Feedback on my portfolio - made in articulate

Jul 20, 2011

Hello Heroes.

I have been working pretty hard on making a portfolio/website to showcase some of my projects. Most of what I work on is proprietary, but the small samples I make to show a point here, or the templates I make just to stretch my skills so to speak can easily be shared.

So I created this website entirely in articulate.

Any comments or suggestions would be appreciated.

(P.S I set the motion path of the pages switching to be "very fast" and have even tried republishing, but it always shows up really slow for me, if anyone has any suggestions on how to fix THAT it would also be appreciated.)

Thanks!

37 Replies
David Anderson

I see it works here: http://kaylaburtch.com/

I know Studio wasn't intended to build web sites, but I have to admit I can't think of a much better way to promote one's Articulate skills and services.

Very  cool:

  • Using Articulate to showcase your content
  • About page - photo/polaroid effect is perfect for bio
  • Animated paper effects - awesome!
  • Desktop theme and business card layout
  • Portfolio design with arrows totally works.

Suggestions:

  • Blog page - missing title treatment like your other pages. I'd probably add a graphic like a computer with a screenshot of your blog or maybe just a screenshot with a reflection to nicely present the blog page users will view.
  • Secondary font used for body text - I like the font for your labels, but once a lot of text is used like on the Freebies page, it becomes much tougher to read. It's also a different font than what you used in the About page I'd consider something simpler body text but leave the font for the buttons. Or, as alternative, add more of a handwriting font for buttons (tape graphic) which ties a bit closer to your grungy (in a good way) title fonts

Well done Kayla:-)

Jeanette Brooks

Really nice, Kayla!! Thanks for sharing this!

I like the design a lot! LOVE how you created the Portfolio section to include multiple items accessible via the arrows.

On the tabs at the right edge of the page (About, Portfolio, Blog, etc.) you might consider adding a handwritten-style checkmark or  underline (or maybe a semitransparent highlighter-type effect?) on the current tab, to indicate which section the user is viewing.

You might also consider removing the maroon color from the lower-right corner of the player, since there are no player controls there and your users might mistakenly think they can/should click on it ... you can change the color to white so that it's invisible. To do that, go to Player Templates > Colors > Edit Color Schemes. Uder the "Accent Colors" section, you can change the items called "Sidebar background" and "Lines" to pure white.

Jen Perkins

Kayla, I love how you're marketing your skills by using those same skills to build your site. Might I steal the idea?

I agree with Jeanette on doing something to indicate which section the user is viewing by somehow adjusting the tabs on the right. I didn't realize the "home" page was the About tab until I clicked About.

I really like the imagination put into this!

MARIA LORNA KUNNATH

your demos are great and you have a very fun style...it should appeal to K-12 educators.. .. elementary/middleschool/hi​ghschool groups even companies--- I noticed a lack of link back to 'main page' once you're in the demos. As a main website I dont advise Articulate...better to do a site in a WCMS like drupal, wordpress or joomla for faster loading and overall look/feel/utility...articu​late is good for showcasing within a WCMS. Check out mine at http://elearnovate.org/ind​ex.php/online-web-project

Tom Kuhlmann

Great job.  I like the way you incorporated some of the community resources.  The only thing I'd add is that:

  • If you use this to market yourself, you want to limit clicks.  My guess is people will want to see examples.  I'd consider how to limit clicks and what's the fastest way a person can get to and view your portfolio?  Might be better to have a page with thumbnails rather than clicking through projects.
  • Back button on freebies (and others) is odd for the first page since I didn't use that type of navigation to get there.
Kayla Burtch

@ David and Jeanette Thanks for the tips. The feedback is really helpful, I will probably make some of those changes in my next edit (I already changed some of the fonts a'la David's suggestion)

@ Jen Feel free to "steal" my idea. That's what the community is all about! I didn't come up with it anyway I "stole" (I prefer borrowed) the idea from a post that Tom ( I think ) did in the blog about another community member who had made an articulate website.

@ Maria ... the demos should open in a new window... I'm not sure why they aren't for you. You can always click the "back" button though. (on the browser)

@ Samarapan. I do indeed plan on adding more freebies. Whenever I develop stuff that isn't too proprietary.

@ Greg I use "GoDaddy" as my web host and filezilla to manage my webfiles. Basically I just

1) Published to web
2) Changed the player.html filename to welcome.html (this is because welcome.html is the default name for the "homepage" at my website, this might differ by different hosts to index.html, home.html etc. you would have to check)
3) Upload the welcome.html file and the data and player folders (important, these must be in the SAME folder as the player.html file)

If you don't want your articulate file to be the main webpage you can just change the player.html file to whatever you want (lets say test.html) You would then direct whatever was linking there to www.yourwebsite.com/test.html

Hope that helps. If you have any more questions feel free to ask.

@ Tom The back and forward buttons are a negative by-product of "master slides" but I understand why it should be changed. I did try to thumbnail thing but thought that with my fram of paper inside articulate window made it too small. I'll play with it and see if I can find a compromise.

@ everyone else, thanks for the positive feedback!

MARIA LORNA KUNNATH

either way, I will not advise anyone to build a website on articulate....not everyone has all plugins installed and not all machines behave the same way especially those which are not 'articulate ready' but for demos - by all means go for it but put it within a WCMS   (flash-based or data-driven)..but your style seems very popular especially the fun personality it exudes and as I said before definitely should appeal to most school educators

Kayla Burtch

Well Maria,

The way I see it is that I ONLY develop products in articulate... sooooo if their computers can't view it, than... I'm probably not the right hire for them.

This way I'll never get e-mails asking if I can make something for i-phones. Or at least limit them.

Plus I *know* articulate like the back of my hand. And know about webdesign about as well as the unseen hand of an alien species that may or may not exist.

MARIA LORNA KUNNATH

  I can tell how passionate you are with articulate and I applaud you but don't think I meant to speak down on lack of knowledge of WCMS because anything online nowadays is pretty much mainstream...lots of people getting onboard doing one or the other online stuff plus there are similar plugins that does exactly like articulate so the technology is slowly getting familiar but your (and other articulate developer's) edge is the 'fun' style -- hitting the 'kid in me' nerve which most people find appealing --- best of luck to you and cheers

Tom Kuhlmann

Yeah, the link is still there., but without a cue, most people wouldn't find it.  Another option is to have a master for just the start and end slides.  Or the easiest thing is to have a master without the navigation and then just put start/end arrows on just those slides. 

@Maria: I noticed that for me it took a couple a little while to load so it just maybe that they're not loading fast enough from the GoDaddy service.  I run into that on my own personal site.

MARIA LORNA KUNNATH

'always curious about how others use articulate so I clicked Kayla's portfolio site instantaneaously and it loaded really slow with nothing in it...I closed my browser and re-started then waited a little then after a few minutes was clickable.  Loading time gets worse when many people access a site at the same time not excluding sites built in standard non-flash WCMS....but much worse if a site is built on articulate .... plus, you'll see the loading bar everytime you click on a link.

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