New Portfolio Up and Running!

I recently developed a new portfolio in my web design class. I have set up a subdomain redirect from http://portfolio.joshriess.com to the hosting at my schools web server.

The portfolio is a 2 column design with a header image and a footer. The whole webpage is responsive and turns into one column when the window is too small or on mobile devices. You can check out the portfolio through the redirect here or the direct link here.

Web Design Portfolio Research Project

Justin Aguilar Portfolio
http://www.justinaguilar.com/index.html
Five things I like about the design:

1. simplistic title/logo area
2. easy to see navigation
3. minimalistic vector images
4. button in the center of the screen that grabs our eye
5. (not shown) parallax-like animations

Denise Chandler Portfolio
http://www.denisechandler.com/
Five things I like about the design:

1. navigation relates to where you are on the page
2. nice hero image with large font call-out
3. subtle animation, not too much
4. social media icons
5. (not shown) parallax-like movement

Ryan Scherf Portfolio

http://ryanscherf.net/

Five things I like about the design:

1. Name centered with hero image
2. 2 column layout to start with
3. minimalistic headers
4. links to past projects
5. social media icons

Sallee Design portfolio

http://salleedesign.com/

Five things I like about the design:

1. hero image
2. call to action
3. minimalistic nav bar
4. interactive mustache (top left)
5. social media icons

Top 10 elements from these sights, ranked from 1 to 10 based on the probability I use them in my own portfolio:

1. parallax-like elements
2. minimalistic nav bar
3. hero image
4. social media icons
5. subtle animation
6. call to action
7. logo/name
8. easy to see navigation
9. links to past projects
10. interactive element

Overall, these 4 portfolios are great for conveying a message to the viewer. They show the skill and creativity of the designer as well as the way that web design and development is progressing with new CSS 3 and HTML 5 elements.

What's the best website for stock photos?

-On which site did I find the best photo?

Pexels.com

-On which site did I find the most photos?

MorgueFile

-Which site was the easiest to search and navigate?

Pexels.com

-Which site was the easiest for downloading a photo?

Gratisography

-What was one pro and one con for each website?

MorgueFile:
-pro: lots of pictures because anyone can submit them
-con: difficult to find quality images

Pexels:
-pro: high quality pictures
-con: not many pictures

Gratisography:
-pro: good website design
-con: no good search feature

Unsplash:
-pro: high quality pictures
-con: not many pictures

-Which site will be my go-to choice for images? Why?

My go-to website will be pexels.com, because of the quality of the images and the ease of use of the site.

Mobile First Design

My latest project was to design a website by first making the mobile website then building up the tablet and desktop versions of the website. This was a different experience for me because I am used to designing the desktop site first, then adapting it for tablet and mobile users. I learned that it is best to start off with designing the mobile website for the best usability. I had several aha moments, the most notable being when I learned that, to efficiently use the media queries, I had to learn to make sure to use min-width and max-width to limit the css that applies to the webpage. You can find my website here. Below are some images of the sketches I've made and screenshots I've taken over the course of this project.

Desktop View

Mobile View

Tablet View

Webflow Earth Day Webpage

Our most recent project was to experiment with an assigned free website design tool. I was selected to experiment with Webflow.

From the editing page, I can click on any parts of the page and control the their attributes.

from these buttons, I can control the padding and margin in an easy and simple way.

I'm also able to change the size in which I am viewing the website. This allows me to see if my website is compatible with various mobile devices.

Things I like:

• I like the ability to easily change the margin and padding of elements.
• I like being able to view the website in different sizes.
• I like that the templates are built to be responsive.

Things I didn't like:

• I didn't like the restrictions for free accounts.
• sometimes it's difficult to delete items.
• you can only have 2 pages with a free account.

Overall:

Overall I think webflow is a pretty good free website builder. You will have some limitations such as being limited to 2 pages or being stuck with a webflow.io address.

you can check out my Earth day webpage at joshriessearthday.webflow.io

eMagine Success!

I'm proud to announce that this blog has won first place in the 2015 eMagine media festival at Olathe Northwest. The award was given at the festival on April 4th. Below are some pictures of the award, as well as a picture of my view during the event.

Redesign X like Y project

Recently I was assigned to take a school website and make a copy of it modeled after a business website. Below are the results of the assignment.

The website that I started with:

 Heres the website I modeled it after:

And here is the website that came from it:

The result website is after I took some artistic liberties with the smallcakes website. I removed the 3 column design on the smallcakes website and opted for a single column design. I liked the large image that smallcakes had, so I added a placeholder images that could be swapped out later for something like a news story about the school. I also made the district a logo in illustrator that they could use for things such as newsletters and shirts.

ONWravens.net tracking data questions

What specifically has happened to the % of desktop sessions over the last 3 years?
-The percentage of desktop sessions has gone down while percentage of mobile sessions have gone up at the same time.

What is bounce rate?
-Bounce rate is the pertains to the people that come to the website and just leave without doing anything.

Compare bounce rates between the different devices.
-It seems that mobile users always have a higher bounce rate. This is most likely due to misclicks or people tapping the wrong link.

Statistics show that mobile users are now more common than desktop users. This supports our evidence shown in the ONWravens site analytics.

Below are some examples of the rise of mobile browsing.

Caving with Boy Scouts

This past weekend I had the opportunity of attending my troops campout at Jacob's Cave in Missouri. Below are some photos of the campout.

My Scoutmaster, Mr. Allison

What we look like when we get out of the cave

What we look like in the cave

Blog Week Wrap Up

I recently did a lot of work on my blog to make it look better. Below are the things I did.

-Re-did the banner to use up all of the width available

-I chose a different theme to allow me to have a blue background and a slightly transparent container

-I revised my "About Me" page

-I changed the color scheme to allow me to have dark blue links

-I reorganized my sidebar

-I bought a custom domain to use with my blog and eventually a full website

Gallup Strengths Finder

Gallup Strengths Test

I recently took the Gallup Strength Finder test in my Web Design class. Below are the results:

• Significance

• The "significance" strength gives me the desire to be successful and the want for my job to be my way of life rather than a job.

• Deliberative

• This strength makes me a private person. It allows me to see the risks of a situation. It makes me a fairly serious person, and allows me to walk with care.

• Futuristic

• I love to peer over the horizon, I can energize people with my visions of the future.

• Strategic

• I am able to weigh the pros and cons of a decision, I create strategies to conquer tasks

• Input

• I collect things. my "input" strength allows me to collect lots of random information. Perhaps, someday I might find a use for all the random information that i may collect.

We also had a woman visit with us and tell us about what our strengths might bring to a group. My favorite part of the visit was when she was describing what our strengths might mean for us.

My "Aha!" moment during our activity was when I was reading my results and I realized how accurate they where to not only my personality at school, but my personality at home and with my friends.

Now that I know my strengths more, when approaching group projects I think that i will quickly take the position as leader of the group and use my strategic thinking to set goals and determine the path to go on a project.