One thing I've always struggled with is, because it's just me, should the voice of the site be saying like "I am Jack Harner" or "We are Harner Designs". I think, right now the site is kind of a mix of both, and that might be confusing/off putting.
I love the console message and the theming! Very "on brand"!
Branding
I think this is more of a business question than a portfolio one. I, personally, would keep it to just you and use "I". Somebody else may have better feedback there though!
Design
The earth jumps around for me after the first paint, but I really like the use of animations! Might be something to look into. I would stick to all navy instead of the navy and black, but that's just me!
I would make the full portfolio images a link instead of just the green button, especially since the pointer finger comes up!
Performance
I'm getting a couple paint issues where things are a little slow. I ran a lighthouse test and it looks like some images could be optimized! There are great instructions right on the test, so I would read through that! The menu dropdowns could maybe be sped up too!
The earth jumps around for me after the first paint
ya, I think I'm going to try to redo that whole banner animation using Canvas. Hopefully be a little more performant than just animating SVGs.
I would make the full portfolio images a link
Are you talking about the slides in the Recent Clients section on the homepage? Those Images link on my end, but it might be an browser/os issue. Are you on Mac?
Mojave/Safari 12, the images in Recent Clients are all missing. I even tried reloading without my content blocker. Oddly no errors in console I could see, but might double check it's not just me. They load fine in Chrome however.
As for the voice, I'd suggest thinking about how you want yourself to be viewed by others. Are you a one man show or are you a giant company? How do you want to be seen? Is it worse for me to think you're a giant company and find out it's just you in a WeWork space? Is it better for me to know you're solo, but awesome, and that I'm getting your full attention? Both have pros and cons. My advice is to think about how you want to be seen, what questions clients will ask (ie. "what happens if you go on vacation?") and then decide and be consistent.
IMHO I'm not a fan of pretend to be a giant company when you're just one guy. But that's just me and I could be totally wrong :)
The SVG's are great!.. As Ali has said, there are paint issues with the hero. (I loves me some slow animations, tho). I haven't checked whether they're css...if they are, first, Nice! :D . second... You may wish to try gsapping those babies for a more smooth browser paint. greensock.com/.
I particularly like the "progress background" of the tabs in the menu as I scroll down through your work.
The colors in those might be a bit less saturated or toned down for a bit of subtlety... but overall I think it's a nice touch.
Jack thank you for your feedback on my portfolio earlier today. I visited your page and was impressed by your graphics and illustrations. One thing that bothered me is how wide your forms are particularly here and towards the bottom of your homepage. For example, I entered my name in the 'Name' field and my full name takes up ~25% of the entire field.
I've been a professional C, Perl, PHP and Python developer.
I'm an ex-sysadmin from the late 20th century.
These days I do more Javascript and CSS and whatnot, and promote UX and accessibility.
I love the header image. The subtle animation of the satellite is a nice effect, and the shadow on the banner text makes it legible against any background colour. The squoval porthole-type image is a nice touch too.
I really like the way the form labels animate out but are still legit HTML label elements. I don't know if that's your design or part of material (after peeking at the class names) but it's nice.
On to the places I think you could improve:
The drop-down menus are a little weird - they take about half a second to pop in, which makes the page feel laggy, and I don't think their look and feel matches the rest of the menu.
Several of the links offer poor accessibility - for example the social links in the header are empty of content.
The blog posts in the footer could either disappear or have a heading, because at first glance it looks like the menu reads "Home", "Coffee Shops...", "Services", etc. which is confusing.
The "Sign up for 10% off" form on your login page does not have the same consistent label effect as the main page and uses a simple placeholder instead of a label which is bad for accessibility.
I agree with @rdumais
about the form widths and @phallstrom
about the voice. You say "My name is..." and "See what we have to offer" on the same page. Pick one and go with it!
The other pages look unfinished, for instance the contact-us page has different social link style and misaligned radio button labels, so I'm not going to comment further on those.
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Would love some feedback! Thanks in advance!
Harner Designs
One thing I've always struggled with is, because it's just me, should the voice of the site be saying like "I am Jack Harner" or "We are Harner Designs". I think, right now the site is kind of a mix of both, and that might be confusing/off putting.
I love the console message and the theming! Very "on brand"!
Branding
I think this is more of a business question than a portfolio one. I, personally, would keep it to just you and use "I". Somebody else may have better feedback there though!
Design
The earth jumps around for me after the first paint, but I really like the use of animations! Might be something to look into. I would stick to all navy instead of the navy and black, but that's just me!
I would make the full portfolio images a link instead of just the green button, especially since the pointer finger comes up!
Performance
I'm getting a couple paint issues where things are a little slow. I ran a lighthouse test and it looks like some images could be optimized! There are great instructions right on the test, so I would read through that! The menu dropdowns could maybe be sped up too!
Super cool site, love the space theme!
Thanks for the feedback and compliments!
ya, I think I'm going to try to redo that whole banner animation using Canvas. Hopefully be a little more performant than just animating SVGs.
Are you talking about the slides in the Recent Clients section on the homepage? Those Images link on my end, but it might be an browser/os issue. Are you on Mac?
Oh interesting! Yeah, Chrome on Mac.
Jack -
Mojave/Safari 12, the images in Recent Clients are all missing. I even tried reloading without my content blocker. Oddly no errors in console I could see, but might double check it's not just me. They load fine in Chrome however.
As for the voice, I'd suggest thinking about how you want yourself to be viewed by others. Are you a one man show or are you a giant company? How do you want to be seen? Is it worse for me to think you're a giant company and find out it's just you in a WeWork space? Is it better for me to know you're solo, but awesome, and that I'm getting your full attention? Both have pros and cons. My advice is to think about how you want to be seen, what questions clients will ask (ie. "what happens if you go on vacation?") and then decide and be consistent.
IMHO I'm not a fan of pretend to be a giant company when you're just one guy. But that's just me and I could be totally wrong :)
Dear Jack,
The SVG's are great!.. As Ali has said, there are paint issues with the hero. (I loves me some slow animations, tho). I haven't checked whether they're css...if they are, first, Nice! :D . second... You may wish to try gsapping those babies for a more smooth browser paint. greensock.com/.
I particularly like the "progress background" of the tabs in the menu as I scroll down through your work.
The colors in those might be a bit less saturated or toned down for a bit of subtlety... but overall I think it's a nice touch.
Very nice work!
-Beau
Jack thank you for your feedback on my portfolio earlier today. I visited your page and was impressed by your graphics and illustrations. One thing that bothered me is how wide your forms are particularly here and towards the bottom of your homepage. For example, I entered my name in the 'Name' field and my full name takes up ~25% of the entire field.
Great portfolio and projects!
I love the header image. The subtle animation of the satellite is a nice effect, and the shadow on the banner text makes it legible against any background colour. The squoval porthole-type image is a nice touch too.
I really like the way the form labels animate out but are still legit HTML
labelelements. I don't know if that's your design or part of material (after peeking at the class names) but it's nice.On to the places I think you could improve:
The drop-down menus are a little weird - they take about half a second to pop in, which makes the page feel laggy, and I don't think their look and feel matches the rest of the menu.
Several of the links offer poor accessibility - for example the social links in the header are empty of content.
The blog posts in the footer could either disappear or have a heading, because at first glance it looks like the menu reads "Home", "Coffee Shops...", "Services", etc. which is confusing.
The "Sign up for 10% off" form on your login page does not have the same consistent label effect as the main page and uses a simple placeholder instead of a label which is bad for accessibility.
I agree with @rdumais about the form widths and @phallstrom about the voice. You say "My name is..." and "See what we have to offer" on the same page. Pick one and go with it!
The other pages look unfinished, for instance the contact-us page has different social link style and misaligned radio button labels, so I'm not going to comment further on those.