This critique required us to assess four main points:
- Why their final web portfolio design is clear, well-organized, easy to navigate and use
- Why the aesthetic design choices of their final web portfolio are well-suited to the content they are presenting
- How the class readings apply to the website
- How WordPress’s templates and content management system influenced their creative process and design decisions
Link to critiqued website: https://crimsonpages.org/alexa-mckune/
Alexa’s website has a simple, easy to look at color scheme, a straight forward navigation menu, and a search bar in case the user wants to find something quickly. The simple colors are easy on the eye and there is no ambiguity where anything on the website is – it is clear and the font is simple. It is well suited to the content she is presenting in this way as well. The goal of the project partly required graceful navigation, which her website delivers. She has some artsy pictures of her own work on her home page, which is a good addition to draw the viewer to look at more of the website. It is easier for the viewer to gather what the website is about through media, namely pictures, than a long paragraph describing what it is.
She makes good use of hierarchy all over her website. For example, her headers have bigger, bolder fonts that are easy to see. Her body paragraph text is smaller and unbolded so the viewer does not confuse anything with a title. She used nice, large pictures on her website. I like how her website palette is gray and white, simple, yet she has big, colorful pictures for her media – it is a nice contrast.
I can see she changed her menus and obviously added all of her own work and media. She also included a search bar which is neat. WordPress makes it quite easy to edit every aspect of the website. Her template decision meshes nicely with her colorful media.