Revamping my personal site

So, this might be a different way of thinking - but we believe that without a defined goal - that there is no way to prove if a design is successful or not. Our feelings - about how we 'feel' about your site (although real) - aren't what matters most.

Here's a generic goal example based on a guess:

1. you want your site to work well (so people can access it) (and because your a dev)
2. you want your site to look at least nice enough that people don't get hung up on that
3. you want to show your work and prove your value
4. you want your site to go beyond practical and even look a little 'fancy'
5. you want to explain what you want to do
6. you want to entice people to call you and pay you to do that exact thing
7. you want all of these things to add up to the visitor trusting you and being confident in your mastery of whatever domain you claim to be a master of (this includes just "feeling good" about the site)

That's probably what most websites 'should do'- and so, we just take that for granted as "is the website good?" - but that tangles up the differing mental models. If you use a list like this as a framework, then you can leave out the egos - and just find out if the project is a success or not / based on facts.

If you ask these questions - people will be forced to answer them - instead of answering "do you like it" - "what do you think I can fix" - right? Those happen to be the wrong questions (at this phase)

So, with your permission - I'll use this list to help figure out where you can improve:

1. you want your site to work well (so people can access it)

One way to check this - is to just "use it." It feels super smooth. No flashes or glitchy things. In the transitions - there are a few little clunks like the github icon popping in there.

Another way - is to check with lighthouse. Running your score (in an incognito window to avoid extention/plugin confusion) you get 57/97/100/98 (or something/will be slightly different each time). 57/100 for performance isn't great. An employer might see that - and wonder - "maybe their a great developer - but just don't pay attention to that type of detail on their own site" - which is fair / but also - you should just have it be 90+.

2. You want your site to look at least nice enough that people don't get hung up on that

Given your question: "How can I improve my site" - this is probably where most people will gravitate. The problem is - that it's subjective!

Someone just the other day told us they thought our site was "ugly" to try and hurt our feelings - and well, that's not very useful! It also doesn't have anything to do with our goal. Our site's goal - is to find and engage a very particular person - and in this case! It worked by weeding out the wrong type of person.

So - your site / how do you break it down? The first thing we think is that the typography hierarchy isn't very defined. There are really long lines of text (this is a classic dev thing/shy away from learning type). That's the first thing. The second thing is the general layout and white-space feels a bit unintentional. Your photo - could be a better photo! (You look nice - but we have fancy cameras all around us these days. Time for an update). The next thing we notice - is that the thumbnail images seem to have no padding - or arbitrary padding. It feels like this is a pre-made theme. The margin around the text and the 'tags' and images are all well 'bad' or haphazard - for lack of a better word.

The site as a whole is a bigger item - but the problems that it has as far as rhythm and the little details - can all be explored in this card component:

and

These little considerations are what our subconscious picks out. Our brains WANT to see some sort of 'rule' if not the golden ratio. This means that spacing needs to be built with blocks of margin in a organized and thoughtful way.

If you can address these cards - then you can start to take those considerations site-wide. We're happy to help. Part of it also has to do with how you design and produce the thumbnail images - and not just the code. Not all programmers want to learn about visual design. WE HIGHLY RECOMMEND THAT THEY LEARN at least this much. But they don't often want to - and that's ok! BUT - if you don't want to do it - then you'll need to pay someone else to mock up the designs - or do the front end, right? It's great to have other dev friends! : )

3. you want to show your work and prove your value

You do have some work - but the general feel is that you are student. It appears that you are excited about JamStack and have been trying all the new things / and that also have experience with Django. We're not left with a lot of confidence though. Pages like this one: nishantwrp.com/posts/vue-and-grids... feel very sparce - and this goes back to typography. Why is this important? What did you learn? What is it that you "do"? What should we hire you for - specifically?

4. you want your site to go beyond practical and even look a little 'fancy'

The transitions are fancy / so - just up the visual design stuff and you'll be good - (but you can always create little mini apps in your site for fun!)

Also - PWAs ARE COOL! and that's a big win for us.

5. you want to explain what you want to do

We can't tell. "Get money for coding work?" - well, that's not very memorable. Who are you? jonathanstark.com/daily/20170911-s...

6. you want to entice people to call you and pay you to do that exact thing

We aren't going to call you - (so far). But maybe if we needed Django - and we knew you personally from a meetup - and you were inexpensive? But - that is NOT how you want to be perceived.

7. you want all of these things to add up to the visitor trusting you and being confident in your mastery of whatever domain you claim to be a master of (this includes just "feeling good" about the site)

So far - things are adding up - but they seem to add up to "average dev person" (most websites are in the same boat.)

So, is that helpful? Are are we just jerks? Everywhere we go lately - we try and share our love of design and design thinking and programming - but seem to just come off as jerks? What's your take?

We're always happy to hop on a call and chat about this stuff. We can't wait to see what you do with the site next. One fun thing to do - is take screen shots of it now - and then after changes - use the before and after in a case-study on your portfolio. : ) (don't forget mobile and desktop screenshots)