28 March 2004
Wubb 2 : Wubbleyew.com re-development
As I have grown increasingly towards the idea of working for my self some day (some day – I don't know when), I have also spent a lot of time looking at other company sites, and personal portfolios. Only to realise, that wubbleyew.com is woefully inadequate.
Not the actual work I have done (though I do admit that my portfolio work does not jump out and hit you), but the presentation as a whole, and the way that I am appealing to the visitor. It is just too amateurish, and single-person based. You can tell it is about one person, and not a collaboration of people.
I want people to feel as if it is about a collaborative effort, because I am a true believer in having the best person for the job, do the job. If I know someone that can do some aspect of the work better than I could, I will try and get him or her involved in the work. I want to offer the client the best possible outcome.
For this reason I am going to start towards a better wubbleyew.com. And, I am going to start by highlighting the areas of the current site that give me the most concern.
What I’ve got that’s wrong (page by page)
Home
The content on this page just does not ‘do it' at the moment. I am not sure what to put on here at the moment. I think a link to the latest project – with thumbnail images – would be of great help to direct people to the portfolio straight away.
About
This page is about me, and I think that is a problem. I don't want people to think of wubbleyew.com as a single-person thing, even though it is. Maybe I will go with Zeldman's “we” speech, or maybe I will be a bit more vague and have another page ‘About Phil Baines' hidden away deeper into the site.
News
News about my work and the site. At the moment, this page is static. I want to make it more dynamic so that I can update it with ease.
Services
A list of services I can provide, but also a list of skills. This page feels as if it misses the point a bit, and I think that the skills section is a bit to much. Maybe I can put that into the ‘About Phil Baines' page.
Products
A list of products I provide - all one of them, and that one are not finished to a selling point. This page seems pointless at the moment.
Portfolio
Portfolio of work I have done, and I am doing. This is not organised enough. The original idea of having it in XML was that it would make it easy to update. But it doesn’t really. I learnt how to use XSLT thanks to this page, but it really doesn’t have to be like this. Also, the imagery of the page is not good enough. I want more images of the work I have done. The write-ups are good, but need to be rewritten to appeal to a different, more important audience. I might want to split the portfolio up into sections, but I haven’t decided on what would be appropriate. I will be trying to show some more impressive work in my portfolio as well. Even if it is work I did for myself, and as an experiment. It needs Wow-Factor!
Contact
Contact Information. Needs a form, and to be less person specific. Not to Phil Baines, but to Wubbleyew.com.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions. As of this moment, there is nothing here. I will keep a place for it, for when there is content. But until then, bye.
The Style Selector
Ok, not quiet a page, but still an integral part of the site. It was a good idea to show of the power of CSS, and my skills with it – but its gone too far now. It is limiting the development of the site, because I am catering for the style sheets, instead of the style sheet (singular) catering for the content. Maybe I can use the other designs as feature/concept work that I can place in my portfolio. Except that ‘silver’ style! That one will most probably never see the light of day again once it has gone.
My next steps
It is obvious that wubbleyew.com is not good enough for me as it is at the moment. I have highlighted some of the things about the site that really bothers me, or has grown to bother me.
Now, I just have to work addressing these issues and hopefully coming up with something better. I do, however like my current default design for the site, that is the ‘winter’ style. So I probably will keep that as the template. However, I will be scrapping the style selector, so that there is only ever one style at a time. Not that it wont change every now and again. I might put a copy of the old site (and its styles) into a '/old' directory for archive purposes, but I haven’t decided for sure.
What do you think of the points that I have brought out about my own site? Pease feel free to add your own constructive criticism.
- Time: 23:45
- Project Watch
Comments ( 8 )
Hasan
In general, I agree w/ you. Here's some things I think...
1)Keep it tight! You're spread too thin. No link should be dead, all projects, sites, programs should be up and running, if it ain't done, don't tell us about it yet.
2)Show me what you want me to see FIRST. You want me to see the portfolio? List it first, and have the first thing on there the work you are most proud of, and make sure it works perfectly, everything spelled right, links not broken, etc...
3)Aim for your audience. You want it to be professional? Don't show shots of your friends drinking at a party, that goes somewhere else, not accessible from your professional site.
After you have them thinking you're completely rpofessional, then you can mess around with styled forms, personal bio's, links to rock band sites (that work!) and such.
I agree the winter theme is sweet and should stay the default, no style switcher is needed, the font is large enough too so you don't need a switcher for that either. Remember, I'm a user, not a designer, but I think I'm right on these points, they just make good business sense. Get it down to maybe 4 or 5 really tight pages, have everyone you know give their feedback, and then do it your own way. YOU ARE THE MAN!!!
Hasan
Phil Baines
I will have to find out if I can use them, or if they are his.
The stuff you say about redundant links is very true. And about my band website. I will have to sort that site out some time soon. the band is going through a new start, so it might be good timing for a new site. But, I can only do so much. ;)
What I have to do now is decide on what my new sections are going to be, and what I will put into each one.
Any more suggestions out there?
Jennifer Grucza
I would also suggest changing the writing style. Right now, it is somewhat chatty, like you're talking to a friend about what you've been up to. If you want this to be a company site, I would make sure that you're writing to the right audience. You have to sell yourself - show potential clients why they should hire you. Stay on topic - personal interests and comments on the weather should stay in your blog, and not on the About or News pages. :)
Also, make sure you spell check! I caught one or two "quiet"s that should have been "quite".
Hasan has good suggestions - I especially agree with the idea of omitting links to incomplete pages. It's so tempting to just put up what you have so far (like my site, which still has an incomplete design!), but for a professional web site, it's better just to show what's complete.
Jennifer Grucza
Phil Baines
Yeah, proof reading is a must. I don't think I had a proofreader around when I did the site in January. Must this time...
I like what your saying about my news page. It will have to change anyway because a lot of the content will be made redundant by getting rid of things like the style selector.
I will definitely try and keep it more formal in the future.
Eric
By the way, thanks for the link and the compliments! I appreciate it.
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