find out more.

For option #3 - Make it nothing but flash, pizzaz, glimmer and glamor. Content is of no relation here as no one's going to read it. They just want to see something cool looking, and examples of past sites. Thes users are coming to your site with no expectation whatsoever.They aren't even going to read any content. They're just going to give it the old once-over, initial impressions. Think book cover here.

There's 2 cents... for my portfolio (when I was still frelancing) I was going in between #1 and #2. My major purpose of my portfolio was from business card references and word of mouth, so mine's a big content heavy - but with enough flash to make people ooh when they first see it.

No comments needed here because you can just continue the discussion in the previous post.

Posted by Scrivs at March 28, 2005 06:32 PM