The dos & donts of online portfolios
If your online portfolio looks like this, you might as well not bother uploading it. Image by striatic
It is lots of little details that make a great portfolio. A well-executed portfolio could be the difference between receiving a commission or not. There are enough online portfolios with amazing content that fail when it comes to usability. Even the best work will not keep visitors on your site, so make sure that your portfolio is accessible.
Over the last year I have seen a lot of different takes on what portfolio design should look like, especially during the build up of trying to design my own one. Therefore, I would like to share some of the dos and donts of presenting work online.
Before I start rambling about how the eye moves along a page or whether users like to scroll, lets establish a basic premise: The internet is the medium that it is because it allows users to quickly access information. If this information is not available or not presented in a friendly manner, users will not absorb your information, scroll on or leave your page.
Therefore, it must be your goal to present your portfolio as user-friendly as possible.
The basics
- Keep your portfolio up to date.
- Make sure that your portfolio loads quickly. This is pretty obvious, but I have seen portfolios that took a couple of minutes to load all the images (on a broadband connection).
- Sort your projects either by date or in such a way so that what you want people to see is at the top.
- Give visitors the means to contact you.
- Reserve a spot on your webpage to tell your visitors that you are available for hire/freelance work. Most people are shy and might not contact you otherwise.
"Creative" interfaces
Unless your refrain from all the fancy loaders, next buttons any fancy animations, stay away from Flash. Great things can be done in Flash, but I believe that it should complement any page (including your portfolio) and not replace it.
Flash portfolios might look impressive but I find them very hard to navigate. The place where you try to win new customers is not the place for interface experiments: Keep it simple and let the content speak.
Portfolio pictures
A portfolio should showcase your work and make it look its best. Use big, representative images. I found that sometime cropping helps to make an image look more interesting, even if you are essentially missing information.
Additionally, consider the environment for your images. A plain screenshot of a webpage looks boring, but if you show it in a browser window of the right size with a subtle drop-shadow, the matter starts to look different. (A photoshop style to create OS X like window drop shadows.)
One page vs. multiple pages
Some portfolios, especially those with flash interfaces, use the next/previous system to let users navigate their portfolio. Personally, I dislike this approach, as it creates the need for unnecessary clicks. Letting the user scroll though a list of projects is not only more effective, it also allows them to see the overall picture, the relationship between your work.
Independent of which approach you choose, include a brief, yet juicy descriptions for all the items in your portfolio. If you need more space, create a "Click here for more" link. (In my portfolio I created ‘detail’ pages.)
The number of items in your portfolio
The number of items in my portfolio is what I though about the most when I redesigned this site. Too few items, and visitors will doubt your skills. Too many and they will become bored or think that you do not make a selection of what goes into your portfolio. Neither impression is good and the line between too few and too many is very thin.
Personally, I prefer to have a smaller selection of work in my portfolio, rather than creating a large all encompassing list. Smaller, newer pieces of work that wouldn’t necessarily make my portfolio will then be published in my blog. This also has the advantage of allowing visitors to provide you with feedback.
What do you think?
Quite a few of my points are subjective, so I would like hear your input on this. If you have already created your online portfolio, what was important to you during its creation. And if you are in the process of building it, what do you value in a well-executed portfolio?
// David Terranova
Thursday, February 14th 2008
at 18:42 PM
I couldn’t agree more on this.
For a long time i felt unsatisfied with my html portfolio, seeing other people’s squishy-flashy-flash sites. I really tried to find time to redesign it, trying to think of a fresh navigation system to showcase my flash skills.
Those days are long gone and the idea of putting prospective clients through a pain-in-the-butt flash experience gives me the shivers!!
I think that a lot of people go through this simply because they have projects in their portfolio that don’t fully reflect their skills and style. They want to show people what they’re really capable of, and therefore feel they should go crazy on their portfolio. But the portfolio for me is just a container and a library of one’s work. If you want to show your skills, give yourself a separate project to work on, and then stick that on your portfolio!
// Fubiz
Wednesday, February 27th 2008
at 0:13 AM
Very beautiful template!
// Jacky
Wednesday, February 27th 2008
at 15:55 PM
Yeah, great post, your portfolio rulez too
// Ralph
Saturday, March 8th 2008
at 23:30 PM
Thank you for your article. There are some great thoughts to create a professional portfolio.. hard job for us freelancer to catch new customers ;)
Ralph
// SEM
Thursday, March 13th 2008
at 1:13 AM
I agree Ralph. Now is time for freelancer to re-work on their portfolio.
// Ralph
Thursday, March 13th 2008
at 10:17 AM
Ups… Thank you SEM for your Agreement :)