The primary aim of my portfolio website is to showcase my work as a UX/UI designer to recruiters and senior design professionals to land a position as an in-house product designer. My users are primarily individuals familiar with the design process and who have the goal of seeing my work, my design process, and the levels of my visual UI design skills. I decided to showcase my projects using a case study format. Using case studies, I can show the end-to-end design process of a single project. Here, I can discuss the methods I used, my decisions, and the designs I created. I have made one case study in my portfolio and will build the rest of my case studies in a similar format. I have also highlighted my contact details and the about me page so my users can get to know me after viewing my work.
When creating my portfolio, I was inspired by Aileen Shin and Gloria Lo. They both have very clean, white-spaced portfolios that really highlighted their UI skills. Through my research, I realised this style and presentation were the sites I was most drawn to and wanted to create. I then started designing my portfolio in Figma and then transferred my designs into WordPress using Elementor Pro. Using Elementor Pro gave me the freedom I needed to do this. I knew it would take me a lot more work and effort, but I was ready for the challenge. I am pleased with the end result. I made an effort to make my portfolio provide high functionality for my users. Through testing, I discovered that my website’s areas were hard to navigate. I added buttons, copy and imagery to make it a straightforward experience for my users. When working on how to optimise my website responsiveness, I used responsive tactics specifically in images, as I have a lot of images on my website. I made sure to use images that matter and have a purpose, and to avoid adding elements on the website that do not have a clear goal. This is the primary thinking method I used when designing my website to be responsive.
When I first started creating my website, I could not find a theme that would present my case studies how I wanted to. I then started experimenting with different themes but got really frustrated with how limiting it was. From this, I decided to design my own website and start experimenting with Elementor Pro. I enjoyed the process but found some pages challenging to respond to on mobile. As my case study page has many images, some images were not responding correctly to mobile. After this assessment, I plan to adjust the photos and spacings on the case study page once I become more familiar with Elementor Pro. In the end, I am pleased with my portfolio website. I’ve been meaning to work on it for a while and am happy this assessment gave me the push to design out of my comfort zone and really bring my portfolio to life. I am excited to see how my portfolio grows from now onwards.