21 comments

  • Brandon ZellBrandon Zell, over 5 years ago

    Love the look of your site. It's not a unique aesthetic, but it is a good one, and you've executed it nicely.

    There are three comments I'd like to pass along:

    1) When your site loads, I see a quick flash with a large twitter icon and a white background. Take a look: https://www.dropbox.com/s/rl9zbdgjbfw1mlr/alexprice.co.mov?dl=0

    You can check out what browser I'm using, if that helps you troubleshoot this: [whatsmybrowser.org/b/R8LQ3F8](whatsmybrowser.org/b/R8LQ3F8)

    2) I enjoy the creative look of the blue vertical photo of you in your footer. However, the similarly skinny photos paired with your projects feel more like looking through a narrow window and not being able to tell what's on the other side.

    3) After scrolling to the bottom of a project, I found myself looking for a "Back to projects" or "Next project" type of navigation.

    4 points
    • Alex PriceAlex Price, over 5 years ago

      Thanks! I think you're right though—needs some visual sugar.

      1) You're totally right! The video was super helpful. I just deployed what I think is a fix for that now. Great catch.

      2) Hmm... maybe this is a good thing (encourages clickthrough?). I'll play with some variations of this, see if I can make it feel less cramped.

      3) Yeah, I've definitely gotten this feedback a couple times now. Makes total sense. I'm writing this now, going to deploy later today. Here's what it'll look like on mobile, and desktop, with some hover effects...

      Thanks for your feedback!

      1 point
      • Brandon ZellBrandon Zell, over 5 years ago

        1) Great, glad that was helpful!

        2) Yeah, this could go either way. It does feel a bit cramped compared to the overall design.

        3) I like the -> arrow on the end of the title. I think you should use that and remove "Read about it". Little surprised you're putting this below the "Let's talk" section. Seems like your splitting your footer rather than putting the next projects section on top of your footer. Either way, that will be a helpful improvement.

        1 point
        • Alex PriceAlex Price, over 5 years ago

          I added those links (example here). Still gotta figure out a "back to homepage" button placement.

          Good call on the split footer—I added them directly below the finished article, rather than below the contact me.

          I appreciate all your feedback, and the time you've put into critique!

          0 points
  • Andrew Hersh, over 5 years ago

    The font weight feels way too heavy. Looks like the font you're using only has one weight available.

    2 points
  • Megan VoMegan Vo, over 5 years ago

    Hiya fellow Austinite, your portfolio is great!

    • I think the hover effects on the landing page are subtle, and just enough "flash" to catch the attention of clients looking for that kind of work.

      • I believe in presenting work in the simplest way possible. I found the hover effects distracting while reading. When I hovered over a photo I thought the magnifying glass cursor suggested clicking it would enlarge it.
      • I would open up your resume in a new tab, wasn't expecting a .pdf so it was jarring
      • I would consider nixing one of the photos of yourself. Maybe use the Contact Me section to hone in on a stronger call to action and also surface other places a client can get to know you and your work more (github/twitter).
    1 point
    • Alex PriceAlex Price, over 5 years ago

      Hey Megan, thanks for the feedback!

      1. I had some fun with the hover effects, but had to write some conditional css to only enable them on non-touch devices. iOS specifically tries to render the hover effects, requiring some double tapping. Learn something new every day!
      2. Image lightboxing was in my backlog. It's shipped now, Medium style!
      3. For the resume, I didn't want to open in a new tab so as to be less invasive on mobile. The PDF being unexpected is a reaction I've gotten a bit now, and I'll wrap that in a page in the future. For now though, I'd rather users be able to retain the ability to quickly navigate back.
      4. I've been flip-flopping between social links and the photo. I'm working on some extra visual sugar to add to that intro page, but you're right, social links are probably the better bet right now.

      Thanks again!

      0 points
  • Lorenzo Quintana, over 5 years ago

    Not bad! I like it. Some feedback:

    1. On mobile, the cards are big and have no margins. Add margins to these cards.
    2. Also on mobile, the text section has more space than the image itself, maybe a 50/50% on image and content?

    Good job!

    1 point
  • Duke CavinskiDuke Cavinski, over 5 years ago

    Kind of an open question, but I notice a lot of folks doing the hover scaling effect that involves type but I notice on standard-res screens that these effects get awfully fuzzy and pixellated versus the high-dpi stuff, and this keeps me from using the technique professionally. Are a lot of designers more or less optimizing for retina screens these days?

    1 point
    • Alex PriceAlex Price, over 5 years ago

      That's a question that maybe deserves it's own topic, and gets into the larger challenge of what browsers/platforms/years to support. For this portfolio site, my audience is primarily tech folks, and I'm mostly aiming at startups + other designers here (people likely to have retina displays, and up-to-date browsers).

      I think it's generally true that we optimize for what we can see, unless we have great testing suites + teams in place to show us where we fall short. For most designers, that ends up (unfortunately) being retina screens, on quick MacBooks, with fast internet (/generalization).

      0 points
  • Ryan Slama, over 5 years ago

    Well done!

    My only comment that I don't think has been mentioned thus far is the "Email Me" button. The spacing somehow feels off and just not "right." Additionally, I'd probably replace it's hover animation.

    Oh, and maybe add a max-width so the cards have a little padding on mobile

    1 point
  • Chris CChris C, over 5 years ago

    Simple all the way from the display of your projects to the copy. Aside from what's been said here, the only feedback I have is that your favicon is super pixelated. Not a huge deal but it just stuck out with all the other tabs I had open.

    1 point
    • Alex PriceAlex Price, over 5 years ago

      It totally is, great catch. Now to figure out why...

      Fixed! Favicons are a pain in the ass to get right! I used this site, and they're working great now. You might need to open an incognito tab if your browser's caching changes.

      0 points
  • Jonathan PattersonJonathan Patterson, over 5 years ago

    Hey Alex! Good job! A few pieces of constructive criticism:

    -The site doesn't load right on Mac, FF Quantum. I just see a black screen and when I scroll down I see the Let's Talk section and image.

    -I like your use of black + colors—maybe use a solid color instead of transparency so the "weight" of the color more closely matches the black.

    -I like the transitions and hover effects.

    -Consider putting your avatar in a circle. The contrast will complement the other rectangles on the page.

    -There's a 20 px or so white line under the 4 projects. Is that an intended design element? It looks like a broken scroll bar. Consider removing.

    -Need a way to get back to the home page without using browser back arrows

    -The intro "I'm Alex…"is very pedestrian. "Maybe see what else you can come up with that grabs people's attention. All the words on a website are important.

    I also agree with what Brandon Zell said.

    1 point
    • Alex PriceAlex Price, over 5 years ago

      Hey, thanks!

      1. Yeah, I was too hasty deploying a fix to the FoUC Brandon mentioned. That invisible header should be fixed! Quantum is rad!
      2. What do you mean by transparency? Is this regarding the articles, or somewhere else?
      3. Thanks!
      4. Ah, yeah, I'll give that a shot!
      5. Gone!
      6. Yeah, Brandon called this out as well. I'm going to add these links later today.
      7. You're 100% right. I'll do some hunting for great opening text today.

      Appreciate the feedback!

      1 point
      • Jonathan PattersonJonathan Patterson, over 5 years ago

        Regarding transparency I'm talking about the top colored section on the project-specific pages. That top section needs some more design attention. The use of color combined with the image doesn't feel right yet.

        1 point
  • Alex PriceAlex Price, over 5 years ago

    I posted about a month ago asking for some feedback on the site I put together then ([you can find it here](2017.alexprice.co)). Y'all gave me some great criticism, much of it focused on the fact that I wasn't hosting any case studies or examples of my work on the site.

    • "It's like you forgot the desktop media queries."
    • "don't recommend sending users to Dribbble... Dribbble is a great place to show off to other designers, but it's not great for the rest of your audience..."
    • "Put your work on your own website."

    So I went back, and did exactly that! I wrote some case studies, gathered photos, and rebuilt the site. It's still reasonably quick, thanks to some great server-rendered code-split magic from next.js, and dynamic image loading (try loading the site on a slow network in an incognito tab).

    I'd love to hear what you think—whether the articles are a better direction, if they're too long, or if the whole "cards to articles" approach feels too derivative.

    Thanks for reading! ✌️

    0 points