Portfolio Redesign: New Design Artifacts
I've sketched and explored several alternative site organizations and layouts. Several of the more promising sketches are shown here.
These are a few of the actual sketches from my own whiteboard, strictly for my own reference: they are not fakes or after-the-fact recreations. Once I settle on one or two directions (probably within the next week) I will post the mockups here.
Current Direction
My current intent is to provide a split view showing activities and artifacts side-by-side for each of three overview pages (for design, usability, and development), with the most relevant portfolio items called out underneath. I believe this will communicate the overall range of offerings for each section without interfering with a visitor's ability to quickly find specific topics or items.
Earlier Directions
These were my initial sketches when playing around with the idea of faceting everything by design, usability, or development. I then realized that things could also be faceted by tangible/intangible (which would later morph into a distinction between artifacts and processes).
This sketch explored some different facets. I liked the idea of dividing things by design, usability, or development—since that's how many job listings organized roles, and because it fit with some feedback I received—but I wanted to explore other possibilities also. I considered dividing the content by completeness, general medium, and several other facets which didn't make the cut, but felt that such facets were too focused on the artifacts themselves, and not focused enough on visitor goals.
Page Header
A new page layout might work better with a different site header. To compare alternative headers quickly (or, more specifically, the degree to which potential layouts might benefit from or conflict with different headers) I sketched several alternative possibilities.
